It’s lucky I am happy with my own company because now I am volunteering at the COVID clinic here in Dar three days a week. There is a good bunch of selfless people helping the clinic and stopping it from being over-run. Fortunately I have the afternoon which are relatively calm. The mornings, from what I can gather, are hectic with queues of sick people queueing down the rough pot-holed track.
My job is not very difficult but as the first person they see, I have to be polite and caring knowing that they wouldn’t come unless they were worried. Well… apart from a couple of Chinese who seemingly come every two weeks for a COVID test. How very typical of Chinese. And the caution doesn’t just stop there – they were wearing two face masks each. It really is no wonder people roll their eyes at the Chinese – they don’t help themselves.
Now I am exposing myself to the sick I am unable to go for a beer with my friends on the beach. I am now spending a lot more time at home, reading, watching tv and doing things online. I have also been cooking some different food and now I have started ordering deliveries of frozen meals from a local restaurant.
It was no worse than my last lodgings where the American family shunned me completely because they were self-isolating and I was not. So I am getting used to it now and actually I am happy not going out drinking in the evenings, even a couple of times a week is too much when alcohol just appears in front of me without asking and I keep drinking it so as not to appear rude.
Luckily I can go for walks around the peninsula – there’s plenty of room on the road to avoid other walkers and I wear my brightly coloured mask more for decoration than function.