By Umaru Fofana
18-year-old Isha Turay is a secondary school pupil who hawks on the busy Malama Thomas Street in the central business district of Freetown. She and her younger and elder siblings sell vegetables that cost Le 1,000 each. But enough for them to eke out a living literally from hand to mouth.
They are concerned that for three days - starting on 19 September - that livelihood will be affected. "If we don't sell here we cannot eat" Kadija told me, as she sprinkled water on the few carrots she had on her plate. "We don't know how we can survive in this lockdown. More suffering" she said, while her elder sister looked on shyly and blushed as Kadija spoke on. She later dashed with the veggies as those who could afford it capitalised on the late afternoon cessation of the rains in what was a pretty rainy day, to go to the Salad Ground market to stock up on food.
"I am here to buy essential foodstuffs that I need to last me and my family ahead of the lockdown", Christiana, a banker, told me. She complained about the "inconvenience" of the lockdown before saying "I will live with it if it will end Ebola".
The uncertainty surrounding Kadija's livelihood, and the livelihood of many others in a country where the majority live on less than US$ 1 a day reaches a new height on Friday 19 September as we gear up for an unprecedented nationwide lockdown in a bid to stop the spread of the Ebola virus which has killed hundreds of our compatriots.
From 19 - 21 September we are to stay at home while nearly 30,000 people - mostly young volunteers - will visit us at our homes for "a three-day house-to-house sensitisation campaign," according to Stephen Gaojia, the Coordinator of the Emergency Operations Centre which runs the Ebola response in the country.
Gaojia told me that the mostly volunteers, who will be split into 7,000 groups of four, would "visit about 1.5 million homes" throughout the country. He was however quick to add that their aim was to achieve at least 75% of households.
"We've had our teams in place and we'll be going down to every household in the country" he said, stressing that "team members will not take out Ebola infected or other sick people".
This is in sharp contrast to what the lockdown was initially said to have set out to achieve. Both presidential adviser Ibrahim Ben Kargbo and Information Minister Alpha Kanu had said that the exercise would aim to "identify" Ebola patients at the early stages with a view to taking them for testing treatment centres if they tested positive. But Gaojia said no patients would be taken out of their homes nor would there be arrests. It begs the question as to what happens to the law recently passed by parliament criminalising the wilful harbouring of an Ebola patient with a two-year jail term as a penalty. That will not be invoked.
The lockdown itself - sorry it has been rechristened to social mobilisation - has been angrily criticised or even condemned by some most notably by the French charity group MSF who say it will worsen the Ebola situation and drive patients underground.
The Chief Executive of the Irish NGO, Goal, has also denounced the move. Barry Andrews said it is "an ill-conceived exercise in futility". He told me during a visit to Sierra Leone over the weekend that the lockdown had now been reduced to a "social mobilisation" drive from the original idea. He said the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans were now aware of the existence and seriousness of the disease making such an enterprise pointless.
"I'm not sure a public information campaign requires the draconian measure of three days locking six million people into their homes. I am not sure that is appropriate or proportionate" Barry said, adding: "It puts terrible pressure on vulnerable people...People who live hand to mouth will find it difficult".
Abdul, a street beggar who is paralysed waist down, said surviving on those three days would be "a miracle" for him. As he lamented to me, he dashed off in his wheelchair to chase a passing vehicle shouting to the driver: "Lockdown! Lockdown! Please pity me and give me something to survive".
But Stephen Gaojia said all of that had been taken into account. "It will interest you to know that over the past 48 hours we've seen a lot of people...basically coming to say they want to be involved in feeding vulnerable people" he said. He however said that able-bodied people should have made "adequate preparation" to take care of their families.
Not all able-bodied men and women can afford to do that. Those who can have been busy frenetically shopping at Salad Ground.
At St Mary's supermarket at Hill Station and the Freetown Mall at Wilkinson Road - which are for the middleclass, expatriates, and the rich - there is brisk business going on and it will until evening sets today - Thursday 18 September. One of the attendants at St Mary's said she had had to restock the shelves "five times in the last two days" owing to the fast sales. Customers also spoke of how they needed to stock up on everything including fuel for their standby generators. Lucky them!
There is busy activity going on as well at banks - for the 10% of Sierra Leoneans who operate a bank account. Customers are given numbers and told to wait outside and called in turns. With banking hours adjusted downward by two hours to reduce personal contact hours, the banks are overflowing ahead of the closing time of 1:30 PM. At one of the commercial banks, one customer - a lowly paid civil servant - screamed that he needed to withdraw "my small salary before my family starves during the lockdown".
But spare a thought for the volunteers who have been trained by a combined team of UN and government trainers on how to move into homes and educate people about Ebola - the signs and symptoms of a monster of a disease - and how to prevent it, what to do if someone suspects they may have it. Using a manual developed by partners, they were also trained on educating people on the very crucial risk mitigation - that is, what to do if someone in the family is showing signs similar to those of Ebola. It will be good to cooperate with them when they get to your home.
Short live, Ebola!
(C) Politico 18/09/14
