Dear Friends,
You have travelled with us here in Liberia in deeply troubled times. Thanks to your prayer, concern and support in every way we are truly able to look to this new year with joy in our hearts.
We owe you so much! Your have carried us through very dark and frightening days! You kept hope alive in us as we in turn tried to keep hope alive in the lives of those around us! Many times our hearts were broken and our spirits filled with desolation as we journeyed with our people through the tragic loss of children, parents, health workers, burial teams and ambulances drivers. Our thank you is all we can offer you but know that it is heartfelt and sincere.
Very special thanks to our congregation, our families and our benefactors who kept us in their hearts everyday!
This letter is particularly a tribute to all our colleagues here in Lofa County. As you know we work in three districts in Lofa – Voinjama, Kolahun and Foya. In all three districts our facilitators worked, prior to Ebola, in Literacy using the method of Training for Transformation and Social Analysis to engage in development, human rights and advocacy. We were busy with land issues when Ebola roared into Lofa. It was low key initially and we took it lightly. However, before long it governed every aspect of our lives. As a consequence our facilitators found themselves working in approximately seven villages each.
Sr. Bridget Lacey with Ebola survivor Lydia and her baby Ballah. Photo: Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary.
Right now we are in three hundred villages across the county. It was and continues to be a huge task that made enormous demands on them. We met every week in each district and shared the stories, needs and pain of the week. After the initial training they handled their fears and were increasingly motivated to reach more and more villages never counting the cost of the hours they had to walk in the height of the rains. They worked way beyond our expectations. They sought out remote villages never visited by any other group. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) asked us to go to places they could not reach as they can only travel by car and therefore depend on navigable roads. Our colleagues travel by public transport that is motorbike and they walked. We the Sisters were humbled by our colleagues and their tireless dedication to do all they could for their people. They educated people about Ebola; they dug with the villagers more latrines; they educated all about sanitation and safe drinking water. They facilitated the opening of many pumps as people were told that the water had been poisoned. They motivated people to carry sick people to hospital as many were afraid they would immediately be carried to a treatment centre, as in the height of Ebola every sickness was considered Ebola. They documented pregnant women and the information was carried back to the main towns where we are members of the county health teams! There we liaise with MSF, the Red Cross, UNICEF, WHO and multiple local NGOs. Hence they made an invaluable contribution to the coordination effort to combat Ebola.
We have reached our initial target of keeping so called ‘safe villages’ safe. We work in villages that have been quarantined and under twenty one days observation. We have documented survivors, orphans and children living with only one parent. We have traced families of survivors and we continue to monitor their situations.
Sr. Anne Kelly with Ebola survivor Elijah. Unfortunately Elijah’s mother could not fight the disease, and she died from Ebola. Photo: Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary.
Our markets are opened. Women are starting the trek to town to meet their friends and sell their goods. They are walking with a smile on their faces and a spring in their step. We are not shaking hands or hugging each other, but we wave joyous and greet with laughter! There is dancing and singing everywhere and we have begun to visit again and receive all as a guest and no one as a stranger. However we are still careful and a little afraid of what might lurk in the darkness. The lives of so many have been wiped out. Whole families lost to Ebola. An infant sucking at the breast of her dead mother survives and we ponder the pain of it all. A survivor mother cares for her small child thinking that she can stay by his side so that he will not die alone! A mother begs her only child to stay with her because she is so afraid of the pain – he does and survives but is haunted by the sight of his mother’s suffering. A little girl gives her grandmother water to drink while she is waiting for the ambulance to carry her to the treatment centre. The little one is isolated in the village because she touched her dying grandmother. All are afraid.
Now is the time to pick up the pieces of broken lives and play our part to help build a better Liberia. In this phase of reduced cases it is the moment to reflect on what has happened to us and to gather the lessons that Ebola demanded that we learn. We have held workshops recently with our facilitators to reflect on Ebola and what it has taught us. The facilitators will carry the reflection process to the villages and all will share reflectively on the experience. As we know it can never be business as usual again. A life lived without reflection is only half lived so we are all called to this process.
We have started workshops to prepare teachers in the villages to help children when schools re-open to pass on correct information to the children so that they will receive survivors well and not stigmatize children who have already suffered so much. We are planning a series of stories and plays to help the children reflect according to their age and stage of development. We are planning to prepare a team for the most victimized villages in all three districts who will do psycho social counselling in those villages. We will train them in basic counselling skills and in recognizing Post Traumatic Stress. They will gather groups of widows/widowers to help them share their experiences and find support and encouragement from each other. Small grants will be made available as the group gains a sense of cohesion. We plan to continue to work to improve sanitation – complete the building of latrines and the management and provision of safe drinking water. In addition we plan to continue to advocate for improved health standards in clinics and hospitals in our districts. Unless improved sanitation and better health services are put in place we will continue to be at risk not only from Ebola but so many other illnesses.
We wish to thank each of you for reaching out across the globe and giving support at this time to all in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Although the international response was slow in the beginning your response was immediate and powerful. Your prayer, your support, your concern and good will made it possible for Liberia to look forward to a new day and a new year! Do not underestimate your contribution, it has made a difference. No two people on the planet know this better than Bridget and I.
Our thanks now and always!
May God Bless Us All!
Sr. Bridget Lacey, Sr. Mary Mullin and Sr. Anne Kelly
Letter from Sr. Bridget Lacey, Sr. Mary Mullin and Sr. Anne Kelly sisters with the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary who are based in Lofa County, Liberia.