Monday,

It has been an interesting day; we were warned at the start that due to changes in the financial reimbursement of delegates there might be some annoyance shall we say and there certainly was!

 It wasn’t helped as the circumcision conference had indeed displaced us to the conference room at the seventh day Adventist church headquarters and there were no coffee or lunch facilities on site !!

The Rwandan pharmacists are a feisty bunch we can tell you (not like your friendly Julie Pharmacy)! but  by the start of the presentations everyone had just about adjusted  so we were performing to a packed crowd of 50 (a sell-out you might say)!!

Unfortunately it is clear the Rwandan pharmacists have succumbed to many of the myths regarding opioids. We have had it all today, addiction, diversion, killing people, at one point we were asked why we are promoting morphine but we have held our own we think even if many nearly fell off their seats when we talked about the patient we had on 1800mg BD. (I think they thought we had got our numbers confused due to the language so we had to write it down on the flip chart), there is one guy though who is not for turning , and argued with Julie about receptors  (he lost) and we will try our powers of persuasion with him again tomorrow.

Our concerns about the language barrier have not been as bad as we expected, there have been a few issues, thankfully we have had others with us to translate!  Football clearly is a universal language as our red card system, when addressing myths was understood immediately , and very well received,there are the usual large number of Man U fans !

We have still not resolved the money crisis and this evening we were locked in a bank cupboard  while two bank staff dismantled the ATM, we were so tired we saw the funny side and were liberated in time for our wild evening of 2 fanta lemonades, they always ask us if we want them cold , why  would we want them warm ????

8 am start again tomorrow which means we will be there for 745 and they may get started for 9!!