Kampala was a COVID 19 hotspot at the time the study was conducted and cases from Kisenyi had already been reported. As we knocked at various doors, some in upscale apartments and others in congested small rentals, we were still perhaps because of the good will of the translators and local leaders, generally welcomed. In one of the apartments, we were welcomed to sit on the floor of a young widow who had about three children. She depended on remittances sent by her relatives abroad. She hardly interacted or trusted anyone else with her pain and struggles. Her children had other children over but hardly left the house. The fear of COVID 19 was real but I could not help but think that beyond the loneliness that comes with social distancing as part of the COVID 19 SOPs, there is evident loneliness from being away from loved ones in a country at whose mercy you must be. It felt like a jail without bars but a fine jail nonetheless compared to the life left behind in Somalia. So yes, some adhered almost to a fault to the COVID 19 restrictions, but as one ignorant of the ins and outs of the life of refugees in Uganda, I could not help but feel a deep sense of sadness at the psycho-social consequences of a pandemic on the quality of life of already vulnerable communities such as these.

Then came the quickest interview I conducted. It was the quickest not because the survey questions were suddenly amended but simply because the questions were not applicable to the Respondent. He was a middle-aged person with multiple disabilities who expressed an overall sense of hopelessness towards whatever life had to offer. He was being supported by an organisation to meet his day to day needs but still felt like life had dealt him a very harsh hand. He could not have a family like everybody else let alone the warmth and love a wife could bring. So, when it came to the sections of the survey tool on Knowledge, compliance and adherence to COVID 19 and related SOPs, he was nothing short of apathetic. He did not believe COVID 19 existed and true to this, he did not have a mask on and neither did majority of the families that lived within that given enclosure with multiple houses. Most of the households, as I observed, had several individuals living in a single unit. This was the case for both the refugees in the upscale apartments and for those in the congested low-income housing. On average, if one unit housed 8 individuals, seven houses sharing one gate had a population of about 56 people. Therefore, if one person did not believe COVID 19 existed and exposed themselves in one way or the other, within a matter of hours 56 others would not only contract it but perhaps spread it to the numerous neighbouring units in the refugee settlement.