Life in the time of COVID

I have always been happy alone, and in fact this is what really enabled my writing. When I was about 7 or 8, I would ask my mother or brother to tell my friends I am not home when they would come to ask me to play – just so that I could write. But there were days when I would not ask my mother or brother to lie for me. There were days when I did want to see my friends. These were the days whose value I had not quite understood—or accepted.

When the first COVID case was announced in Rwanda, restrictions followed swiftly. I was at a small gathering with friends and soon-to-be friends that night—I hadn’t heard yet. We laughed and drank and sang loudly. I bonded with workmates I did not know I could or would bond with. I would be thankful for that night. It was the perfect closing act to life before COVID. A day or two later, we were told we should get our belongings from the office, because we may not be able to come to work for a long time. We had seen what had been happening in the world long before COVID came to Rwanda, and so I was somewhat prepared. I had the food, I had the books, I had the warm duvet to snuggle down into for Netflix with self. I had always been alone, in many ways—if anyone was ready for lockdown, I was. Yes—yes, this is a privilege I will never try to downplay.

A while later, maybe a month into lockdown, I was in bed—had just switched off the lights, and I realized something that seemed at once very banal and utterly heavy: I was alone. I had been alone for longer than I had ever been. I had not spoken to a physically present human for weeks. My family was in Kenya, I was new to Rwanda. I would hear my neighbour speak on the phone, and I had this urge to speak to him, to anyone. I would feel sick a little while later—a stomach problem, and in the middle of gut-wrenching pain, again, at about 2am, I swore I would not die alone.

I wrote my friend in Nigeria a message: “I just want a hug. That’s all.”

One mad morning, a delivery man who was to drop something off at my place dropped it at my neighbour’s instead before I called him and told him to bring it up to my apartment instead. When he left, I couldn’t take it anymore. I went downstairs to my neighbour’s apartment.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said, when he opened the door and I stayed back, exaggerating my efforts to stay 6 feet away from him.

“That’s no problem!” My neighbour said. French accent. I would find out he was from Cameroon.

“How are you?” I asked. I was asking for so many things with just that one question. I put so much in that single question. Maybe that moment carries the whole weight of lockdown for me. I don’t remember at all if I was writing before that, but I know that I was definitely writing after that.

List of Works

My novel is a work of historical fiction. I know some of my history through lived experience, but my academic journey—through my LLB in law, MA in African Studies and now PhD in Political Science—has helped and is helping me unpack that history in broader, deeper ways. I’ve been exploring archives and books and listening to music and having conversations with people to help me understand the times I am writing about. I have wanted to know what every day has looked like for my people—Western Kenyans, and Africans more broadly—to the tiniest detail. What hairstyles were in vogue in the 1930s? In the 1850s? What did they laugh at? What did they sing about? This is what I’m working on finding. The everyday. The silly. The frivolous. Still respecting the heavy. It’s a work in progress so this is not nearly a complete list! It will continue to expand, especially in terms of diversity of media.

- The River and the Source by Margaret Ogola

- The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

- Coming to Birth by Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

- Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

- Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

- Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

- Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

- The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

- The Invention of Women by Oyeronke Oyewumi

- Yorubas Don’t Do Gender: a critical review of Oyeronke Oyewumi’s “The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses” by Bibi Bakare Yusuf

- Photographs taken by Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta, my uncle, among others – I have some very exciting Pinterest boards that I keep going back to!

- Zeinab Badawi’s History of Africa

- The Making of a Nation – Hilary Ng’weno Documentary Series

- Kenyan newspapers from the 20th and 21st Century

- Drum magazines from the 20th Century

- White Man’s Guilt by James Baldwin

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah (yes beautyful spelled that way!)

The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Music recommendations from my father, including music by George Ramogi, Daudi Kabaka and Ongidi Vincent