Behind the Eclipse

by Pramudith D. Rupasinghe

  When we reached home, after all, it was almost eight in the evening, and Princess was barely alive. I could not look at my first child, father`s girl who was gradually giving up her life. She threw up whatever she took into her mouth, and she had already developed extreme weakness and dehydration. I had only one person to call who was my last resort. I rang Dr. Harris.

  ‘Sir my daughter is critical with fever. No one wanted to treat her, even JFK.’ When I kept on explaining the situation, I heard ‘I will come soon, give me a second,’ from the other end which was a great consolation.

  Dr. Harris reached our home in less than ten minutes, and he observed Princess from a distance, which I understood as a paramedic.

  ‘George, I brought drips and dextrose and tomorrow we will check for Malaria too.’ He asked me to give her drips to rehydrate her and next morning we checked her for Malaria in the lab of our medical centre. She was diagnosed positive for falciparum malaria and Dr. Harris prescribed her Lumapherine course for three days which helped her recover fully after a week.

  Dr. Harris was like the son of God who was sent to save the life of my daughter Princess, but hundreds of Liberians were not blessed with such special privileges and had to witness their children, spouses, siblings and parents succumb to treatable diseases. They were counted as probable Ebola cases and deaths.

  ‘What about my proposal? I know you had a hectic time, I think you might have forgotten,’ he said with his usual smile. He was referring to his suggestion for me to join as a community mobilizer.

  ‘Sorry Sir. I could barely breathe last few days’, I apologised.

  ‘It’s ok,’ he said.

  ‘You know there is a better job with a batter pay, if you would like,’ he added.

  ‘You will be paid 1,300 dollars a month as a nurse in the proposed ETU which will be in operation next month on’

  ‘1,300 dollars Sir? What dollars?’ I could not believe that I would touch 1,300 United States dollars.

  ‘United States dollars,’

  ‘People like you have to be in the forefront now,’ he said heaving a sigh.

  I had already tasted the bitterness and felt the haplessness when a loved one was deprived of the right to treatment. I did not want a single father or mother to go through what I already had. I was realistic enough to understand that; I could not control the outbreak situation in the country as one individual, but as a father, a strong desire to do something to prevent what I bitterly underwent repeatedly rose within me.

  And, if I was deployed as a nurse in an ETU, the education of Aminatta would no longer be a dream. I said ‘Yes,’ without a second thought.

  33

  Instead of the melodious symphonies of the Pepper Bird, daily Ebola updates on the radio had become the wake-up call for many Liberians. Regular updates on fervently surging new cases and deaths had alarmed that the Liberia`s dream of recovery from its devastating civil conflicts would remain just a dream for the next couple of years. Every single day, news about new cases and Ebola-related deaths were reported not only from Monserrado and Lofa but also from the other counties such as Bong and Margibi indicating that sooner than later the whole country would be in the hands of death. But, still many people kept on living in their own way ignoring the ‘dos’ and ‘don`t`s’ in preventing the spread and instead of spreading the message of prevention, they kept on spreading rumours just the same way that the Pastor Jean-Paul explained in his letter about what happened in Guinea. Many Liberians were reluctant to accept that there was a disease which would spread if they continued in the way they lived thus far. To be frank, it was hard to refrain from the kind of food that one had been eating for decades and eating in the community sharing the same spoon which we believed as a gesture of unity and brotherhood. Besides, the kind of things that the community mobilizers used to tell regarding taking care of the loved ones and burials without proper rituals were considered as taboos in my society. I could recall how guilty I was when I was unable to facilitate my father to join the ancestors. And the years rolled on; the religious outlook changed, and there were new ways of lives emerging in from urban areas. We were the same Africans in our souls who were constantly connected to our ancestors for help and whose traditions dictated the rules of life. To the outside world, even for me, our whole nation appeared to be in a dormant stage where they had not gauged the real risk of Ebola, but we were in a constant struggle to accept the new phenomenon where the whole life was supposed to be changed. As a resistance to the newly imposed lifestyle it became very common to hear rumours such as those who go to the ETU never return home; in ETU the white man takes out organs of Africans, Ebola is an American conspiracy, westerners want to eradicate Africans, and they spread Ebola just like they did with HIV dispersed in all directions. Being largely a rumour driven society, many Liberians did not want to send their sick loved ones to the ETU. In the remote villages some of them had fled into the bush so as not to be caught by the health workers and on many occasions, the health workers were attacked by the communities when they went to pick patients from their villages.

