Lockdown aka Ose to Ose Ebola Tok

The lockdown in Sierra Leone is being referred to as the 'Ose to Ose Ebola Tok' - house to house ebola talk

The lockdown started at midnight last night and will last for three days.  During the lockdown people are not permitted to leave their homes, there will be house to house visits to educate people about Ebola and to try to find Ebola patients that are being hidden in homes. 

There have been many rumours around the lockdown, here are a few of them:
That the soap being distributed will give people ebola
That a corpse was discovered in the Guma Valley dam and has infected the water
That all mobile phone networks will be shut down, so there will be no communication with the outside world
That the lockdown will be extended to either 7, 11 or 21 days
People are really worried about these rumours and I can only think that they are being spread by people who want the lockdown to fail. I just hope and pray that people will comply with the lockdown and that the country will remain peaceful.

There are a lot of homeless people in Freetown and I wonder about them, how will they cope during the lockdown,  where will they go? It's been reported that there will be some food provision for the homeless - hot food for street children and dry food for the adults. 

In total we were able to purchase and distribute 135 bags of rice before the start of the lockdown with donations pledged and received. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated, it means such a lot to the families and households that we have been able to help.

If anyone would like to make a donation for rice for after the lockdown please contact me.......or you can use the new PayPal donation button at the top of this site. There are no fees for donations made via your UK PayPal account,  but for credit/debit card donations there is a fee of 3.4% + 20p.

Please keep the people of Sierra Leone in your thoughts and prayers as they go through this lockdown