4th April 2020
Today’s the day the girls are leaving. One of them calls me on the way to the airport and can see monkeys running across the main road, where there used to be lots of traffic.
I get calls and messages from the Country Director who’s checking in to see I’m OK. I get messages from the programme manager who asks me how I am and who the children are in my Whatsapp picture. I tell him they’re my grandchildren and he sends pictures of his children and I send him pictures of mine. The consultant I’ve been working with and who lives around the corner sends a lovely package of gifts to cheer me up. Her house mate drives round and leaves the bag at the gate of the compound and we wave at each other. I see my landlady doing some gardening and she has said I can have a patch to plant some seeds I’ve got. I’m really touched and so grateful to have all these kind and caring people around me. My friends and family message and call and I really feel the love.
Today is also the end of the two-week lockdown, but the President has ordered a 15 day extension. The Ministry of Health say that the additional time will help with tracing people who came in contact with confirmed cases, and also to focus on treating those who have it. Some of the patients who are fully recovered will be sent home some soon.
The government is also watching for price raising of goods. I live in Kicukiro district and they’ve fined 5 different shops in my area. It’s posted as a public announcement, and like many things here, corruption and crimes are reported in a way that suggests that they will not be tolerated and are an example to others. In Rwanda the lockdown rules are clear, people stay at home, shops have to have been given licences to operate, you can only leave home to get food and supplies, and the police check and enforce this. There’s checkpoints to make sure people don’t cross districts and arrests and heavy penalties for people who break it.
In the UK people are still not social distancing or keeping to the lockdown rules, and the warm weather is seeing people flocking to parks. My son tells me the lockdown rules are flaky and inconsistent and nothing is being enforced. When he goes to the shops the streets are busy and people are not maintaining distance.
I read that my local hospital in the UK, Watford General is telling people not to go to it’s A and E unit because they’ve run out of oxygen. Yesterday, the New Nightingale hospital opened in the UKand can hold up to 4,000 C-19 patients. 4,313 C-19 patients have now died in hospital, with an increase of 708 today.
That evening I hear the aeroplane take off with Katie and Hannah and have another little wobble.
There are 13 new cases in Rwanda, bringing to the total to 102. 4 who arrived from other countries and 9 contacts of previously confirmed cases who were identified through tracing.