If at all Africa has ever been victim to a plague that marked the masses, then slavery was probably it. Not to say that HIV, Malaria, Cholera, Ebola, and even Cancer, are not doing damage throughout the continent, but somehow we have found a way to rationalise, familiarise (the type that breeds contempt) ourselves with them so much that they’ve become just another one of the numerous ways people can die. As it is said in my country “tu bois tu meurt, tu ne bois pas tu meurt, donc mieux je...”. For the last few months, the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has held the world hostage, and don’t rule out bringing world powers to their knees yet.
It’s no secret how potent, deadly, underestimated, and overrated COVID-19 is in different contexts, through various outlets spreading the news and knowledge about it, but one thing that can’t and shouldn’t be denied is that the virus is real
With all that is going around as preventive measures, initial responses, information about a virus in its rookie season, there is a growing concern for one of the world’s most spotlighted lot, Africa. Not that Africa is supposed to be babied, but after 50+ years of failed SAPs and all Western development models, we just are not there yet. Given how fast COVID-19 spreads, overwhelming even the countries with the best financial and institutional resources, it was a matter of eventually for Africa.
Well, Africans are communal. In general, our communities are not built for or by individuality, it’s always been solidarity, co-dependence, synergy, shared, interactive, inter- and co- everything. We literally are like our pots of food, to get the best result you must stir. Based on the build of our communities and the fact that most African countries are third world, not past “pays en voie de développement”, and not big on resources, the virus was probably projected to just run a train on us, but we are beating the statistics somehow.
The preventive measures are great and seem to be working for others, but given our societal build, not to mention the socio-cultural, economic, and socio-political realities that we all know, inside life.
Social Distancing would be great actually except for the fact that African societies were not built for non-contact. Have you seen our markets? Ever taken a taxi from Nkolbisson to Leboudi, or Bokwai to Bonduma? Care to check how many houses have nice picket fences in the big cities, not to talk of the “hoods”? Need I say more?
Confinement? My people perish for want of booze. We do not recognise spending time alone or indoors as fun, it’s that simple (and this is not just Africa alone). Confinement raises all kinds of red flags not just because of the socio-economic implications but just how much it (coupled with social distancing) demands a radical change of not just lifestyle but society as a whole.
These two more than any other of the measures are threatening the very sanity of a whole continent, and everyone in my country, Cameroon. It’s too sudden, too new, so unexpected, at the same time very esoteric.
The “je m’en fou-tisme” of Cameroonians has always been legendary, especially when we are not the ones wearing the shoe that bites, and it’s not just an everyday man illness, it comes from the very top. Some days it feels like we are all descendants of Thomas, wanting to see at our doorsteps before believing and what’s even worse, the cure seems to be better than prevention for us. Before we got to the stage of people clamouring for masks and raiding pharmacies for Plaquenil and all derivatives of Chloroquine (thanks to The Donald and France 24), I doubt 0.9% of our population gave two thoughts about COVID-19 and if it’ll eventually be our reality. Even when it finally touched down on the national tarmac, the masses felt it was not for the everyday John and Mary, because it came on a plane, and as the song went “la maladie des blancs”.
First, it slipped that the first person who came with it attended a funeral, and some eyes shot up but still was nothing to write home about, then flight tickets hit an all-time low, and boom! Air companies were severely lacking in crafts to bring people home. The government thought it had it all under control, yet the news kept talking only about Yaoundé and how great the preventive checks at the airport are, as if we have just one airport in the country, talk about locking up the central defence but leaving the flanks open. The rest is history.
This lack of consciousness is not totally without reason (as funny as that might sound), and it’s à simple logical one, local man needs to eat, at least his family has to. Americans are getting a stimulus package (high grammar for the government is giving people money to help ease the financial load of confinement, basically), which is light-years away from happening here on a continent and a country where a dangerously high percentage live below the poverty line. People cannot stay in confinement when they don’t know where the next meal will come from, it comes down to a need as basic as that, and a few others (ENEO, CAMWATER, MTN, ORANGE know what we mean).
Those with means buy as much as they can (instead of as much as they need), while those with limited resources bend every rule, sidestep every measure to make sure a pot can stand on the stove by the end of the day for the children, of course, he/she won’t come singing it like a song to everyone. This is just a slice of the pizza of the socio-economic impact of Covid-19 in a place like Cameroon, it threatens survival. Anything that threatens survival, awakens desperation, and in desperation all is fair, state of nature takes its course. As they say “la fin justifie les moyens”. For This to have a remote chance of working, the government has to do more than prescribe measures and local man needs to do more than complain that life is at stake.
The reality is beginning to kick in, hence the scramble for sanitizers, and any bit of available element suspected or touted to treat the virus to wit ginger, lemon, even Kadji beer. The government, if the twitter sitcom is anything to go by, is doing everything within its power, but then the reason why those measures seem not to be catching on is entirely our fault (lack of consciousness) and at the same time not (socio-economic impact, suddenness and huge demands in lifestyle change, lack of resources at the national level).
The world was not ready for something like this, talk less of Cameroon, Africa, and before we subscribe to all the different theories out there about Whites wanting to kill Africans with the virus, Africans being immune, the virus not surviving in hot weather, social media Dr. Frus and Dewahs, or the government doing an Oscar-worthy performance to scheme money off international organisations, ask yourself, would you rather be played by a man? Or by COVID-19? This is our reality now, COVID-19 is here, and it’s our responsibility to do our bit to make sure its stay is as short-lived as possible.
Do we need to Africanise preventive measures or responses to fit an African, Cameroonian context, reality? I leave the answer to each and every one of us, and the more brilliant minds, but what we can do as average joes and the common folk is stick to the little things that do not cost us more than our attention to detail. They say the devil is in the details, it’s time for us to be too.
Be the stitch in time.
While listening to Jelmore, with love and concern,
Indigo 💜.