OK no reason to be afraid, it's only Africa

Too late.  I am afraid.  Afraid of the illnesses, the dirt, the food, the roads, and the tasks before me.  I feel wholly inadequate for this operation.  I don't know shit.  Just listening to these nurses talk has me cowed.  Tomorrow we start cold training.  The curriculum looks excellent.  If it holds up it will be the most structured thing we have encountered since landing.  It is probably has the longest unchanged history of anything we have encountered.  It seems like the emergency medical protocols are solid.  Now that the epidemic is changing they probably will too.  Everything is dirty.  Everyone is dirty.  Up until this trip we have been protected by white folks accommodations.  That ended today.  I've been dirty before.  I can be at the cabin for days and not mind a lack of shower.  I can be on a canoe trip and not mind at all, but this is human grime.  There is nothing that can get this place clean.  It smells like human sweat all the time.  The food hasn't been bad but I woke up nauseous and with a touch of diarrhea.  I immediately popped the antibiotics and will continue popping them the requisite three days.  I took my first dose of prednisone today which was generously supplied by a colleague.  Hopefully by tomorrow there will be noticeably less cough.  I am a walking pharmacy.  Better living through chemistry my dad would say.  The drive to the university was harrowing.  Fast, honking, ridden with potholes on steroids, no electricity anywhere along the way.  Men peeing everywhere.  Yes, we had to finally join them and squat by the road.  We passed two ETU's, a truck wreck and a dead body.  Not sure what belonged to what.  The 120 miles took over 4 hours.  Very glad to be here.  I am a middle class white American citizen.  I have never been this scared or uncomfortable ever, and my situation is luxury compared to those we passed on the road today.  Their only advantage is familiarity.  I hope and pray for some of that soon.

Monrovia suburbs.

The scene really didn't change though the vegetation got more lush and a few of the homes looked as though they took pride I grooming their grounds.  Not this one but others.

Checkpoints along the way looking for sick people.  We went through the famous Firestone plantation.

But this I'd the best picture I got.