How the additional 14 days changed camp mood overnight

Kenyans who arrived at JKIA from abroad on March 24, 2020 are taken to quarantine facilities over coronavirus fears. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • My life had become a riddle and I even contemplated suicide. Luckily my Facebook friend Loise sent an encouragement text in the nick of time.
  • As for the virus, no one seemed bothered now. After all, the doctor in charge had assured us: “If you are still in the camp, it is because you are negative”.

On realising we were not leaving any time soon, the mood at the camp suddenly changed.

Some of the quarantines were charged like horses on steroids. Some swore to waste the cash they had on liquor, which was in plenty.

To get alcohol, one only needed to call a wines and spirits vendor and a parcel would be delivered at the gate. It was that simple.

Others decided to pray harder. I opted to hit YouTube for motivational songs. After my father died, and seeing my predicament, everyone had encouraged me to travel — and that is how I found myself in Spain, later the epicentre of Covid-19.

SUICIDAL

After the doctor broke the news that night, I cried myself to sleep. I missed my dad. I looked at my phone. It was jammed with messages. Friends were calling to enquire if the extension affected me. And it had. Badly.

Before the extension, I had kept an update of my remaining days. My family and friends were concerned. I didn’t want to talk about it and had nightmares.

I started unpacking the following morning. It was a painful episode. I realised, Easter would find us here. I ate my Easter eggs and questioned why we were suffering. Was life worth living?

Then I remembered sometime last year. My life had become a riddle and I even contemplated suicide. Luckily my Facebook friend Loise Mwangi sent an encouragement text in the nick of time.

She didn’t even know about my state. It was just intuition. That’s when I learned what messages of encouragement can do. I started reading the pending texts one by one.

ENCOURAGEMENT

I was not alone in this predicament. Others started to open up. There was this elderly man who was always calm — and was a loner.

He walked straight and appeared strong for his age. One day the man, who always wore a Kanzu, picked two pieces of bathing soap, instead of one.

The person in charge of accommodation shouted at him. It was disrespectful. I had to give him mine to stop his embarrassment. I asked him if he needed anything else.

I had noticed that he was always the last to pick food and take temperature. I asked the caterers to be keeping his food aside lest he missed. The camp was a madhouse.

Then there was Kanta. He always joked that the situation outside the camp was worse — especially for those who had arrived from abroad.

Kanta had managed to dodge the airport officials and sneaked out. On reaching home, neighbours threatened to lynch him “for coming to spread the virus”.

Rather than be lynched, he ran to the police station and sought help. They took him to a government hospital and that is how he ended up at the camp. It was safer here.

'THRILLING' TALES

Then there was Kelsy from Kisumu. She had just landed in China when the Covid-19 crisis started. She had only worked for two months. Her employer paid for her return ticket but didn’t settle her salary. She was dead broke and disoriented.

A man we always called ‘Duale’ had spent 10 years in South Africa and was taken to the camp, oblivious of the forced quarantine.

The man from Moyale only heard about the forced isolation at the airport and had even tried to hide behind an empty desk — hoping he could sneak out. He was whisked away and ended up with us.

His only complaint was that though rice had always been his favourite dish, it was now his worst.

It was monotonous. He even joked that since his beard had grown long, that he would be mistaken for an Al-Shabaab terrorist in case he walked in the streets of Nairobi.

It was such stories that kept the camp’s sane. We realised our dilemma and that the only way now was one: survival. Under whatever means, we had to remain sane.

As for the virus, no one seemed bothered now. After all, the doctor in charge had assured us: “If you are still in the camp, it is because you are negative”.