24th April 2020

I still have plenty of work to do, a course I’m completing with the Open University on the future of education, and lots of books on my Kindle but I can’t find the motivation.  It feels like all my creativity and concentration has gone.  I walk to the shops for nothing in particular and often wonder whether I should just go back home to the UK, but always something stops me from making the move. We’re still in the rainy season, and the days alternate between hot sunny periods and torrential downpours and thunder.  A lot of this happens at night but it never wakes me up. I don’t realise until the next day that there have been landslides and that some people have lost their homes. There is a sudden panic with work – we need to compile two week work plans to ensure we are demonstrating that the programme is running effectively.  It sounds simple enough but there is a huge network of people to coordinate with to make sure that teams are working together with the same goals.  This seems to wake me up a bit and I enjoy the fast pace.

My landlady thinks that lockdown might be over next weekend as they are running out of supplies to feed people, and many people are unable to sustain themselves without work.  There have only been between zero and a few new cases per day recently, despite testing of well over 1,000 people each day and this evening we find out that there have been 22 new cases today, due to a rise in cases of cross-border truck drivers and their assistants coming into the country and staying with local families.  Now trucks drivers will have to stop at the entry points, the cargo and truck will be disinfected, and then handed over to a Rwandan driver who will deliver it to its final destination.  Sounds like some good coordination is going to be needed.