Ebola in town

The West Africa Ebola Virus outbreak in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria has consumed more than 1,200 lives with more than 2,200 suspect cases. World Health Organisation has declared the epidemic as an international emergency.

 

1785, Gola Forest, Sierra Leone, group of Kru tribals settle in the woods having recently migrated from Lofa, Liberia. They collect timbers, tubers and hunt Diana monkeys for food. Life has given enough troubles to every member of the clan but now Krus have settled for peace and serenity, which is but temporary in their new habitat. Dumola Muwalu Bukele, the local tribal elder of the Vai tribe is unapproving of the recent Kru developments in his neighbourhood. Krus do not share ethnicity with Vai but they are ferocious and brave although a minority. Vais on the other hand are the deadly hunters and conjurers who on wish can change themselves into demons. Eventually on the night of full moon when Krus are dancing and drinking to celebrate Jacqui - birth of their clan deity, Bukele attacks the settlement. The Vai demons attack with claws, jaws, spears and knives on the unarmed Krus including women and kids. Beaded hair and white decorated Kru faces are reddened with blood and soon the settlement is flooded with dead bodies around the fire. The witch-hunt consumes every single Kru save mother Sherma who says to the demon Bukele:

We came for water, we came for food, we meant no harm, sorghum we brewed.

We didn’t take arms for tonight Jacqui we celebrate, had we picked up our spears, our might we had demonstrate.

You are no demon, you’re just another coward, mark my words for darkness on you shall be showered.

For a time shall come when the beast of the fallen Kru shall arise,

In the dread of the night it will walk with black eyes.

It will eat, it will bite and will wipe your name in mud,

All your men will die and their women will weep blood!

Having cursed Bukele, Sherma, still breathing and the entire settlement was put to fire. As the fire consumed Sherma, Bukele watched her burning and screaming in agony. Soon the screams were muted and silence engulfed the settlement. But unnerved he stood, for Bukele could still see clearly the curse of Sherma still hanging above the ashes.

229 years after her death, the beast has finally arisen.

         

2014, 9:30pm meanwhile in Sierra Leone…

(Donda, Running and panting, speaking to himself) Where are you! Sshhhit! (Breathing heavily) Keep runnin, keep runnin little Donda, almost there! This isn’t real…this can’t be! My God, stop shouting, Edward for Christ’s sake shut up these women!

(Meanwhile women shouting…) Eee Bow Laaa! Eee Boww Laaaa!

Edward: I’m trying my man, they’re excited Donda. Where’re you up to Donda?

Donda: Edy my man, I’m off to report a signature!

(Donda to himself) Keep runnin, keep runnin Donda, you’re almost there! I know the world is spinning, but this ain’t your regular psychedelic smoke, this is lack of air, ma mouth is dry, I’m thirsty and I’m about to fall… (Thud!) I’m down, man down, get up, no let me lay, let me die… at least it’s less painful… (Silence)… The taste of mud, they say it’s salty and its smell… more like my hair… this is heaven. No!! Get up you good for nothing jackass, find the white shirts. This is a task, to fall and die is a direct breach of protocol! My legs are weak but functional still and run I shall, yet again. Keep runnin keep runnin little Donda, there it is, the white van.

Donda to white-shirts: Sir! Sir Hello sir, the… theyr… there’s a signature sir, yes sir, premature.

(Donda contemplating) Then I sit in the white van with the white shirts and we trace back the path that I recently ran past. There yonder pond lies Sister Mary in her hut and we’ll fetch her with doctors, with medics and throw Ebola out’a her. Eee Bow Laaa Eee Bow Laaa vehemently shouts the women of the neighbourhood. This is my small animated locality in western Daru, Sierra Leone and I am 40 year old Ebanahu Donda. I own a meat shop and my neighbours call me little Donda, owing to my little body. White shirts say I do not grow because I shit in open. I believe the white shirts. Our van speeds past bushes on one side and muddy-plastered huts on other side. It’s 2143hrs and there’s no electricity (hardly surprizing) save the orange glows of Naftaada Lamps (kerosene lamps), which the lahai women light up every evening in their small huts for what has become a ritual now. There are rumours that shouting EBOLA aloud will make the disease go so every evening invariably, women flock near the cotton tree and repeatedly shout aloud Eee Bow Laaa! As our van approaches the pond and we dismount the van, white shirts jump out with extreme swiftness and carry Sister Mary inside the van on a stretcher.

White-shirts: “The girl is showing Ebola signatures. We will take her and her father to the treatment facility. Do not enter the premises of this hut. Do not touch anything and women... stop wailing.

(Sffwoosh!) The van drives away in the dark of the night leaving me with animated men and hysterical women. Soon the neighbours retreat to their dingy huts and I can hear the crickets as silence falls. Naftaada lights flicker over my face revealing the dread and tears in my eyes. While I weep, shadows dance on brown mud walls as if mocking my pain, Mary’s pain. And in the shadows I can sense an old women… and her curse.

Donda: Bad… This is very bad, I say.

9:23am next Morning…

(Taka taka dhum!! Sounds of Congo-drum being playing nearby)

(Donda blabbering) I slept whole night outside Mary’s porch? Aah…I am weak... and hungry. My hands… they are so small, calloused and rough. I stink! Where are my shoes? My head is spinning. Aah…Thieves! Hold it Donda, hold it, I am alright, drink some water. Am I colour-blind? Why is everything brown? No wait…there’s something Red. Red and Blue, yes this is the poster that the white-shirts pasted. It reads “Ebola don’ts”. It shows a shitting man and says “don’t defecate in open”. The white-shirts say Ebola spreads through body fluids. Unlike flu virus it doesn’t spread with air. It spreads through Blood, sweat, urine, semen, sneeze and shit!