  Burial teams were attacked by the villagers many times because they did not want anybody in their communities to be buried without proper rituals. A few times, family members had hidden the bodies of their deceased loved ones and denied the fact that the patient was dead. Such behaviours with strong cultural bonds kept on fuelling the fires that had already burnt down a significant proportion of the country, and those very habits of the Liberians were the main challenges the international community faced amid their self-effacing efforts in fighting the epidemic.

  Hiding behind the curtain of rumours and denial, Ebola crept into every single corner of the country. In the peak of the rainy season in 2015, by August and September the epidemic had already taken Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia completely into its fatal grip and crept through the frontiers to other countries, such as Senegal, Mali and Nigeria in West Africa. That lead to a situation in which three majorly affected countries were quarantined from the rest of the world. Many international airlines stopped coming to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone disconnecting us from the rest of the world which resulted in restricted movements as well as a big blow to the country`s economy that was miles behind its recovery after the civil conflicts.

  After a few days, Free-port; international naval port of Liberia announced scaling down its operations as ships stopped coming in and the flow of goods into the country was blocked. Simultaneously, the government of Liberia closed the borders between Sierra Leone and Guinea. Ivory Coast too decided to close its borders with Liberia at the very onset of the outbreak blocking all the routes through which all the necessities entered the territory of Liberia. As a consequence, the prices of everything raised sky-high.

  Liberia being a country where more than one-third of its population lived under the poverty line; the sudden rise of goods created a situation in which we were unable to afford the daily food requirements of the family which persuaded many a youth to get back to the criminal activities such as robbing foreigners, looting the warehouses and pick-pocketing in public places; especially near the supermarkets adding more numbers to the already existing criminality in the country.

  ‘It`s the NGO`s who are spreading Ebola to extend their programs in Liberia,’ My neighbour told his wife in a sarcastic voice which was loud enough for me to hear. I was drinking my Atae in the veranda.

  ‘George, I heard that they pay better to their staff now,’ he approached looking at me over his round eyeglasses.

  ‘Jameson, I get the same small amount.’ I told him with a smile as I did not want to engage myself in a never ending argument with him.

  ‘James, you come here! NGO spread Ebola.’ His wife Margaret`s loud voice turned him back.

  ‘Maggi almost fought with me this morning’ I did not know Aminatta was behind me.

  ‘What’ I wanted to know what made her qua
rrel with Aminatta who always had very friendly relationships with everyone.

  ‘She told that you were working for an NGO that spreads Ebola.’ Her response shocked me.

  ‘Aminatta, my organisation is treating people with Ebola, they save lives,’ I said aloud because I knew well what we were doing.

  ‘If she does not believe, ask her to come with me next day, I will show her.’

  ‘Aminatta, Dr. Harris is going give me a promotion.’ I said injecting a hope in her, but I made sure not to mention anything about Ebola.

  ‘You would be able to resume your education as well,’ I added with delight.

  ‘You are not going anywhere else?’

  ‘No, I will be in the same office,’ I replied quickly to close the discussion as I saw George II returning from his music class which he attended after school.

  ‘Papa Papa,’ he came running to me.

  ‘We can play the whole month,’ he looked triumphal.

  ‘Play?’

