The morning Command and Control meeting is packed with increasingly outrageous stories about what the people of Bradford and Ribbi are up to. It sounds like some sort of Dionysian orgy.

Our recon mission to bring order to the lawless streets of Bradford will involve the SL army, police, British army and the district health team.

By the time we finish the meeting and break up to head to our convoy of 4x4s we are pumped up into a frenzy of righteousness. Let’s do it! Yeah! Booyah! Let’s go!

The British army contingent have by far the best looking vehicle, so the DMO and myself place strategic reservations for the back seats of their Land Cruiser.

Of course we don't just go. Our 9am departure meanders past 9.30am and then 10am. By 11am there is no sign of any imminent departure - in fact everyone seems to have disappeared on spurious errands. Eventually, with Western impatience, the British army team decides to head off, persuading the health team to join us. The SL army and police promise to follow ‘five minutes’ later.

The road to Bradford is an old British-built railway line, pulled up many years ago, and it is terrible. It looks like something that the Top Gear team would choose for a monster truck expedition. We bump and thud across rocky outcrops and through precariously deep rivers. One day somebody is going to buy this Landcruiser from Autocar and be very disappointed in how the one careful owner has treated it.

We pass through numerous fever and hand-washing checkpoints on the way. I ask one security guard if he gets many cars going past. We are the first he says. I’m not clear if this is just for this day, or forever. The villages are well-kept, many with home-made hands-free chlorine dispensers outside each hut. The social mobilisation team have left their mark and entire communities are living a life of Godly cleanliness.

We arrive in Bradford with aching backs and relieved sighs to be greeted by a well-maintained train station sign announcing our destination. A perfect photo opportunity! Our police and army colleagues end up leaving nearly an hour after us, but roar up in a great cloud of dust within minutes of our arrival. They must have been flying over the ditches and rocks.

Our entourage must be the most exciting thing that has happened in Bradford for months, but the local people are nonchalant and wary of us. I smell disobedience in the dry heat of the midday air. We try to track down the Paramount Chief and are directed to a nearby village, a couple of miles away. Everywhere appears to be ‘a couple of miles’ away in distance, a description that bears little resemblance to reality.

We head off down increasingly remote jungle tracks. Our Sierra Leonean army escort look a fearsome lot, standing menacingly in the back of the military pick up as it bumps up and down. One of them wears a SAS style balaclava in luminescent green. They look like a cross between an ISIS scouting party and a fancy dress party. As we go deeper into bush the thought does cross our mind that this might be well be some elaborate ISIS ruse to kidnap us. It is for occasions like this that as an Englishman I proudly carry my Irish passport.

We end up at a river boundary separating two villages. The Paramount Chief is nowhere to be found, but the two village chiefs are rounded up and with them a curious crowd of on-lookers.

The local language is Shabu, so we translate from Krio to Shabu, and when I talk, from English to Krio to Shabu. I suspect Chinese whispers may be altering the content of my speech as they look completely perplexed when I finish.

However, the key messages are driven firmly home by the head of the health team. The President is angry; Ebola is a killer; they must change their wicked ways; this British doctor will leave us and go home if they don’t (I’m not sure if this a threat or an incentive). Safe burials, good hygiene and no more strangers...

For all the bad reputation that they have built up, they seem unexpectedly compliant and agreeable. The chiefs promise they will behave and we head off along bad roads to continue our search for the Paramount Chief.

The army and police escorts appear to think this is a dress rehearsal for a Jason Bourne film, and we struggle to keep up. No wonder they caught us up so quickly this morning. Perhaps not surprisingly after five minutes the army pick-up has a puncture.

We discover that we have one spare tyre between the three vehicles - the one on our British army Land Cruiser. It takes another half hour while we work out how to release the spare tyre. A large group of men peering over a Toyota instruction manual. Professionals in action.

When we get to the next town we are informed that the Paramount Chief has moved once more. He appears to be the Scarlet Pimpernel of Moyamba district. Another ‘couple of miles’ and I am preparing myself for future lifetime in a wheelchair. We decide the hunt is over and leave the army and police to carry on so we can return to Moyamba before dark.

The news is good on my return. The water is returning and the tankers have arrived. We reopen for business and our first patients quickly arrives. Christmas Eve and I head to the hospital for my festive night on call.

A quick photo next to the Norwegian Christmas tree - they tell me it’s one of their finest firs, but I suspect they are lying.

MORE BLOG POSTS FROM PROFESSOR JOHN WRIGHT