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'No Covid Here'

  • Elise Britten
  • Sep 21, 2020
  • 3 min read

“Karibu mzungu [welcome white person], no Covid here!” the cry follows us on our first day in Tanzania.


During transit we had to wear a mask at all times except when eating, and we had to add a plastic face shield when getting on and off the plane. Sitting in my seat feeling very hot and uncomfortable, I tried not to think about what it would be like having to wear a face mask all day every day in 30 degree heat.


But I never had to find out. Outside the airport, the masks came off, and they did not go back on. My box of 50 masks sits abandoned in my cupboard.


Frequently throughout Tanzania we are told “There is no Covid here.”

“No mask face here,” one tour guide stressed.“Be free in Tanzania – Tanzania is a free country without Covid.”


There are no published infection or death rates, but you wonder if they really believe the country has no Covid cases at all or if they are just desperate for tourism money to return. Then they will say something like “We have not seen any bodies in the street,” and a heavy dose of perspective strikes home. In a country where pandemics are not alien concepts but relatively frequent occurrences and people die from starvation, it is perplexing for local people why such a big deal is being made of Covid.


The markets are crowded as life goes on as normal


The average life expectancy in Tanzania is 64.5, compared to 81 in the UK and 82.5 in Australia. And if Tanzanians live into old age, they stay with their families not in care homes where many of our Covid deaths occur. To be impacted by a virus that disproportionality affects the elderly you have to be one of the lucky ones who makes it to old age.


That is not to say that we don't think about it at all. Volunteers and staff are meant to be temperature checked frequently, we have been told not to use the dala dala (super crowded share taxi mini buses) and I wash and sanitise my hands frequently. In the few westernised shopping centres they may have a bucket with a tap on it to wash your hands outside, or even sanitiser on occasion. But that's about it. In Tanzania life goes on as usual all around us. No-one wears face masks and there are clearly no thoughts of social distancing.


Without locals stressing to us 'no Covid here,' at times I might forget there ever was. Covid feels very distant even if I know I am theoretically at as much risk as I ever was. It feels much less immediate than protecting myself against things like malaria and cholera. For all of us who have lived with lockdown it is heaven to be free. But even if us volunteers wanted to stay 'locked down' you can't really here. How could I reject the hugs of thankful Mamas or wear a mask adding another layer to our language barrier?


The Mamas I am working with in Tanzania


“There is so much more to worry about in Africa – Covid is like this,” our local program director says holding up her fingers almost pressed together. She says Tanzania came out of lockdown because people were 'dying from fear' when many literally cannot afford not to leave their homes.

“Some people criticise the prime minister, but I would have done the same thing,” she says.


I'm not saying that I think stricter Covid measures aren't appropriate back home, but that it is another point of striking difference. Even in England there has been concern about the flow-on effect of lockdown such as missing early cancer diagnoses. Here it seems quite clear that more people would die from not being able to feed themselves. It is is a different world indeed.

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