10th March 2020

I go by Moto to Rulindo, a district an hour a way.  Moto is the mainstay of travel in Rwanda, and VSO volunteers are expected to use them for the role, and also for getting around at the weekends.  Longer journeys are taken by bus which is not always a pleasant experience; they’re mostly full to bursting, with seats that fold out into the aisle to maximize every available space.

The drive is phenomenal, with views of beautiful countryside and hills. When I get there I’m greeted by two of the SNECOs.  We discuss the forthcoming hearing and vision assessments that are due to be carried out over the following weeks and make kits for this.  For the first time, we do the ‘Paul Kagame handshake’ – a couple of days earlier the President had demonstrated a new way of greeting and advised against handshaking.  It used to be called the Ebola handshake when there were concerns about that. We all express our relief that this has happened in order to prevent transmission.

I’m also aware of all the portable wash hand basins that have appeared outside shops, hotels and in bus stations. Speaking to my landlady about them in the evening, she said many hundreds of them were imported during the Ebola outbreak in DRC, but not many had been sold.  Now they’re proving invaluable.

Italy has gone into complete lockdown, and the numbers are soaring. Italy is now Europe's worst-hit country with over 9,000 cases and 463 deaths, an increase of almost 100 in a 24-hour period.  An Italian doctor has revealed that his hospital is being overwhelmed by a twunami of patients and is unable to cope.