Firstly, let me introduce myself, I’m Katie, communications consultant, writer and photographer, based in London. I’ve consulted for African Road frequently over the last five years. In that time, you and your friends, the East African Road Changemakers, have also become my friends, people we know and care about. I’ve had the privilege of telling the stories of the people and the countries that are at the heart of the African Road community.
Though I have visited many East African countries, in December, I made the decision to spend three months in Rwanda, working on a personal writing project, a book about communities in the UK. In that time, the world has drastically changed as the spread of that virus altered our economies, our businesses, our choices, the way that we live our lives, and the way that countries in the world interact with one another.
I left Kigali on the second to last plane before lockdown in Rwanda. The government ordered lockdown early, by international standards. Only 8 cases had been reported in Rwanda, all from abroad. In one day, the entire country stopped: stopped working, stopped moving, stopped living life in any recognizable way.
This was an understandable, even sensible response, when health infrastructure is minimal, when many don’t have health insurance, and although there is a small burgeoning middle class, many, many others don’t even have soap.
The virus itself is no respecter of persons, anyone can catch it, no matter economic or social status. But its existence reveals inequalities and fault lines in every society. In the same way, the reality of life in lockdown in one country contrasts sharply with life in another, not because the disease is different, but the ability to respond to it, the provision available, the opportunities to stock up, vary wildly.
Societies also differ, Rwanda is a structured, rules-based society, order is maintained. It is that which has made it one of the safest countries in the world, clean and ordered. When lockdown happened, it was strict, and people obeyed those rules.
This is lockdown, but not as we know it.
The beautiful buzz of Kigali is usually facilitated, sonorously by the presence of 14,000 motorbike taxi drivers, the primary public transport of this capital city, now silent and still. Like many in the working class, they earn little, but it’s generally enough to keep them in food and shelter for a day or two. Yet, in the course of 24 hours they lost their ability to go out the next day and earn more.
Here in the UK we’re allowed out to exercise once a day. Stylish London has made the shift to hasty virtue-signalling, donning our ‘active wear’ and looking energetic, to indicate that we’re on our one state-sanctioned exercise of the day. Never has a sweat band proved so socially valuable for Londoners.
One of the first things I noticed on return to the UK was fresh water coming out of a tap. It took me, it always takes me a little too long to remember that I don’t have to clutch a bottle of water in one hand when cleaning my teeth. Lockdown with no clean water, well that’s a different matter.
In lockdown in Rwanda, you can exit the house only to get groceries or collect water at the local tap or well, but you will have to explain yourself to the police, quite possibly at a roadblock. You will have to prove that you have mobile money for food (mobile money is the way of sending and receiving when you don’t have a bank account) and without it, you’re not going anywhere.
And then there’s the getting of the money to buy the food.
Ordinarily, for many, a work day begins leaving the house early, going to a piece of land to dig, or working for someone else, with a slightly larger piece of land. Others work in service, for homes or the tourism industry. Even for small enterprising business owners, money comes one day or one week at a time. Life is simple. Money is earned, food is bought, families are fed.
Now with tight restrictions and no work, it is impossible to earn money to feed family members. Even if you could earn something there are no fridges, little storage, no stockpiling.
The challenge of businesses closing and limited movement is not exclusive to Rwanda, but without the levels of infrastructure assumed by most in the global north, there is wisdom to this course of action.
Everyone is struggling in lockdown. Me, you, everyone. But our ability to get by, to consider the interests of our friends and family are made possible by slightly deeper storage cupboards, access to tinned and packaged food, the resources of the broader community and some government provision.
As Rwanda is in the 100 days of commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, it is overwhelmingly apparent that the resilient people of this country have something important to teach us about peace, trauma, reconciliation and life. Yet, right now, these are people made most vulnerable by the current, worldwide pandemic.
BBC Newsnight reporter, Emily Maitlis announced at the beginning of her programme over a week ago,
“the disease (Covid-19) is not a great leveller, the consequences of which everyone rich or poor suffers the same. This is a myth that needs debunking… This is a health issue with huge ramifications for social welfare and it’s a welfare issue with huge ramifications for public health.”
This is lockdown, but not as we know it.
African Road has set up an emergency fund to support Changemaker partners across East Africa, including Rwanda, as they seek to respond to the challenges of their community.
To learn more and to respond to the pressing needs of our East African friends, click here.