The world is a different place than it was a few weeks ago. We’ve all had to make radical adjustments to our lives, livelihoods, and priorities. 

Here's how communities without a SAFETY NET a grappling with COVID-19 pandemic.

******THREAT*****

Location: Korogocho.

Home to about 160,000 people, houses are usually very small one-room shanties made from pieces of old iron or plastic and mud. The floors are made of mud and there’s no running water or electricity.

Economic activity: Each morning men walk to the Industrial chancing work in one of the factories. Others have “small businesses’ scavenging on the city dump and then selling things they find, or buying cheap vegetables in the market and selling them on at the roadside.

There's also a healthy population of many women who live in Korogocho working as daily childminders, house girls, or 'MAMA FUA.' They have been forced to leave their children hanging around the slum as they can't afford their own childminders.

77-year-old Anna Nyakaria solved this problem for the women. She would take 95 children daily, feed and shelter them as their mothers chanced work in the affluent neighborhoods as 'MAMA FUA'

"I don't know if people in charge of government know about us, maybe they don't, otherwise they would be making different decisions about us."

The daycare, considered school, was closed following government directives. The children, however, keep COMING BACK.

Benson Muli 42. Shopkeeper

My customers have reduced buying essentials by at least 50% this week alone.

So, families that were buying a packet of milk and bread daily are now only buying it 3 times a week at best.

"I am already having discussions with some of my customers who want credit, they hadn’t even cleared last month’s debts, so I am worried that I will never get that money back, it is looking like bad debt to me already."

Grace Okeyo- 42, Sells Bananas

"Transport has been interrupted, we are being told it’s now more expensive to move the Banana’s from Meru due to the restrictions. Police are stopping the trucks, so the transporters are passing the cost down to us."

Anthony Kinuthia- 45, Hawker

"If people are struggling to buy food can you imagine anyone buying clothes? As you can see the general trend in the market is that people are reducing spending or they don’t have money to buy things. So, I am stuck with my Mitumba stock."

Rita Awino- 20, Beautician

"We are not hoping for a lockdown or further restrictions because I have a small child, 8 months, and I need to feed him that’s why I come to the roadside to make hair."

As customers reduce spending, those that have businesses that hinged purely on these kinds of services have seen reduced business by up to 80%.

Josephat Mongela – 45, Posho Mill attendant

The normal patterns for the business were to sell two bags of maize flour in a day since the pandemic he is only selling half a bag of maize per day.

"We hope this thing goes quietly as it came we can’t manage if it goes for another month. I have started giving out Unga credit to my usual customers, I am already doing 10 debts this week, highest than any other time I have ever done."

Elizabeth Wateri- 37, MPESA attendant

"On a normal working day, we service 10 to 15 customers in a day transacting substantial amounts, mostly business people in the market. At the moment, we have reduced to 5 so I too have had to scale down business."

There are others whose business has been favored by the circumstances brought about by COVID-19.

Rosemary Awour- 41. Cereals.

With children at home and parents struggling with little to no work, most families have resorted to a daily meal of boiled maize and beans 'Githeri'

Those who sell cereals are seeing a marked increase in the business.

"The only challenge is that I might run out of stock because beans come from Tanzania, closing the border is not good for us. Transporters have already warned us on the interruption on that route, the interference on that supply chain will be bad for my business."

Vegetable business is one of the activities that has been and almost paralyzed

"County governments are closing down some markets, the effect is that there are fewer vegetables getting to us in Nairobi."

Reporting inside communities continues.

Photo credit: Kizito Gamba

Additional reporting @AfricaTazama

For clarity, no one I have spoken to, and they are many from the poor neighborhoods of Nairobi and running small businesses has shouted at me 'LOCK US DOWN'

They have all been consistent "Those running government don't understand us or they don't know we exist"