Conspiracy theories swirl around every society, but never more than rural African ones.

When I was working in Southern Africa in the 1990s, the local young men were adamant that AIDS was a pro-celibacy conspiracy: American Invention to Discourage Sex was their take on the acronym.

So it’s not surprising that crazy myths and rumours about our Ebola hospital have already started.

At the morning Command and Control meeting we are informed that local people have been told that a new hospital has been built to deliberately infect people with Ebola. Apparently a white man has been seen at the Ebola hospital giving people Ebola injections.

All 30 people turn to look at me, as I am the only white man in the room, and I can’t but help feeling guilty – it’s my natural state from a Catholic upbringing. I try to laugh it off, but end up making a semi-apologetic alibi (IT WASN’T ME, I WASN’T THERE!!)

I decided that some community engagement is needed – to quash the conspiracies but also head off the problems that Kerrytown had being swamped with patients on the first day. I head to Moyamba radio station and offer an interview.

Everything is Ebola – the jingles, the songs, the public information announcements. I get my messages across and field a few tricky questions (how many tropical diseases are there in Sierra Leone? What date will Ebola be eradicated?)

Back at the hospital we continue to fill in the big empty spaces and prepare our routines. It feels too slow for me, but there is much enthusiasm and I enjoy getting stuck in with the local porters as we search through stores and find gems of equipment, as well as less useful boxes.

We still have no gloves or masks, though arrival is imminent. I find 500 mobile phones (??) and wonder if rather than donning the PPE we could just give the patients mobile phones and ring them to find out how they are doing in the red zone.

Our evenings are quiet and dull. There is no internet to hypnotise us. No alcohol, of course. We eat together on long tables and then the Norwegians have a team meeting, which I am invited to, but as it’s all in ‘stone-age Norwegian’ there is little point. I retire to my tent and write this blog. Then to sleep.

I am a light and episodic sleeper. My children are habituated to tip-toeing upstairs after their late nights out to avoid a grumpy dad the next morning. So the communal tent living takes a bit of getting used to.

My tent-mates turn-in and rise in different rhythms, with a nocturnal chorus of tossing and turning and snoring and sighs. In the background the most ubiquitous soundtrack in Africa - the chugging hum of the diesel generator.

We are back in our infection control bubble, living in the camp and being ferried to the Ebola Centre three miles away in our own minibus. The Norwegians are forbidden to leave the camp, and I savour my freedom strolling into town.

I know you won’t have any sympathy with this, but it is very, very hot and even the mildest of exercise exhausts. Oh, for some English winter weather.

Things I have learnt today: The Germans pronounce Ebola with the emphasis on the E. The French in contrast pronounce it with the emphasis on the A. In English the emphasis is on the O. Such a short word and so much variation. How strange. The second thing I have learnt today, though unconfirmed, is that one of our NHS team has been flown back to the UK with Ebola. Someone I trained with presumably. It is getting closer.

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