Marathon Day

Today I went to another community clinic in Rushaki, in the north of the country. I had been told it was a long journey so we would leave at 4am! Based on my previous experiences of waiting around for a couple of hours after the stated departure time for anything to happen, I was not convinced we would leave on time.

The events of the day unfolded as follows:-

4am – alarm went off, got dressed and went back to bed!

4.50am – phone call from the physio to say everyone was ready to leave so I walked up to the centre to find about 10 people all hoping to get a lift to Kigali or another destination along our route.

5.10am – vehicle loaded, including the team of 5 of us running the clinic and 5 passengers and 2 large boxes of equipment in the back, we set off in the dark and thick mist. At times you could only see the next white line in the middle of the road.

6.30am – arrived in Kigali having been swung around blind corners at high speed along the way and dropped various people off at the bus station before continuing on our journey.

8.30am – arrived in Rushaki. The last 30 minutes of the journey was through tea plantations on dirt roads and stunning scenery. Greeted very enthusiastically by one of the (Spanish) sisters who helps run the day centre and had tea and biscuits for breakfast – I drank my first cup of Rwandan tea!

9am – started seeing patients. As the morning progressed the room seemed to be getting fuller rather than emptier. We saw a mixture of children and adults, some who’d had treatment before and had been going to the day centre for a long time, some new patients, so quite disabled children and some who were absolutely fine.

2.30pm – finally finished assessing, giving exercise and activity suggestions and deciding on a treatment plan for 46 patients, all in French. Was shown the local health centre and was found by another mother who wanted her child to be seen. Found the driver changing the wheel of the van because we had a puncture!

3.15pm – finally had lunch, rice, beans, potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, meat and fresh fruit.

4pm – the ophalmology nurse and physio assistant finished seeing the 48 patients who had come to see them and had their lunch. Some of the patients travelled over 20km to be seen at the clinic.

4.45pm – left Rushaki, with one patient joining us – an elderly lady with a broken prosthetic limb which had broken and needed repair by the orthopaedic technician.

6.30pm – arrived in Kigali in rush hour just as it was getting dark–saw some crazy driving!

7pm – stopped in a small village outside Kigali for 15 minutes to buy a sack of potatoes!

8pm – stopped by a police check point to be asked where we were going and if we could give 2 people a lift to the next town. They piled into the back of the vehicle and off we went!

8.30pm – finally arrived safely at the rehab centre having narrowly avoided a few head on collisions on the road with cars overtaking on bends in the dark, unloaded the truck, walked home and collapsed in exhaustion!