By Aggrey Nshekanabo
About 10 years ago when I joined Send a Cow, a Non-Governmental Organisation, other than work, it was a new learning curve, college degrees were expected to be put aside and go back to the basics; that 80% of the diseases in the tropics were due to poor hygiene and sanitation.
And yet, our job was to improve the livelihoods of the community. One would wonder what the relationship was between hygiene and sanitation and having money in one’s pockets. It was simple; ill-health takes away money even before you earn it. It was important therefore, that every household had to be taught basic hygiene; wash hands with soap or ash, at worst soapy leaves before touching food, after use of the toilet, before milking the cows or feeding the animals. Have a garbage bin and have a pit latrine with a locally made cover. Sounds so simple but not everyone got it 100%.
Next was growing one’s own food and not just food but nutritious food. Everyone needs to have food. Now we know that actually Uganda’s biggest problem is not COVID-19 but food. Imagine, just one week of a lockdown due to corona-virus disease, the state had to distribute food to its citizens. Anyway, we have always lived with disease; malaria has not stopped killing people, 19 mothers have not stopped dying giving birth, 150,000 people have no access to ARVs and nearly 24 million Ugandans have no adequate food.
It is interesting that the control of COVID-19 is about basic hygiene and the world is suffering because we are not observing the basics. And what’s more it the upper class that is heavily affected in as far as Uganda is concerned. In Europe, it is the elderly that are heavily affected but here in Uganda, it is the travelled. And how are the middle class Ugandans in Kampala reacting? Bizarre! Jogging with their obese sons and daughters, wives and daughters flaunting their overeating and showing off untidy flesh and bellies that have swallowed whole pigs.
As you ride to nowhere with your sport bikes to burn some fat, the ‘dregs’ of the city come out every morning and evening to see how you mock them. Many have been riding or rather walking to the city to scavenge for food. This you have denied them and you are telling them to stay home and stay safe. To them, home is the mouth of a shark; their children have nothing to eat and the landlord wants their money.
These ‘dregs’ of the city are helpless, begging the state for relief! And the state must respond with food otherwise, they will soon climb the walls of Kololo, Nakasero, Naguru and Muyenga and rape your daughters and wives, kill your sons and take away all the cereals of macaroni, minced meat, fish fingers, powdered milk and UHT milk you have kept for your good selves. If you live inside an enclosure and you better come out in your droves and feed the poor of the city. Otherwise, they will come for you and you will have nothing to do.
But also quite a number of things have already changed for the working class and businesses in the entertainment and service industry. While companies are adopting different ICT facilities and thus encouraging their staff to work from home, there is need for orientation of the work ethic. Working from home is no easy walk in the park. Children will not be running around as wifey or hubby is bored stiff and you will claim to be busy on your computer. There is beauty of going to work and mingling with colleagues. There is that person to person interaction that comes with traditional work spaces, consulting a colleague and office banter too! Much of that will be history.
It is time to prepare for the new realties and challenges. We will realise that some things are not worthy fighting for. Going to CJ’s and KFC will no longer be sexy. Shopping will be consciously done; checking prices and if it is worthy and healthy. Jobs will be lost and at best, salaries will be cut. Businesses will close and some will never rise again. I am not sure this is not the last we are seeing of Rupiny, Etop and Orumuri newspaper prints for example. Some hotels that have been dependent on workshops will now think twice. They will learn that new virtual spaces have been ‘discovered’ and so, workshops will not come to their hotels. They will beg agencies to come and occupy the conference halls.
But at the same time, new businesses will rise. We have seen how much the makers of sanitisers are smiling all the way to the bank while inventors like Yuan of Zoom is US$4billion richer in a period of three months because meetings are no longer in gazetted places but anywhere. Food will still be needed and not just food but nutritious food. Not foods of ostentation, real natural food. Children will now be told that they cannot have that toy or eat more than one banana. Employees will now be interested in where the money comes from and employers will learn that their business is about people not the product. And all of us, will need a bail-out in one way or another. Meanwhile, in England, vegetables and fruits have to be picked and they need 90,000 farm hands to do it. Same here, we need more people to walk to the gardens than they walk to the virtual offices. We need more food.
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