On Leaving Liberia

When you are living the small, hard-fought, incremental changes it is often impossible to see the improvements, to recognize the significance of the work. These last few weeks of knowing we (Megan and I, along with many of our colleagues) were leaving Liberia we have felt the weight of this–we had not accomplished all we aimed to, we knew there was and is so much work left to be done in this fight to ensure that Liberia is prepared and ready to respond to Ebola when it next threatens and to deal with the repercussions of the EVD epidemic that will go on for many years.

I returned to Liberia from my last R&R on November 18th, and less than 24 hours later a confirmed Ebola case was identified. My team and I spent the next 21 days heavily involved in responding to what ended up being three EVD cases by supporting infection prevention and control and screening at multiple health facilities, providing intensive daily monitoring at high priority health facilities, having ambulances on standby to transport of suspect Ebola cases to the ETU, attending multiple daily coordination meetings . . . it was a tiring three weeks and came at a time we had planned to focus on wrapping up our program and phasing out projects. Instead we had to ramp up our activities for the 21 day Ebola follow up period which left us with very little time in the end to wrap up 11 months of work.

Over our last few days, we have been in a hectic, sleep-deprived rush to finish up projects and handover programs, to file documents and write reports and deliver last-minute supplies, to say goodbye to friends and colleagues in our own organization, in the Ministry of Health and county health offices and health facilities, in other INGOs. There has been a constant reminder that there is SO much we set out to accomplish but weren’t able to do because of limited time or money or manpower or delayed decisions and management–it has felt defeating.

But.

Our perspective is small and while it’s not untrue that there is much we did not get done and much work still to do, it’s important to see the good of the current reality in Liberia. This past Monday I (Sara) was privileged to sit in a room with 80+ members of the staff team I have worked with in the SRU Program for the past 11 months. We gathered to discuss what we learned, what we could have done better. But also, we remembered what we did accomplish–the training and mentoring, the hundreds of thousands of people screened at health facilities, the supplies and PPE we provided, the construction and improvements we put in place, all with the goal of making health facilities safe for patients to seek care in and health care workers to work in–and while it was all a drop in the bucket of the needs and gaps, it was our drop to make and I am proud of our team for the work they have done.

It was poignant that Megan’s and my last night in Liberia was on New Year’s Eve. We packed and worked frantically all evening but left to join friends before midnight, gathering under the stars close enough to hear the ocean waves rolling in. Our cheers and obnoxious horn-blowing at the stroke of midnight was a declaration that 2015 with all its challenges is DONE, lived, behind us.

Our two favorite drivers picked us up at 2am to take us to the airport and as we drove along the same roads by dark that we drove in on on November 8, 2014, I was overwhelmed with the differences. Then, it was pitch black and the whole country was under a nighttime Ebola-driven curfew–no one was in sight other than military and police officers at checkpoints ensuring that the only people out on the roads were government or humanitarian aid workers. It was eery, like a ghost town, a place under great fear and distress.

This time, a New Year had dawned. There were colorful Christmas lights stretched over trees and fences and buildings, parties going on and churches open for late-night services,  and children running along the roads beating drums made of jugs and pots and sticks, jubilant in the New Year. I want to leave with this Liberia in my mind, the one that has survived, has revived, is alive and pulsing with resilient hope and expectation for the future. The mourning has turned to dancing, there is light where there was once darkness. And we are grateful.