We were not thinking about sharing news on COVID19 and lockdown when announcing updates were coming soon. We wanted to share pictures of our ‘kids’, tell you they are all fine, happy and healthy and share with you long due thanks for the presents received thanks to the silent auction.
However, only yesterday night, we heard a 21 days lockdown will start in Malawi as of saturday. With 16 confirmed cases and 2 deaths, the government has decided the spread of Covid19 would be a too high risk for the country. Up to 50.000 people could die because of lack of hospital facilities and economical resources. The lockdown was indicated as a better alternative. However, in a poor country like Malawi where most of the population depends on finding food on daily basis, the perspective of a lockdown is equally scary.
There were numerous protests today throughout the country and also in Mzuzu. Part of the government opposed the decision of president Mutharika as well. Unfortunately, the answer was loud and clear “Malawi army will enforce the lockdown. If needed considerable force will be used, but human rights will be respected“.
At the moment all our kids are in their homes. They were sent home from school already last week. Also Malita unfortunately had to go back to Nkhata Bay. She reached her mum’s home with a huge quantity of food. We can only hope everything will be fine with her. With the lockdown in place we won’t be able to get any news from her.
Clement will be able to communicate with the other families in the coming weeks and we hope to receive only positive news. The situation is critical also at Wit’s place. His aunt (the bread winner of his big family) had to stay back in South Africa, when lockdown began there. This means, these days, no one is able to take care of them. We sent the equivalent of 50EUR to each of the family, hoping this will help them get through this difficult times. For the rest, we can just keep our fingers crossed.
We will keep you updating on the progress and, as promised, we will share with you all the nice things happened in the past few months. We hope that soon the memory of the lockdown and the consequence of Covid19 will just be a distant memory.