  ‘Yes,’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No school from tomorrow on,’

  ‘Hmm,’ I felt Aminatta`s sigh as strong as the wind that blew across the Atlantic taking many tin roofs away during the rainy season. Ebola had finally deprived the right to education of those who were longing to discover a promising future after a decade-long period without going to school. I looked at Aminatta who was stroking the head of George II who was happy as he could play, but Aminatta`s face was covered with a black veil of hopelessness. A woman who was battling to recover from a life-long trauma after being gang raped during the brutal conflict which deprived her of all her rights including education was just hopeful for a few minutes, but the history looked like a rubber ball in waters.

  34

  Since nothing but the spread of the disease progressed, the government of Liberia had to impose the curfew and ban all gatherings in the country. After the war, the shops used to be closed by 08:00 p.m as no one trusted the level of security in the country, even though there was a peace-keeping mission of the United Nations. There were still weapons left with the ex-rebels who used to find their living as armed robbers. Due to Ebola, curfew was declared active from 07:00 a.m to 06:00 p.m every day which shortened the time of business in Monrovia where the police could monitor whereas outside the city, there was impunity.

  All the nightclubs were shut down. Once famous, restaurants and pubs were left haunted. Many expatriate hotspots, where most of the international aid workers released their stress became hibernated in no time. Name boards of local bars and clubs where we used to go, and Waka-waka to loud music disappeared under the dust. Walking along the streets of Monrovia without hearing ‘Chop my money’—a famous Nigerian song and seeing girls shaking their protruded round butts just like pumpkins, gradually became usual. Once vibrant nightlife faded into the darkness caused by the eclipse called Ebola. The blue notes of the expatriates that used to bring luxury to the world`s oldest profession suddenly stopped pushing the girls, who used to be on 14th cross street of Sinkor, Monrovia, to lower their rates to fifty Liberian dollars or, sometimes, less than that.

  Bans and limitations did not leave the Yellow-Machines. There were a few cases where the suspected cases were taken to hospitals in the shared taxis. Also, rumours travelled in all directions that the dead bodies of Ebola victims were transported in Yellow-machines which one could believe that the taxi drivers would not hesitate to carry anything if they were given a higher rate. The government of Liberia imposed a limit of four passengers to Yellow-machines which prevented them from packing people in like goats. As a consequence, many Yellow-machine owners decided to stop running taxis because they could not earn the way they used to do. And the auto riders could not find clients the way they used to do because a slowly growing vigilance had crept into Liberian society about the fact that Ebola was real. Instead of the denial of existence, people started talking more and more about the conspiracy theories which, anyway, indicated that Liberians had accepted the existence of a killer disease that they had to stay away from.

  ‘White man`s trap is killing Africans,’ taxi driver said when I was going to the office in the morning.

  ‘We got to be careful white man wicked,’ a lady among the passengers warned.

  ‘It’s America. They first brought Congo-people, then war after war, now Ebola. They want Liberians to be weak and poor.’ The anti-Americanism that germinated during the Doe regime still had a strong voice in the country, and it was steadily growing whereas Ellan Johnson Serif`s government was extremely pro-American.

  ‘Three dead bodies were in Red-Light. People afraid to go there,’ the lady among the passengers said closing her eyes with her hands.

  I did not want to tell that my neighbour accused me of spreading Ebola by working for an NGO. Nothing rational could be expected from this majority of people who were like frogs in the pond as they did not listen to the outside world and always heard the echo of their thoughts.

  Instead of the denial of Ebola, a fast growing hyper vigilance, stigmatisation and violence against Ebola patients and their close family members and sometimes, towards the highly affected villages emerged in the society. As a consequence dead bodies were left at roadsides, the properties of the affected families were burnt down, and mob violence against the victims, survivors, and their relatives became an easily noticeable social reaction to Ebola epidemic.

  ‘George, can you please come to my office anytime after ten?’ Dr. Harris was smoking near the gate of the office compound when I walked in. I was startled by his sudden calling by my name as I did not expect him to be near the gate though I quickly recognised his voice.

  ‘Yes Sir, I will do,’ I replied.

  ‘Good morning,’ Dr. Harris said after a few seconds. Usually, he greeted first whenever we crossed our paths and rarely smoked; mostly when he was stressed.

