Ebola
Tue, 2014-10-14 18:35
News Staff
By Tom Haughey
In Liberia you’re paid $800 a month to dress in a hazardous materials suit and remove dead bodies and infected items from homes. The people in the area sometimes accuse you of bringing in the sickness with you. They are extremely poor, live in cramped conditions, and believe you’re stealing family possessions when you remove those infected items. You are also disrupting their traditionswhich require them to prepare the body for a funeral and burial and gather around the deceased for a wake. They are horrified that you intend to cremate the corpse. Sometimes you have to threaten to leave the infected body in the house if they don’t agree to cremation. Sometimes they attack you. If the attack compromises your protective suit, you know you’ll die. After you wrap the body in plastic, put it on the truck, and leave, life will return to normal for these people. In instances where there is only one bed in the house, five or seven people will sleep in that bed. It is the same bed, of course, in which the infected family member died.
Read the entire story on the e-Edition of our newspaper. http://www.etypeservices.com/Advance%20News%20JournalID455/