For a few months now, the world has been working differently than usual. We cannot carry out our usual activities without restrictions. Many things that were once possible are not at the moment. This also applies to the work of Irrawaddy River Doctors. In Myanmar there is still a very strict curfew in place until the end of May. People are allowed to leave their homes, but not their villages or towns. Police checks are carried out on everyone passing through, and anyone who cannot produce a permit from the authorities is not allowed to leave their home town. If you return from a trip, you must first go into quarantine for 21 days. Even our Irrawaddy River Doctors were not allowed to travel the usual route for the first few weeks of May. We have now received special permission to visit a total of 9 villages until the end of May.

However, we are not allowed to take our floating clinic Polli with us. We are only allowed to offer the most necessary medical assistance on a small scale. We therefore travel to the villages in two small boats and treat people in monasteries or schools. Our crew quickly built the necessary equipment.

To keep our Polli busy, she is now spontaneously going to Yangon for her annual MOT instead of August. We hope that we will all be able to meet up again in Bogale at the beginning of June and get back to our normal routine.