A journalist on a monthlong visit to Sierra Leone provides a realistic view of people living their lives while their nation struggles to recover from a deadly outbreak
A few ladies tool around on a motorcycle at the ocean’s edge in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Although Ebola enters its sixth month in the capital, people can only sustain sadness for so long, and the girls seem to be enjoying themselves this afternoon... Credit: Amy Maxmen
Paramount Chief Alhaji Amara B. Vangahun (in white) presides over some 25,000 people in the Nongowa Chiefdom in Kenema, the eastern district of Sierra Leone. Government officials may enforce the law, but people listen to the chief... Credit: Amy Maxmen
When Ebola arrived in Kenema, in eastern Sierra Leone, doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians hardly knew what it was—never mind the precautions they needed to take to protect themselves. Fliers on the walls of Kenema General Hospital commemorate dozens of staff who succumbed to the terrible disease... Credit: Amy Maxmen
At Kenema General Hospital, many of the brave staff who care for patients and handle corpses have not been paid for two months. Here, Mohammed Koroma stands in front of the overflowing morgue. His job is to carry dead bodies to the morgue, clean them and send them to the graveyard... Credit: Amy Maxmen
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The blood from people who have survived Ebola might help cure patients, so some survivors, including the two people above, have donated their blood. I ask the woman, Fudia Sesay, why she donated. She answers: “I watched 20 or 30 people die beside me for weeks in the Ebola ward... Credit: Amy Maxmen
When Ebola hit, internationally run extraction companies deserted Sierra Leone, leaving local workers jobless. Here is an abandoned Chinese mining company outside of Freetown. Most of Sierra Leone’s export revenue comes from the extraction industry, dealing in diamonds, gold, iron and bauxite... Credit: Amy Maxmen
A woman in the Kamboma village pounds palm tree seeds to collect the nuts within. Later, she’ll fry, pound and boil the nuts to extract their oils. Normally she sells palm oil at the market—but she can’t now because her village has cut itself off from contact with outsiders to prevent Ebola from entering... Credit: Amy Maxmen
A medical student catches a ride into villages on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he will check on people who feel ill. If he thinks they show signs of Ebola, such as a fever, vomiting or bloody-red eyes, he’ll call for an ambulance... Credit: Amy Maxmen
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“The Swab Team.” Men on motorcycles collect saliva samples (“swabs”) from people who have died, place them in a safe container on the back of their bikes, and ride them to a laboratory where laboratory technicians test the samples for Ebola with molecular techniques... Credit: Amy Maxmen
Children laugh and kick a soccer ball behind the wall of a courtyard near Ascension Road in Freetown. For all the hardship and terror that Ebola causes, Sierra Leoneans astound me daily with their humor, compassion and breathtaking bravery... Credit: Amy Maxmen
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone—If you’ve even glanced at the news in the past several months, the grainy image of the microscopic, wormy Ebola virus as well as photographs of otherworldly workers dressed in hazmat suits have passed before your eyes. From afar, the contagion devastating West Africa can seem foreign or even reminiscent of bad science fiction—and perhaps that’s one reason why the world responds relatively slowly as the outbreak persists into its second year.
Hazmat suits represent only a slight fraction of what I see on the ground in Sierra Leone while on a reporting fellowship here this month. Although the virus permeates all aspects of life, it’s really in the background. Up front are humans who love, eat, work, pray and play. And none of that feels the least bit foreign to me. In this slide show, I’ve intentionally left out photos of Ebola treatment tents and hazmat suits. You’ve probably already seen that. I want to give you a glimpse of the 99 percent.
Travel funds for this story were provided by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. [http://pulitzercenter.org/]
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