The morning after I arrived in Makeni we left the hotel to head to
the CCC and when I arrived, I met with Aminata who is responsible
for monitoring the burial teams and gravediggers. She’s an amazing person.
She’s from the area and has been doing community work with NGO’s for eleven
years. I was 14 years old when she started doing this work. She told me how
when she first started in this response effort she was afraid of Ebola, but
once her predecessor explained how to be safe she felt a lot better. Aminata provided me with a lot of information about both the
technical challenges the workers face (the app they use to send in data is
glitchy, they don’t have enough credits to send reports in, teams are being
forced to work at night by the military, lack of action taken by the
appropriate authorities when an unsafe burial has been conducted, etc.) and the
psychosocial issues that come with working in this situation. Many members of
the burial teams have started to have nightmares. Both burial team members and
grave diggers have been stigmatized and many have been kicked out of their
homes by their families. After speaking with Aminata, I had the opportunity to meet both the burial teams and
the gravediggers in person. I had known that I might have the opportunity to witness
a burial (I didn’t actually get to see one though), but I was still surprised
when Aminata asked if I wanted to go meet the burial teams. The teams are
headquartered across the street from the CCC so we just walked over
and spent a little time talking with them. They reiterated many of the concerns
Aminata had raised. Being so close to people who spend their days burying Ebola
victims was a bit unnerving. It was definitely the closest I had
been to Ebola (especially since there has been a big increase in cases in this
area recently) up to that point and it made me pay a lot more attention to handwashing and the
no touching rules. I was quite close to the burial team members, but obviously I
never touched any of them. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been so
close, but Aminata was just as close so I’m sure it was fine. They wear PPE
when they do burials anyway.
After meeting with the burial teams, Aminata shocked me
again by asking if I wanted to go meet the gravediggers AT THE CEMETERY. Um.
Okay. I had absolutely no idea that was something I’d be doing, but I’m
so glad I went. As we were getting ready to leave, one of my colleagues, John,
came over to me and started giving me some very serious instructions. He said
to be sure to keep my distance from the workers and told me that if they look
me in the face while talking that I should quickly turn away to ensure that no
spit gets anywhere near my face. Then he asked if I had a long sleeved shirt I
could put on so I had less exposed skin. It’s like a million degrees here in
Makeni so no, John, I don’t have any long sleeved shirts with me (apart from one
or two in Freetown), but thanks for scaring the crap out of me for about 2
minutes. Sometimes I forget that most of the people I work with are not public
health people. They’re development people or emergency response people, but
they’re not necessarily involved in public health activities regularly. I think
that makes them more likely to be concerned about things that aren’t really
going to get you infected. A healthy level of concern and respect for Ebola is
necessary, but to be unnecessarily fearful just makes people nervous. Anyway,
the gravediggers are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. When we
arrived, every single one of them started walking towards us from where they
were digging, stopped about 15-20 feet away from us and waited for us to
explain what we needed.
The pit where personal protective equipment (PPE) is burned each night |
Cemetery in Makeni |
As you might expect, a group of people who serve as gravediggers during an Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is not comprised
of a bunch of people with PhD's. They are people who have been looked down on by society constantly since this outbreak began and probably beforehand as well. They
should, however, be some of the most respected individuals taking part in this response. The
heat in Makeni is intense (but I hate the heat so maybe some of you wouldn’t
think it’s quite so bad) and these men work all day digging 8 feet deep graves
so that every single person is buried properly and safely. I could see the
sweat pouring off them (one guy was wringing out his shirt and I’m pretty
certain you could have filled a pool with the amount of sweat that came out)
which is probably why we stayed so far away. They articulated their concerns
and the challenges they face clearly and respectfully. It was obvious that they
thought I have far more power than I actually do, but I was happy to listen to
the issues they presented and I will do my very best to make sure they are
addressed. They also talked about how they were so grateful to God and to CRS
for all the progress that has been made. After they finished and I thanked them
for their hard work, someone began praying. I'm not actually sure if it was in English because it's sometimes hard for me to understand the accents here and because Krio has roots in Pidgin English I often can't tell if people are speaking Krio and I'm just catching some words that are the same in English or if they're speaking English and I just can't understand their accents. It was cool to be a part of it regardless of what language it was in.
When I got back to the hotel after work, I took my
temperature and it was 99.0 degrees which threw me into a panic for a few
minutes. Logically I knew that it was likely just because I had been outside for a good portion of the day in hot weather while wearing long pants. I know there’s no way I would have symptoms if I had been
exposed that day, but my temperature hadn’t been elevated once in my first month here and I had just spent a day with Ebola workers so my immediate conclusion was not a
positive one. But thankfully my temperature was down just a few minutes later
and all was well again. My next post will be up within the next couple of days. It will be the last (and most exciting) post about my week in the field and will feature some stories about my excursion to pay burial teams in some of the more rural chiefdoms, playing in a canoe, being trapped in a car with a chicken (aka Sriya's worst nightmare) and a day trip to Port Loko.
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