He's trying, but that sure looks like a trash bag he's using to protect his head. I suspect he knows his life is in danger from this work but is doing it because Monrovia needs the job done.
Posted on 10/17/2014 1:01:55 PM PDT by Lorianne
West Point is an impoverished neighborhood in the Liberian capital of Monrovia where more than 75,000 people are packed into a small strip of peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. A lack of clean water and sanitation facilities — the United Nations Environment Program estimates that there are just four public toilets for the entire population — has made public defecation common and long caused the spread of diseases. But where cholera and tuberculosis were once the most deadly afflictions, many fear the situation in West Point could get much worse due to the spread of Ebola.
Ebola has now killed more than 2,600 people across West Africa, and approximately half the deaths have occurred in Liberia. Hospitals are overwhelmed, and the lack of treatment centers in the country is contributing to the unchecked spread of the virus. According to the World Health Organization, Liberia faces an "exponential" increase in Ebola cases in the coming weeks.
VICE News traveled to West Point with an intelligence and tracking team run through an NGO called More Than Me, and followed a Red Cross body retrieval team working all around Monrovia.
A health worker holds a poster warning that Ebola is real, along with a DVD featuring images of Osama Bin Laden and Nelson Mandela, in the West Point area of Monrovia, Liberia. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
An Ebola victim is quarantined in his home in West Point. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
Left to Die: Liberia's Ebola victims have nowhere to turn as treatment centers overflow. Read more here.
A police officer watches over a food distribution center in West Point. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A group of boys watch as Red Cross body retrieval team members remove a body from a house in Monrovia. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A Red Cross body retrieval team member prepares his personal protective equipment (PPE) before entering a building to remove the bodies of Ebola victims. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
'We are laying down like dogs': The long wait for Ebola treatment in Liberia. Read more here.
A Red Cross body retrieval team prepares a body bag used to remove the bodies of Ebola victims. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
Bagged bodies lie in the back of a Red Cross body retrieval truck in Monrovia. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A Red Cross body retrieval team member dons personal protective equipment (PPE) before entering a building to remove the bodies of Ebola victims. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A community team member of The Ebola-Free West Point Coalition in Monrovia. (Photo by Tim Freccia.)
A man showing serious symptoms of Ebola was sent to the JFK Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, where he was turned away. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
Relatives of Ebola-infected patients wait outside the JFK Ebola treatment center in Monrovia. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A dying Ebola victim is quarantined in her home in West Point. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
Mapping Ebola outbreaks: area of infection is way bigger than previously thought. Read more here.
A sign lists the "10 Commandments of Ebola" in West Point. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
Katie Meyler runs a non-profit organization called More Than Me in West Point that is focused on education for women. The organization recently launched an initiative called The Ebola-Free West Point Coalition, which sends teams into the community to help identify and and support victims of Ebola. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A man warns of the reality of Ebola in West Point. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
A child walks past an Ebola victim quarantined in the courthouse in West Point. (Photo by Tim Freccia)
Follow photographer Tim Freccia on Twitter: @timfreccia
Sad but it’s not the USA’s fault they live in those conditions. I know the liberals like to believe everything is our fault but this isn’t.
Unfortunately, our poverty rate has been increasing under the obama regime.
With all their budget, has the UN ever installed a single bathroom there?
A friend was supposed to go over there last summer with a church group to build toilets. He backed out at the last minute. How long have missionaries and the Peace Corps been teaching them to dig wells or plant a bean seed and they’re still clueless? Really, how hard is it to grasp the very basics?
They can’t be bothered to show a little pride by cleaning up around their hovels. Fine, they can’t afford to paint their homes but they could at least slap on some homemade whitewash which, hellllooooo, has antibacterial properties.
Air drop toilet paper
He's trying, but that sure looks like a trash bag he's using to protect his head. I suspect he knows his life is in danger from this work but is doing it because Monrovia needs the job done.
Cia invented this to do away with the negro.
Crack and AjIDs weren’t working fast enough.
From the top comment after the Vice story:
“The number one most widely read story in the Liberian Newspaper this week is one about how ebola was patented in America and is being spread on purpose.”
Maybe we can get volume discounts for shipping here, express air freight.
Monrovia Liberia, from the Vice News photo essay at the link.
You can make a better case that Liberia is America's fault than you can for any other country in Africa. Liberia was established by American nonprofits as a way of "resettling" freed slaves. It became an effective colony of the United States.
At least 6000 years on this planet and this is their society? They have not built a building since colonialism and they only wear western aid clothes.
Any idea what they mean by #4 “Thou shalt not put mat down for dead people” and what they mean by #6 “allow anybody even family friend to spend time”? Anyone?
I always thought the big problem with getting aid to Africans was getting around all the corrupt dictators, governments and wars.
Is that just another liberal fairy tale too?
#4 Don’t handle or place Ebola corpse for burial (prayer mat)
#6 Don’t let anyone in the hut even family friend
You know an awful lot of folks really do believe this crap.
I just don’t think our cia is that smart.
I am guessing that the mat is bedding, and that is an expression for putting dead people on bedding. Spend time probably means socializing, having folks over.
It is beyond the pale grown adults need to be told this. Take Ebola out of the equation and it’s still basic common sense rules to live by.
And what's to stop the descendants of freed slaves who are protesting in Ferguson against the right to be governed from doing something useful like organizing and going to Liberia to provide their brothers and sisters with help in battling disease?
The message I'm getting, that I'm probably not allowed to say in this PC world, is that the vast majority of Africans can't self-govern. And they should stay where they are until they figure it out.
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