Earlier this year, Hong Kong people scoured the world for masks to protect ourselves from the coronavirus. At that point the government claimed that we should not wear masks. And the world laughed at us scrambling for masks. Fortunately we did not listen to our government, and ignored the derision - considering our safely to be more important than looking silly or disobedient.
One of our foreign students helped us source 25,000 masks from overseas. Most of that went to our colleagues and friends.
A few months later, the coronavirus is seemingly under control for now in Hong Kong. And masks of all sorts are expensive but at least available. In early May, we decided to ship the remaining 1,500 masks to our friends in Rwanda, where masks are scarce as well as expensive relatively to local wages.
We repacked the masks to reduce the volume and the total weight, and sent them away without too much trouble. We tracked the package to London and then it got stuck. The shipping company cannot find a plane to fly the package to Rwanda. Similar to many countries, Rwanda is still in lockdown. Rwandans are allowed to return, but otherwise no one is coming into Rwanda.
Despite all our efforts, our masks have not yet reached our friends in Rwanda. We can do nothing else but pray for the restrictions to be lifted. In the mean time, we pray that our friends stay safe.
In a normal year, I will be seeing them sometime in June, on yet another service-learning project, mostly likely installation of solar panels and indoor wiring for lighting for another hundred of households, somewhere to the southeast of Kigali. Right now, however, I have no idea when I will be able to see them again.
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