Effects of the corona pandemic on tourism and local people

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Karisa Kenga Mbitha with his wife Roseline Kazungu Ndole and their son Lucky in front of their house on the Kenyan coast

Photo: Bettina Rühl

Karisa Kenga Mbitha, 34, lives with his family in the Kenyan village of Dabaso, not far from the coast of the Indian Ocean.

Between their well-tended mud houses there are blooming bushes, all around coconut palms and a corn field.

Since the outbreak of the corona crisis, the Mbithas have found it increasingly difficult to take care of their home, yard and family.

On the one hand, it is much milder in Kenya than in Germany; by the end of November, a good 83,000 cases were officially known in the East African country;

around 1,400 people have died in connection with the virus.

However, the number of infections has increased significantly for a few weeks, and there is also a second wave in Kenya.

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Beach in Kenya: According to the government, 2.5 million Kenyans have lost their jobs in the tourism industry in the past few months

Photo: Sergi Reboredo / imago images / VWPics

So far, Karisa Kenga Mbitha and his home village got off lightly, the 34-year-old doesn't know anyone who has become infected.

Nevertheless, everyone he knows is existentially suffering from the pandemic.

Because many people on the Kenyan coast live directly or indirectly from tourism - and tourism almost completely came to a standstill here due to travel restrictions.

The international airport was closed from March to August, so international guests could not come.

The Kenyan travelers also stayed away, because from March to July the big cities like Nairobi and Mombasa - from which most local guests are drawn to the coast - were sealed off as corona hotspots, nobody was allowed to leave the cities.

According to the government, 2.5 million Kenyans have lost their jobs in the tourism industry in the past few months.

The lockdown has since been gradually relaxed, but there is still a nightly curfew from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Despite the partial easing, tourism has not yet regained momentum.

Travelers from abroad still stay away, although many hotels and restaurants on the coast advertise for bookings with dumping offers - with rigid hygiene concepts.

A few guests from the Kenyan cities let themselves be lured by it, but the little money does not reach Karisa Kenga Mbitha and his family.

The former entertainer lost his job in a hotel because of the pandemic and is looking for other income opportunities with increasing desperation.

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Karisa Kenga Mbitha: "I am the firstborn son and therefore responsible for the family"

Photo: Bettina Rühl

“I got the call one early morning in April, I was just grazing my two cows in the bush.

The HR manager said: ›I have bad news for you: Because there are no more tourists coming because of Corona, the hotel is making losses.

We have to close, at least temporarily.

I'll get in touch if we ever have work again.

I felt like my heart stopped the same.

I am the firstborn son and therefore responsible for the family.

As I drove my cows home, I wondered how to get my family across the bad news.

My mother is already 62, my father 95. Both still go to the fields every day and my father earns a little extra by brewing palm wine, but I'm responsible for my siblings' school fees and all special expenses.

I have three sisters, the youngest is 26 years old and will get married in two weeks.

Her name is Josephine and she is incredibly lucky with her husband.

He is a computer scientist and one of only two people I know who still have work.

He is employed by a company in Mombasa.

The other I know was also very lucky, he got a job as a government accountant.

Everyone else lost their jobs.

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Karisa Kenga Mbitha (2nd from left) and part of his family

Photo: Bettina Rühl

The first corona case was reported in Kenya on March 13, but since February there have been hardly any tourists from Europe due to the pandemic.

Thousands of people have lost their jobs here on the coast - we all live from tourism, there is hardly any industry here.

Nobody has any money now.

My wife normally earns around 150 euros a month as a hairdresser, but because of Corona she only has one customer a week.

So I have to feed my wife and our two year old son Lucky on my own.

When I still had my job, none of that was a problem for me.

I was an animator in a hotel and did sports with our guests.

I love sports, I even built my own gym at home.

But at the moment I don't train anymore, I don't want to burn up unnecessary calories.

And if you want to build muscle, you have to eat well, above all you need protein.

But we haven't been able to afford meat for months, and instead of three meals we usually only eat two times a day: beans and corn porridge.

We grow the corn ourselves.

We used to slaughter a chicken every now and then, we had chickens ourselves, which my mother looked after.

In the end there were probably 50 or more.

In September they all died.

Not all at once, but three on one day, four on the next, and so on.

We stood by and couldn't do anything because we couldn't afford the drugs to save them.

We also lost one of our five goats, it died last week.

After all, the other four are healthy.

We live very close to a creek, the Mida-Creek, which is lined with mangroves.

After I had to leave school in eleventh grade to make money for my family, one of my friends taught me to fish.

When I had enough money together, I took a six-month course to become an animator.

Then I applied to a hotel and got the job.

For me it was a dream come true.

When I went to work for the first time eight years ago, I thought: Now life is really starting.

Now I can build a future for myself.

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Safari in Kenya: "We now live from hand to mouth"

Photo: Sergi Reboredo / VWPics / imago images

And I enjoyed the work so much!

I enjoyed getting to know people from all over the world.

I also earned well, 30,000 schillings a month, just under 230 euros.

However, we only worked during the season, around half of the year.

That wasn't enough for school fees and other expenses, but I opened a bank account and when I had saved 10,000 shillings there, I was able to take out a loan.

I invested the money in my sisters' training.

They did very well at school, and when they showed me their grades and asked me to continue studying, I couldn't help but do everything I could to get it.

The oldest is called Agnes.

She is 29 years old and teaches at a private school.

All schools had to close because of the pandemic, but at least the final classes are now allowed to come back to classes.

Agnes now earns the equivalent of almost 40 euros a month - a quarter of her usual income.

The middle one is called Mapenzie, she is 27 years old.

She goes to college in Mombasa and learns accounting.

I have to pay almost 530 euros for this every year for four years.

And of course I have to pay for their living.

Before Corona, our father contributed some of the money he made with palm wine, but now nobody can afford palm wine anymore.

We now live from hand to mouth.

I founded a microcredit association with nine friends.

Everyone gives just under four euros a month, and after a certain amount of time someone gets the money.

I've been to it before and got 76 euros.

I invested half of that in my sister's education, the rest I paid for telephone charges and groceries.

I own a fishing net with some friends, we take turns with it.

My father used to say to me: 'I won't teach you to beg, I will teach you to fish, then you can always look after yourself.' But that's no longer true, we can hardly sell the fish any more.

People have no money, the restaurants and hotels are either closed because of the corona pandemic or they have hardly any customers.

So far we have only had a few corona infections on the coast, but the numbers are now increasing.

My father is 95, if he got sick it would be a disaster.

We don't have health insurance, I hardly know anyone who is insured.

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Airport in Kenya's capital Nairobi at the end of July 2020: "We feel let down by the government"

Photo: Dennis Sigwe / ZUMA / imago images

We feel abandoned by the government.

She should have developed other economic ideas for the coastal region long ago, it was clear that we could not only live from tourism.

In the pandemic, it also leaves us alone.

The government promised to support people with no income, but those were empty words.

In September the village elders wrote down the names of all those in need and said we would get food, soap and disinfectant.

A little later, a couple of families received a kilo of cornmeal.

Can you imagine that?

Families with 15 or 20 members, and then they get a kilo of flour!

Some were so angry that they refused the flour.

I am very worried, also about my son's future.

It is so important to me that he and my siblings get good education, but I can't save anything.

Times are very, very hard for everyone here.

The only thing we have left is to pray. "

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