Public works

We are back in Monrovia and I just happened to get the super deluxe hotel room.

We are here while the rest of the team goes for their hot training- the part of the training in which you enter the ETU and treat patients.  When they are done we will be ready to go.  Unfortunately the ETU won't be quite ready and the tent city, our accommodations, won't be either.  Three public health folks are going to Fish Town next week to see how we can help the community with health care even if we don't have many Ebola patients.  Just getting the ETU up and running is valuable so if there are patients we can get them properly isolated preventing spread.   We don't know when we go, we don't know what we will be doing.

So Monrovia is notably cleaner than the rural areas.  I noticed that today.  Monrovia has trash pick up, the rural areas don't.  In the small towns there is always a mound of trash visible somewhere.  Littering is just the way.  There is no organized place to put trash.  Can you even imagine how many plastic water bottles are scattered around this country?

I am getting more comfortable walking around the city.  As I walk I am usually the only white person in sight. The beggars are clingy.  There are many men right here who lost limbs in the wars. They work hard crutching around following very closely for several blocks begging for money.  Trouble is, once you give you are a target. Happened to me the first day back.  Gave to John from Guinea and he became George from guinea the next day.  He must think I can't tell them apart.  We are in a targeted area because there are tons of health care workers and NGO staff and UN troops staying right here.  The CDC office is two blocks down.

On my walk today I saw curb painting and gutter sweeping taking place.  The painter had a brush and was swatted way down painting the black of the alternating yellow and black curb.  Another guy was hand sweeping the road right inside the curb.  Then he shoveled up the sand and dirt into a wheelbarrow.  That both had warning green safety vests on but the driving here is crazy.  I was worried for them even though they seemed perfectly relaxed.