Sierra Leone’s three-day lockdown was announced without warning. Mummy K, a fish seller from Freetown, watched in despair as her fish spoiled, the ice melting around it. ‘When I bought the fish, the price was high. So it was a big loss for me,’ she explains. Three months later, her colleagues are back out again selling, but she is sat playing Ludo.
‘I don’t know how to get started up again,’ she says. Her income supported three others, including her four-year-old daughter, who are all now living off a dwindling stockpile of garri, a starchy cassava flour, saved for shocks like these. She’s watching her daughter carefully for any signs of sickness. ‘Children eat money,’ she sighs.
