I was recently recalled back to Uganda early from a work trip to Zimbabwe. The recall came on March 18, 2020 and was based more on the volatility of the governments involved that the virus itself. At that time neither Zimbabwe nor Uganda had confirmed cases of Covid-19.
I was originally going to fly back today, Sunday March 22. I would not have been able to however because Uganda closed its borders today. Being stranded in Zimbabwe would have been fine by me except my visa would have expired on April 12th. Zimbabwe does not do in-country visa renewals, so if things were not opened up by then I could have been in a bit of a pickle.
Anyway, the first available flight out was on the morning of Thursday March 19th. 11:15 am departure to be exact. The experience was so unusual I was compelled to start writing about it on that first leg of my trip from Harare to Nairobi.
On the night of the 18th the Uganda president made an announcement regarding travel in that caused no small degree of confusion for many of us looking to come back. Based on the speech it was vague as to which countries would result in putting people into quarantine and it also looked like that quarantine could last up to 32 days.
While the people in Kampala worked out if the quarantine would apply to me, I considered taking my employer up on a previously declined offer to repatriate me to Canada. If I was going to face a 32 day quarantine, Canada was looking pretty good. At least they would only lock me up for 2 weeks! (at the time of writing the Uganda quarantine period as been confirmed to be 14 days not 32)
I was assured that Zimbabwe was not on the list of countries to be quarantined so I booked the last minute one way flight back to Kampala.
The next day, when I arrived at the airport with my South Africa colleague who was also heading home early, I first noticed how empty the airport was. It was 9 am on a weekday and looked more like 2 am.
I proceeded to the front of the line for check-in. Actually, I was the line.
I handed the attendant my passport and he pulled up my reservation. What happened next was a first for me. He spent about five minutes running around talking to people to determine if I would be allowed to enter once I landed in Uganda. He eventually concluded that I would and proceeded with my check in.
Once through security, again there was no line at all, I walked into a near empty waiting area.
The shops were even more empty than usual for the Zimbabwe airport. I bought a t-shirt for myself and a trillion dollar Zimbabwe bond note from 2008. Actually, I paid a little too much for a full suite of notes (one million, 100 million, 10 billion etc) But I knew that the two gentlemen I bought from could really use the money.
When my flight was called it was probably the fastest boarding of a midday flight ever.
The flight itself was well under half full. The Embraer 190 for Kenya Airways has an economy seating capacity of 84 and don’t think there were much over 30 of us on board. We were a second stop, so some were already on board.
The only row with two people seated side by side was filled with two travel companions. Every other row had one person per side, only one for the whole row, or was empty.
In the Zimbabwe airport and on the plane it was unsettlingly quiet. No laughter, or chatter and nobody dared to cough!
After a quick disembarkment in Kenya we walked to the shuttle. People maintained a distance from each other. One quarter to one third of the passengers were in various types of face masks. Of those of us standing on the shuttle I saw only one very briefly touch a handle. The rest of us kept our arms crossed or at our sides.
Again it was grim, silent and all business.
I believe Kenya might be the busiest airport in East Africa. It is certainly a hub airport. Our shuttle passed several baggage processing bays. A few had a scant amount of baggage moving along but most were completely dormant.
Workers were sitting and chatting. Some wore face masks, some had them hanging below their mouths.
Waiting for us when we got inside was a person in a white coat, mask and gloves and a temperature reader. All of us stood while he read our temperatures, without touching us of course.
That is not unusual in East Africa since they are vigilant about Ebola, but the heavy presence of soldiers in fatigues seemed significantly more than I remember from my last time in the airport.
Given the usual volumes at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, there are many well equipped stations for security screening. We were directed to the furthest station, passing six or seven that were completely empty. It was the middle of the afternoon and we passed through security in record time.
While on the shuttle and then sitting in the airport food court I was struck with this thought a few times – that burqas seem like a decent idea right now. They definitely provide some good facial and body coverage. I imagined some of the women wearing them snickering at the people wearing the little paper masks (just my imagination – no snickers were heard!)
The final leg from Kenya to Uganda was close to normal. The plane was smaller, so the same number of people filled the plane to half capacity or more.
There was even a small amount of talking and laughing.
Before take off we were given a new medical declaration form to complete for Uganda. When I flew back to Uganda from Burundi on March 11th we were still filling in the Ebola focused form. Now it is a Covid-19 focused form with a short question or two about Ebola on the bottom.
At the Kampala airport they did the usual review of the medical form and my yellow fever card while looking at my passport photo page. I stated that I came from Zimbabwe and I was waived through to customs for my declaration. That was it.
There was a group of twenty to thirty people gathered by officials just on the other side of the person who reviewed my form. My assumption was they might be heading for quarantine. They were being guided somewhere just as I proceeded to customs. We mingled for a few seconds but don’t worry, I didn’t touch anyone or anything.
The rest of my return was completely normal, except I suppose, that all the workers were in face masks.
On a non-travel related note, the entire time in Zimbabwe I was able to charge my phone and turn on the lights. This was unexpected since Zimbabwe has been subject to planned power outages due to short supply for over a year. When I got to the apartment in Kampala however, all was dark. The power was out for hours. And again the next night. It was actually out for about 12 hours Friday evening/night and Saturday morning. Of all the aspects of Zimbabwe that I might want Uganda to mirror, power supply would not be on the list!
A Travelling Accountant 