Deja vu, Liberia!
Tonight I found myself sitting among the familiar accoutrements of an upscale Monrovia living room, overstuffed furniture, lappa wall hangings and an immaculately-laid dining table, talking and listening to a conversation about Ebola and the first confirmed U.S. case being treated in a Dallas hospital. Authorities have declined to release his name. Leaders of the Liberian community group in North Texas have not yet identified the relatives he was said to be visiting.
"We just finished civil war and to have this," Stanley Gaye, president of the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, said of Liberia, a small West African nation that lost a quarter of a million of its residents in decades of war. Gaye is anxious to know the name of the infected person. CDC and the state health agency are tracing the patient to identify people with whom he may have been in contact. That's cold comfort to some who worry about contracting Ebola at church or out shopping. The association plans to hold a vigil to raise awareness, speaking out against the stigma of the Ebola virus and encouraging people to be tested.
The nightmare traces thousands of miles away to my backdoor.
"We just finished civil war and to have this," Stanley Gaye, president of the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, said of Liberia, a small West African nation that lost a quarter of a million of its residents in decades of war. Gaye is anxious to know the name of the infected person. CDC and the state health agency are tracing the patient to identify people with whom he may have been in contact. That's cold comfort to some who worry about contracting Ebola at church or out shopping. The association plans to hold a vigil to raise awareness, speaking out against the stigma of the Ebola virus and encouraging people to be tested.
The nightmare traces thousands of miles away to my backdoor.
Comments
Post a Comment