Man Talk: What will be your post-pandemic personality be?

It's been 261 days since the first case of the "Rona" was declared in Kenya. Once the announcement was made I knew that the end days were upon us. I knew that it was time to have fun one last time and since it was my cousin Abby's birthday that weekend, we had an epic pool party on a rooftop in Kilimani which I don't remember what happened after midnight.

I think my body just started operating on autopilot after the clock clicked 12.

Since then, we have adjusted to the new reality, which I won't call the new normal, because there's no amount of time that makes a pandemic normal. Let's say we've adapted to life as it is and resigned ourselves to the fact that Covid-19 will be here for a while.

That's why my mind wonders to June 2021. A happy predictable time. In my imagination, the vaccines have been deployed, the government hasn't issued a PDF Rona alert in weeks. All measures have been eased, everything is open. You emerge, blinking, into the sunshine, you remove your mask, you wonder….who am I now? You may be one of these…

Mr. Important things in life

Corona has made Muthama come to certain realisations about the kind of life that he's been living. He wasted way too much time on people that he didn't like and things that didn't matter. That's why during the pandemic he dedicated his time to his family and the few friends that matter and cut out the drinking buddies. It's what he is still doing as the vaccine rollout. At work, he has learnt to draw personal boundaries and finally realised that it was never really an emergency, it was just someone else's disorganization. Work can always go on without him. Muthama is now working towards the things that make him happy like coaching football to the local community kids. Don't we all wish we are more like Muthama?

Mr. New Year, New Me

Brian Davies was all about the fun times before. You could always count on him to put together a 'plot' on a Friday night. Then the pandemic hit and he lost his job and for the first time, he realised his true financial position. He had Sh100,000 in savings. Brian was 30 and had only 100,000 to show for a career that started when he was 23 yet he earned millions over that time. He realised that he needed to get his act together. He finally got a new job but after that, he started saving first and saying yes to weekend gateways later. He finally opened that unit trust account and finally joined a SACCO. Brian isn't as fun as he used to be but he certainly doesn't mind it. Poverty and rising from nothing isn't as glorious as advertised. He's going to buy a plot and build by next year- wait and see! He's learnt his lesson.

The Traveler

Steven Kogi was always the safe and dependable guy. He got a job right out of school in one of the top four audit firms where his life was centered around the office where his employer sucked all his mental and emotional energy while avoiding a breakdown. He was really focused on saving every coin until Covid hit and he realised that he had no life outside his work cubicle. He learnt that he was going to waste his entire life moving from client to client conducting audit reports. Steven is now like 'Enrique Iglesias' Magunga Williams, the blogger, on a plane every other month with photos on the runway in his white pants and a loudly patterned shirt. He's traveling the world because he's realised that what he once thought was a waste of money, was a fulfilling way of seeing the world and of discovering more about himself.

The Conspiracy Theorist

Felix will tell anyone that gives him an ear about how the coronavirus was created in a lab in China. He will tell you about how Bill Gates has all the Covid-19 vaccine patents and how they were created 15 years earlier and how the vaccines are just a ploy to extract our DNA and to insert undetectable micro-chips. He will tell you how WHO is controlled by big pharma. He'll refer you to some nondescript right-wing stuff, crazy YouTube videos with multiple men in lab coats and doctors who have had the entire medical fraternity distance themselves from them. This cult-like-crowd also believes the 'Father of DNA' James Watson's assertion that white people are superior, in spite of all evidence against it. Felix is a black man who will spend hours explaining how the industrial era and technology prove that white men are better and that we just need to accept it.

Now that the vaccine is here, Felix believes it's the engineering of some big pharma to steal our money and lord over us. Keep away from guys like Felix.

What kind of man do you think you will be after the pandemic?