If you think that Face Masks are used for medical or health purposes only, then you need to have a rethink. I just discovered another use for facemask on my way home sometime last week.
While on my way home in a taxi, I listened in on a very interesting conversation. Three men were discussing some of the advantages that COVID-19 ‘has brought to us as Nigerians’. So, like the saying goes, ‘’for every disadvantage, there is an advantage’’, the facemask provides a safe shield from people one doesn’t want to see.
So, Malik, as he simply told me his name said, ‘’this facemask something ennh, e good o’’, Malik said the facemask provided him a cover from people he doesn’t want to see sometimes. Malik told me he is a motor mechanic, and sometimes he has had some customers who have not been too happy that he didn’t finish their jobs on time. So, ‘’if I see that kind of customer, and I am wearing my facemask, I just put my face straight’’. To this, his two other friends with him laughed heartily, making every other person in the vehicle take part in this funny discussion. So, one of the ladies who sat in the front seat,(name not known), laughed and asked, ‘’so, you are using Facemask now to cheat?’’. To this, Malik just defended himself and said it was not cheating.
John, one of Malik’s friends, as it appeared said that he likes the Facemask because it prevents him from perceiving offensive odors. He said, ‘’kai, some people can sweat shaa’’. To this, laughter erupted in the Taxi again. John said, the Facemask helps him stay off near suffocation from body and mouth odors.
For many people, facemasks have become a symbol of COVID-19 since early 2020 when the world was hit by the pandemic. As part of the preventive measures, the government required the wearing of face masks, washing of hands regularly or using hand sanitizers whenever possible.
And due to the discomfort that comes with wearing facemasks, many people struggled with keeping to this particular guideline. That is why, there were several campaigns about the correct use of Facemasks. Yet many people were often seen with their facemasks on the chins rather than covering their noses and mouths. Even government officials on national TV were not different, as many of them sat in meetings with their facemasks pulled down to their chins. This is still the case even recently. Many people just hang the facemask on their chin, just in case government officials might appear and want to arrest and prosecute anyone walking the streets without a face mask.
However, it is interesting that there is a fraction of society who feels the facemask is important, even though not for fear of the deadly coronaVirus, but for this entirely different social reason of camouflaging whenever one sees who they didn’t want to identify them.
This might just be the reason why many of these people wear the disposable surgical mask for many times until it gets so dirty? The surgical mask is for a one-off use, but when you see some people’s own, you would run away because it is dirty. This is possibly because they do not know the implication of what they are doing.
So for people like Malik, I tried to find out how many times he uses his facemask, he told me ‘’sometimes a week before I wash it’’. His explanation was, because he closes late because of his kind of job. But then, I asked, ‘’how long does it take to wash this small piece of cloth?’’…
John however, uses the surgical mask, and told me he changes it every two days. Even so, I asked him why he chose to use a disposable mask twice. So, I discovered I was surrounded in this vehicle by mostly people who had misconceptions about the coronavirus. They mostly never believed in the existence of the virus, and were using the facemask for an entirely different purpose. But if they were wearing the face mask correctly, they would be protected from the virus also, even though many people in Nigeria still don’t believe that the Corona Virus exists in Nigeria. And the conspiracy theories are not helping.
