As COVID-19 emerged, many lives have been impacted by it. Since the new wave has come up, things have gotten more difficult here. I am a mother of three children and work in a bus company in Luanda, Angola. Before COVID-19, I earned a decent amount of money; enough to pay the bills and put some of it into savings. But when COVID-19 hit things started to get rough.

To stop the wave, one of the measures implemented by the Angolan government was that buses are allowed to carry only 50% of the passengers that the buses can carry. This prevention measure meant that the employees for the company, me being one of them, would receive 70% of the salary, as that measure affected the company’s revenue as well. I was actually lucky not to lose my job.

Then, I got COVID-19 and had to stop going to work (luckily I did not lose the job). My case was not very serious, I had mild symptoms of flu but tested positive.

Life in Angola is very hard, and getting free treatment from a public hospital is very hard work. Public hospitals are always full without COVID-19, imagine when COVID-19 struck? Being a mom of three, getting 70% of my salary, and with COVID-19, I certainly couldn’t afford private treatment. My solution to that was to turn to home medication, using natural herbs. I started drinking homemade lemon tea and onion juice for two weeks, and I was COVID-19 free and life started to get back on track.