Skip to main content
The plane comes to a stop and everyone stands. Between the jumble of shoulders, heads and arms reaching for overhead lockers I catch a glimpse through the window – outside, flood lit and stark in the darkness, a building bears the uneven label “Lungi International Airport”.

We all move slowly to the exit, the conversation a babble of Krio, European and Chinese languages. At the plane door, a blast of heat and humidity as the West African night assaults us and my shirt is wet by the time I reach the bus that takes us the fifty metres to the airport building.

I strike up conversation with the person next to me – a European doctor returning from holiday. She was present throughout the ebola epidemic and talks passionately of the country. We walk past an unmanned health screening station – a piece of post-ebola heritage – for a quick passport check. Beyond, behind a dirty glass screen, men shout out offerings of currency exchange. I hand over £100 and in return receive several hundred notes in neat stacks. Flustered I stand clutching them and attempt to count. The teller looks at me bemused, and takes one of the piles and rapidly counts them in front of me “1, 2, 3, 4…”. I stop him when he reaches 80, “I’ll believe you!”

The pile is almost 2 inches thick – I stuff a few in my wallet and the remainder in various pockets.

Suitcases collected I step outside. The airport is on the farside of the bay and a boat transfer is necessary to get to Freetown itself. My new doctor friend reassures me the process is straightforward, and indeed within seconds I am swept into a flow of people moving from the arrivals area. “You need a transfer?” someone asks. Money is taken, my bags numbered, receipt given. The noise, crowd, activity and heat is startling.

We all climb onto coaches and a 10 minute ride takes us to the jetty. “Have you been here before?” a Chinese gentleman asks me as the coach bumps down the dirt track.

“I haven’t.” I reply. “Why are you here?”

“I work in construction. My boss told me to come,” he says grumpily and gazes moodily out of the window.

We walk down to a shelter just above the water line – a rickety wooden jetty reaches out to sea, disappearing into the darkness, and the waves break onto the littered sand just below us.



Twenty minutes later we are called to our boat. I see it at the end of the jetty, rocked alarmingly by the swell. We clamber into the enclosed passenger area.

“How long is the ride?” I ask my new doctor friend, anxiously, as a wave of nausea passes.
“About 30 minutes.” We sit together and she tells me something of her 4 years here, of working before Ebola, of seeing the first cases at the hospital in Freetown, of the deaths of patients and some colleagues, of the fear, of the amazing commitment of many, and of the recovery.

We pull alongside the key in Freetown and climb off. We are reunited with our bags and outside a driver stands with a sign bearing my name. She knows him and gives him a cheery greeting. He walks me to his car. “Ah,” he says. “In ebola she was a machine! She saved many lives.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wherever you go...

I pull the sterile gloves over my gown sleeves and look at the nurse. “Please could you…?” I ask shrugging my shoulders in the universal “my-sterile-gown-is-about-to-fall-off” gesture. She grins and slips around the bed to fumble for the poppers at the back. I eye her name badge. Startled – I glance at her. “Your name is Ndlovu?” “Yes.” “But that is a Zulu name!” “Yes!” Her face lights up. “You have been to South Africa ?” “I was working there last year.” “Oh! Where were you working?” “Hlabisa.” She claps her hands for joy, an enormous grin crossing her face. “But I live near there. If you take the road from Mtuba to the hospital I live in a village on the right.” I laugh at the incongruity of it. Here, in the dark at 2am, on a medical ward in an Oxford hospital, working with a Zulu nurse just I did for the last year. We talk animatedly about her home. “Did you train at Hlabisa?” “No. I trained at Bethesda . Do you know it?” “Oh yes – I visi...
4 comments
Read more

Otherwordly isolation

I lean across the reception desk and catch the attendant’s eye. “Sawubona,” I say, dusting off my rusty Zulu. I see you. “Sawubona, ninjani?” she replies. I see you, are you well? “Ngiyapela.” I’m fine. She grins at me. “You must be a doctor.” “I am! How did you know?” “It is only the doctors around here who use Zulu. Even if it is only the greetings.” She arches an eyebrow. “I used to work here, at Hlabisa hospital up the road. I have a few other Zulu words, you know like ‘Does it hurt?’ and ‘Take a deep breath’.” She laughs. And then launches into an excellent impression of an elderly Zulu lady rattling off a series of complaints, waddling across the reception area clutching her back in mock agony. She gets it exactly right. I have come up to KwaZulu-Natal for a few days. Tonight I am staying in the Hluhluwhe-iMfolozi game park, 20 minutes or so from where I used to work. Awarded my entry ticket, I drive into the park. The sun is low in the sky, the kills bathed in amber light. I ta...
3 comments
Read more

10 years on

The door flies open. Lele peers in. "You must come out here and see. They are doing a play!" I finish up my case file annotation and come to the doorway. The waiting area is in chaos. A gang of school children are manhandling a couple of marimba's to the space in front of the consulting rooms, a team of nurses and counsellors are creating a stage area. Patients look on mutely. Some with interest, others - presumably feeling proportionately less well - without. "What is going on?" I ask. "It is 10 years since the clinic started. 10 years since MSF first started the HIV treatment programme and proved that it could be done in Africa. So the staff are celebrating. They are doing a show or something." The sister in charge of the clinic has moved to the front of the crowd of patients. She calls for silence and then gives a short introduction. Lele translates for me. "She is saying that this is a very important day. 10 years ago people were dying. And 10...
3 comments
Read more