This archive report was first published on 7 May 2020.
Despite the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Kenya, Nairobi's residents are going about their daily lives as if the pandemic never existed. The city's streets, which were once empty, are now filled with people, cars, and the sounds of construction.
Patricia Kamene, a waitress, was overjoyed when Health CS Mutahi Kagwe announced that eateries could reopen. She had been waiting for weeks to resume work and had not been paid since the last week of March.
"I had not been paid since the last week of March. The whole of last month, I was at home with my three children, with no salary. I was counting days for when I will work again," she said.
However, not everyone is taking the pandemic seriously. In the estates, young people are holding house parties and posting on social media to show how 'lucky' they were to escape the Government's eyes. Bars have also come up with ways to dodge the regulators by locking in their customers and allowing them to drink till dawn.
"None of my customers has got sick, and they have been drinking here every day. I make sure that the bar is clean. We have sanitisers," said a bar owner in Zimmerman.
Markets are full of sellers and shoppers in an assortment of different coloured masks that they believe shield them from the virus. Some of them admit they have reused their masks for weeks.
Fast food joints are brimming with customers, their masks dangling on their chins to give them a sense of security. "We used to receive around 200 visitors every day in this building, but now we see 50 at most," said Harun Chepkwony, a security guard at an insurance company in the Central Business District (CBD).
Despite the Government's warnings, many residents are still not taking the pandemic seriously. "They joke about it, saying Mathare people are resistant to Covid-19. The women still walk from house to house to wash clothes. The men are still continuing with their 'mjengo' business, and the young people are still congregating to play pool. They don’t believe there is Covid-19," said Pamela Otieno, a social worker in Mathare.