All hell broke loose since this beast of a disease entered our country. Initially the doctors did not know what they were dealing with in their dilapidated hospitals. Later the white-shirts were deployed in all districts. They wear white Hazmat suits and helmets…thus the name. They look at us from beneath their giant snorkelling masks and dare not touch us without latex gloves. They carry blue buckets filled with Ebola culture, which is transported to treatment facility for finding the cure to the beast. They don’t have the cure yet. Anybody who catches the virus here, does not survive. These white-shirts… (Sad)…they’re working hard but they’re just stalling the imminent end.

(Somewhere near, Radio chatters…BBC Morning Edition, Americans Dr. Kent Brantly and Dr. Nancy Writebol who were infected with Ebola while working in a missionary clinic in Liberia are recovering fast. The duo had been treated with the experimental “chimpanzee adenovirus vector vaccine”. To use the drug in African nations or not is however still an issue of debate…)

(Dhum dhum taka… Congo sound increasing)

Our locality is infested with a moribund state of gloominess. Today there’s no sun. Breeze is cool under an overcast sky.

Donda (shouting in half cracked voice): “Aye Edward! Why’re you squatting o’er there?”

Edward (clad in his favourite Qatar Airways Barcelona jersey): “I’m waiting”

Donda: “You’re waiting! You’ve been squatting over there for over an hour now, whachha waiting for?”

Edward (pensive): “I don’t know! (Pthu…spitting betel-nut juice)”

Edward grins, exposes his few pairs of reddened crocked teeth but soon retreats in contemplation.

(A bunch of drunk boys arguing with the white-shirts)

The white-shirts are having a hard time to convince the boys that Ebola is real. Women believe in it but men don’t. They think women are scared and it’s a political scam to divert international funds. Now the local administration has started printing T-shirts with “Ebola is real” logos. Edward was interviewed yesterday by a team of journalists from Doctors without Borders? It went like this:

Edward to journalist: “Lissen Medem- (Hoarse voice) there’s no Ebola! Take Ebola to Emerica, take Ebola to Britane, no Ebola over here, and no Ebola in me. If I die that’s my right.”

(Donda disturbed and blabbering) If people don’t believe in the disease then they don’t report the signatures and the disease spreads. But I reported Mary yesterday. Oh Jesus what a deadly disease it is! It makes you bleed from inside. Your eyes will bleed, nose, mouth and ears will bleed. Oh God, your skin bleeds from within and large bubbles filled with blood appear on it. It’s an agonizing and painful death. Jesus save us from the curse!

When the reporters were interviewing Edward, Daru was scared. Daru is Edward’s pet monkey, so no one eats it. Nobody eats anybody’s pet, is the unwritten law in the neighbourhood. But everyone eats a wild monkey even if it is diseased. The white-shirts said “stop eating the primates, primates spread Ebola!” Edward reprimanded “(Hoarse voice) the white-shirts want to eat all monkeys, so they stop us”. Bushmeat (Monkey meant or Groundhog meat) is commonly eaten in our country. Everyone prefers monkeys over chicken and fish. White-shirts say “Bat eats fruit, Monkey eats fruit, Donda eats fruit, and Donda catches Ebola” HIV virus spread like this, they say. I used to shout on a loudspeaker and sell a lot of Bushmeat, freshly traded from Lofa forest Liberia. It is protein and is sweet. But now administration has put ban on Bushmeat and police has closed my meat shop. They have instead opened a chimp testing facility in the neighbourhood. Soon Daru will be snatched from Edward

Edward (still squatting motionless).

(Taaka dhum dhum taaka…Congo plays loudly) Eee Bee Oow Ell Aaa! Ebola in town! Don’t touch your friend! No touching! No eating something! It’s dangerous! Ebola… Ebola in town, don’t touch your friend! No kissing! No eating something! It’s dangerous.

(A bunch of boys are walking past the neighbourhood and they’re singing ‘Ebola in town’)

Donda: Isn’t this the latest chartbuster sung by Shadow Morgan that has gone viral with the youth? I wonder why people dance on the tunes of the beast. Seems the beast is playing with our minds and everyone is going blind and crazy. Young boys and girls still eat Bushmeat in their homes and dance all night on the tunes of Ebola in town.

Shadow Morgan is earning a killing out of it. There’s a new brand of cola called the Ebola Cola, the haemorrhage that refreshes. A new Chinese movie called Ebola Syndrome has released. It’s poster says “it wasn’t murder, it was war!” Infested dead bodies are being buried in separate burial grounds but it seems many of us don’t care. It seems as a dark comedy.

(Donda looks at his face in a mirror hung upon the brown muddy wall of a hut nearby) My face is weather beaten, oily and bloated. My hair is falling, I ought ‘a drink less.

In the mirror I see, far behind me Edward has stood up and is chasing and pelting stones on an ongoing white van.

Edward (sprinting):“Get out you baboons or I’ll eat you”

Donda: Ey Edward!

Edward: Donda, what is it my man?

Donda: You’ve taken my shoes, you mule?

Edward: No, my man

Donda: Still, walk me over to my hut

Edward: Right away Donda

…and we walk (Edward humming Ebola in town…)