A man prepares for his AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at Ndirande Health Centre in Blantyre, Malawi on March 29. (AP Photo/Thoko Chikondi, File)
As lockdown restrictions and shuttered churches cut off typical parish revenue streams, Catholic priests in rural Africa have had to improvise, often resorting to unorthodox means to sustain themselves and their parish communities and churches.
Their counterparts in big cities have mostly manage to remain in touch with parishioners through social media and other online platforms that had been growing in popularity across Africa even before the pandemic. But the grinding poverty in many rural communities often means that parishioners cannot afford mobile phones or data plans.