On the following day, I gave a call to Dr. Harris and informed him I was going to report for work in the ETU in Tubmanburg.
‘George, I have informed Dr. Bernard who is in charge of the ETU. He knows about your condition,’ Dr. Harris said.
‘Good luck George! for the new place and new job!’ He hung up.
Like anywhere else, I was asked to follow the ritualistic hand washing. The security officer did the temperature monitoring, but I was allowed in only after I mentioned the name of Dr. Harris.
‘You are visitor?’ The security officer at the office entrance groaned.
‘No,’ said I with a bit of irritation.
‘What you want?’
‘Came to meet Dr. Bernard,’
‘Let the man go - Man from Monrovia. Big-bossman friend,’ the security officer who let me in from the gate yelled.
When I entered the office, a short, fat and bald man called me into his partitioned workstation.
‘George?’ His tone was interrogative.
‘Yes, Sir!’ I replied.
‘I am Dr. Bernard, operation manager of this ETU,’
‘Nice meeting you Sir. Dr. Harris asked me to meet you,’ I said.
‘Yes, He told me everything about you. Tell me, how are you feeling?’ He asked reminding me of the communication style of Dr. Michael.
‘I am trying Sir,’ I said.
‘I know it ‘s hard,’ he was empathetic.
‘Now I can work, though,’ I wanted to secure my position.
‘Yes, we have already decided the nature of work you can perform here,’ it was a hint that Dr. Harris and Dr. Michael had talked about me with Dr. Bernard.
‘As you are a nurse, a trained peer supporter and first and last, has a first-hand experience in the disease, we have planned to deploy you in the psychosocial unit in the ETU. You are the best fit for this position.’ Dr. Bernard said in a conclusive tone.
‘However, you will be trained by Irina who will visit our ETU tomorrow,’ he added.
I was trained by Dr. Irina for almost a week in psychosocial support for Ebola and integrated me into her team based in Tubmanburg.
I worked with delight every day. I used to start early morning from the Church just after a brief prayer to start the day with good faith see my boys and go to work. Most of the time, I was the first among my team members to come to the ETU and the last to leave. Sometimes, I assisted expatriates from the other teams in administrative work such as maintenance of files and other records, or else filing database or drafting letters which allowed me to stay engaged and productive. That prevented me staying alone and plummeting into distortions not only about Aminatta and Princess but also mostly about how long I would be able to hide the lethal truth from my boys who were still small to be immune to the venomousness of what their father had got to say about their mother and sister.
After I returned to the church in the evening, I assisted the pastors in the evening service which relieved my mind. I prayed for the souls of those two who left my life and begged for the strength and courage to live the rest of my life for the boys as I was the only standing guardian for them. After four months of work, I bought an Indian auto-rickshaw which was a trendy new arrival in Monrovia. It was the first auto-rickshaw in Tubmanburg, and I decided to run the taxi as a part-time job because my physical health had already been recovered almost completely.
The first sticker of awareness raising poster campaign started in my taxi. ‘Ebola must go!’ I wrote it in big letters on the back of its canopy which later came out as a sticker and distributed among the taxi drivers all over the country. I had a small chlorinated water bottle fixed next to the passenger entrance which whoever came in had to use for hand washing. I never forgot the gun type thermometer which was vital for taking the temperature of clients. I tried my best to make a change at my level.
‘George, I might go back to Guinea end of next month,’ the Pastor Jean-Paul said one day when we were having dinner.
‘Pastor? So soon?’ I asked as he had told me that he might stay till the construction of the church in Klay was over.
‘Those are decisions of the mission leadership, probably from Paris. I might go back to France for good.’ he said with a smile, but I felt that he was trying to hide a hint of sadness underneath his saintly smile.
‘My mother is also seriously sick,’ he added.
‘Sorry to hear,’ I felt sorry for him.
‘Time will come to everyone`s life when one has to compromise what one would love.’ I sighed.
Every human being has wounds that do not bleed but hurt from within. Some of them grow with time whereas the others heal. But they do not heal completely. They remain in a dormant state and become fresh by the slight trigger, just like Aminatta and Princess who did not come to me when I was working.
‘George, can you take care of the church in Klay till my replacement comes?’
‘Pastor, no need to tell me, please. It is my pleasure; you have done a lot for me. You were the saviour of my life many times. I have nothing that I can’t do for you,’ I promised him that I would take care of the construction. After the Pastor had left the church, I moved to Klay junction where the new church was being built. I rented a three bedroom house which was right next to the church and got my boys home. Grace to the church and the pastors, boys had been given education even during the time when all public schools were closed. Therefore, I decided to call a teacher home and continue even after they moved out from the orphanage. After the boys had come in, my routine became busier. Early morning I visited the church, conducted the early morning mass, then cooked for the children, wait for the teacher to come and left for the ward. In the evening I managed to get some hires for the auto-rickshaw which allowed me to earn something for the daily expenses.
Every weekend I went to Douala Market in Monrovia and bought all necessities to my family as well as for the church. It did not take a long time for my neighbours to call me ‘Pastor everything.’ As I took care of the church, they called me Pastor. As they knew I was working with a medical organisation, they called me ‘doctor’ and used to come to me asking for malaria medication. After I had started going to Douala with my auto-rickshaw, they found it easier to call me ‘everything,’ dropping everything they called me before except ‘Pastor’ because extremely God-feared nature of Liberians had not allowed them to omit it.