  ‘Sir, Very good morning!’ I stopped and walked towards him.

  ‘How was the night?’ It was the Liberian version of ‘How are you.’

  ‘Good but the situation in the country is escalating very fast,’ he added.

  ‘There are no single five minutes without hearing an Ambulance and the siren of the cabs of the burial teams,’ he said without looking at me.

  Almost every five minutes, the unnerving siren of the ambulances and vehicles of Ebola dead body burial teams exhausted into the dense and humid air laden with fears and sorrows which made whole Monrovia look like an emergency ward; it reminded me of how death and fear dominated decades ago by the frequent sounds of shelling and shooting in this place. I thanked God and the envoys of God who saved my life and took me to Guinea. If I had not got the chance to meet the Reverend Maurice, I would have gone through the conflicts. Probably, I would have been recruited forcefully as one of those children who shot every moving thing with their AK 47 which was even taller than them. Except for a few thousands of people like me, who had the privilege to escape without being caught in vicious current called war and those who were born after the war, every other Liberian who remained witless in fear of Ebola had been living plunged in fear of terror during the Liberian civil conflicts. It was a situation where the Mamba bit the man who was caught in a trap.

  ‘My man, in the time my butt naked, people died like this. Those are evil spirits,’ a man called Bloh from Sannniqelle, Nimba, who worked as tea-maker in the office, told while I was having my morning tea. He recalled the memories of the Bush-curse in Lofa.

  ‘When I was in Kissi village in Lofa, it was the 1960s; I was a boy who was growing fast. The Bush-curse invaded every single place known to us and took away more than two third of our village, including my family members,’ I briefed him my story.

  ‘I believe this is the same,’ Blah said touching his bushy beard with his hands.

  I was convinced that there were people in Liberia who had witnessed the outbreaks of diseases s
uch as Ebola during their childhood. But the majority unquestionably denied the fact that such a disease had been existing in the region before and limitedness of scientific evidence about the existence of Ebola in Liberia supplemented the public belief.

  ‘My mother and two sisters died.’

  ‘With Bush-curse?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘We in Nimba call it friends. When they are obsessed with frequent presence of human beings in the bush, they send their wrath in the head of a fruit bat to cut down the number in human beings around there.’ His explanation was not a new one to me. Kissis also believed that the curse came from the bush even though we did not specify that it was sent along with a fruit-bat, but we knew that humans contracted it from animals in the bush.

  ‘If more than three monkeys die in seven Suns, fourth one wants to take humans with them.’ It was a great Kissi saying that my grandfather used to tell. He used to say, ‘the wild almonds which slip between the teeth of a flying bereaved bat make those who pick widows and widowers.’ What old people used to say matched perfectly with the messages dissemination used for prevention of Ebola in modern days, and also exhumed a relic about how different tribes used various names for what is called Ebola today.

  ‘Dr. Harris is calling you,’ one of my colleagues tapped on my shoulder showing Dr. Harris who was looking how Bloh and I were talking as if we were two old friends who had met after a few decades.

  I went to his cabin. ‘Sorry Sir,’ I apologised.

  ‘George, Monday on you are assigned to the ETU. Actually, it is a risky Job, but your service is vital for this country and your people,’ he said empathically.

  ‘Sir, I understand,’ I said humbly.

  ‘You can now sign the new contract which I have already signed,’ he gave me a file with a couple of papers.

  ‘1,400 dollars per month, Ebola Response Program- ETU-Southern Monrovia- Mr. George Bokai.’ Over the fear factor of staying closer to the killer virus, I felt honoured to serve my nation at this critical time. Also, I was more than delighted to see the amount I received as my salary which gave me a vivid imagination of Aminatta resuming her education, children, having better conditions and my professional development. But a cloudy feeling invaded my mind next second realising that the schools were closed and not only my life, but also the life of my whole family might be at risk in case I contracted Ebola. Nonetheless, the fluctuating nature of my thoughts could not reverse my firm decision.