By Umaru Fofana
For the third time I visited Mariatu Kargbo this week at her Old Wharf residence at Wellington in the eastern Freetown suburb. She is a female member of one of the Ebola burial teams managed by the Red Cross, working in the Western Area Rural. Their job is straightforward but not simple
The last time I had visited Mariatu and her very wonderful family – sometime in November or so – it was to film her doing her very dangerous and stigmatising job – : swiftly collecting dead bodies, preparing them for burial and taking them to the cemetery because if they died of Ebola they are far more infectious than the sick.
In Waterloo, we followed her and her colleagues to collect bodies. On one occasion the remains were of a female and Mariatu had to go inside the room where they lay. “It is a way to ensure dignity even in death” she said.
In the face of a groundswell of stigmatisation she braved it to carry out a task many would be afraid or reluctant to do. Clearly, and very audibly, people in the neighbourhood made catcalls at her. One shouted “Ebola Mammy”. Another wondered aloud “of all the jobs all she would think of doing was to bury Ebola corpses”.
Mariatu’s face broke for a while, naturally perhaps, but her comeback was stunning. “That’s how they try to provoke me” she said, looking at me. “But I do not mind them, I am doing my job for myself and for my country” she said, breathlessly courageously.
When I returned there to Old Wharf this week, Mariatu’s ever-smiling husband was still smiling; still proud of his wife. Their children, the youngest aged five, were proud of mummy. “When I grow up I want to become a nurse like my mum”, 10-year-old Sarah Kargbo told me.
Mariatu always wanted to become a nurse. She says she struggled to fit into the scheme but as is so often the case in the land that we love, she could not make it because she did not have the right connections and could possibly not have afforded to pay her fees as a private student at Freetown’s prestigious Nursing School which is now a part of the College of Medicine and Allied health Sciences.
Even today, with Ebola bidding farewell, Mariatu’s dream is to fulfil that dream of becoming a nurse. It will cost the state nothing to make this woman proud that she and her family went through all the stigmatisation for her dedication to the motherland in time of a crisis.
People in the neighbourhood banned their kids from playing with Mariatu’s children because of her job even though when someone died they expected her to tend to their corpse. The Sierra Leonean government should show its human face to this woman and not to those who clapped and sang and danced and cussed during election time being awarded all the scholarships to study abroad.
And there are many Mariatu’s out there – no doubt. With Ebola fading away, and our independence anniversary approaching, it should not be too much to ask for all doctors and nurses who died on the frontline to be given the highest national honour and all their names read out at the official ceremony at State House and for the whole nation to stand up or standstill and salute them and shout a big and loud “Amen” for their souls to rest in peace.
It will not be too much to ask that all those alive – Sierra Leonean and non-Sierra Leonean alike – who went to the frontline, to be singled out for a joint award with the insignia given to all of them both on ground or back home. If we show ungratefulness to these Ebola fighters, as we did to the true soldiers and civil militias during our rebel war, the next wrath to visit us will be far more disastrous. And no one will risk anything to fight it back. A people that show ungratefulness to their heroes will die crawling. With the rebel war gone here we are with some in high places trying to rewrite history by distorting the facts about a war which caused mayhem in this country. But posterity will judge them.
To this day, Europeans and Americans are paying tribute and eulogising their soldiers who died between 1914 and 1919, never mind those who died in 1939 – 1945. Here we do not even commemorate our fighters and the civilians who died during our war of the 1990s but our leaders will take a day off to booze and eat to mark Mayong Day. We are sick!
But back to Ebola, the children of Ebola frontline responders who succumbed should be put on a bursary to study in our schools and colleges. I know this could be open to abuse in a country where corruption is in almost everyone’s DNA especially those in any form of authority. But that can be dealt with so long the families of these heroes and heroines are made to feel the reward of the sacrifice of their parents.
By the time we celebrate our independence day in April this year, Sierra Leone will still not have been declared Ebola-free even with all the positive signs that Ebola is on the throes of destruction. But we can use a week of activities to include an interfaith service for all our health workers who succumbed to Ebola. Theirs was a sacrifice made so we could continue to live.
Those frontline workers who are in service should be engaged on what their future intentions is. It should be treated like trimming down an over-bloated civil service. Those who have age and qualification to their advantage but joined in as volunteers to fight Ebola should be incorporated somehow. Those who don’t can be disengaged with some respect and severance package. Sarah Kargbo, like her mother Mariatu, and like many other children of Ebola responders who cannot afford it, should not be allowed to drop off the cliff.
As Ebola seems to be fading away, long live our responders. You helped save our nation by putting yourselves in harm’s way. I am proud of you all.
© Politico 05/02/15
