Fr. John Jay C. Magpusao, MI
They warned me about it. Stubborn me, I did not listen.
I must confess that before engaging into it, fearful, my mind asked: “Do you really need to do it?” Yet curious as a cat, my heart insisted: “Do it, dude!” Now I’m confronted with its consequences. With nobody to blame but myself alone – fully aware that it was my personal choice to be in this kind of situation after all – then I have to deal with it, head, and heart, on.
I volunteered to participate in the Camillian Task Force’s Ebola Response Program in the Diocese of Makeni, Sierra Leone (SL), West Africa. Camillian Task Force or CTF is the international disaster response and social service arm of our Order with central office based in our mother house in Rome. With the help of the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana 8xmille Chiesa Cattolica, in collaboration with the Catholic Mission in the Diocese of Makeni, through the assistance of the Xaverian Missionaries and the full support of their confrere, newly ordained bishop, Most Rev. Natale Paganelli, SX, Diocese of Makeni’s apostolic administrator, CTF aimed at aiding the diocese in strengthening health care facilities and community mobilization building psycho-social and pastoral support during the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) crisis in Sierra Leone.
This was my first ever missionary ministry outside the Philippines, my beloved developing nation (they say this term is more politically correct than Third World country) which has its own share of social, economic, and political problems. So why do mission in another poor and problematic country when my own country is poor and problematic as well? Why not just stay and do the mission in my own backyard? Then I heard somebody saying that no one is poor enough (and problematic enough, if I may add) in order for him/her not to give help.
I was able to easily adjust myself in Sierra Leone. First of, the food. Their food is spicy but I like spicy food. We have similar climates. They too have oh-so-beautiful mountains, greeneries, birds, and other animals. Being in Salone (Sierra Leones’s native name) felt like being in the provinces in the Philippines. And exactly like other provinces in the Philippines, many of Sierra Leone’s interior towns have terrible to very terrible roads. Most houses in both urban and rural areas do not enjoy yet the comfort of having electricity. Please pardon my observation: Economic poverty, from the perspective of an outsider (even if he/she is coming from a developing nation like me), is very much felt in SL. These, however, were not deterrent for the Sierra Leoneans to become warm and nice people. In this Muslim country, religious tolerance is one of their best assets.
A Filipino nurse, who works for the United Nations, whom I met in SL, informed me that I was in the country depicted in the 2006 American-German political war thriller film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamonds. The film portrays the Sierra Leone Civil War in 1991-2001. Sierra Leoneans were not yet healed from the trauma caused to them by the atrocities of that war when the Ebola outbreak took place last year.
I used to complain a lot about the many facets of our current realities in the Philippines. Sierra Leone allowed me to realize, please pardon me again for my reflection: I must count more our blessings in the Philippines.
The time I was on-board in this Sierra Leone mission, CTF was already halfway through its 8-month (May-December) psycho-social and pastoral support program in almost 20 parishes of the diocese located within SL’s 4 districts, namely, Tonkolili, Bombali, Port Loko, and Kambia. Guided by the set criteria, each parish selected 20 families who suffered most the lingering psychological and emotional effects of the Ebola outbreak and involved them in the program.
One of the chosen recipients was the family of the teenage boy, Sheka. He and his older and younger brothers were the only ones left alive after 32 members of their family died of Ebola. Family in Salone means extended family. Here’s the maths: A Sierra Leonean family is usually comprised of 6-12 members. Add to it the family extensions which most likely numbered almost the same. They live together in one household.
CTF trained local counterparts serving as community-based psycho-social facilitators. Most of them were teachers, retired teachers, and university students who were also active parish workers. There were priests also. They were the ones visiting the villages where the affected-families and survivors resided.
The facilitators were able to journey with these families as they cope with their losses, loved ones and livelihood alike, due to the Ebola Virus Disease, towards healing. Their emotional burdens, by the way, were made heavier by the stigma and discrimination they also suffered from other members of their villages.
A young man, Alusine, belonged to a family that lost 16 members. His older brother who died first was identified as the bringer of the Ebola sickness in their community. The shame and the blame pointed at their family were too much to bear for him.
Fatu, a wife and a mother who was infected with EVD but survived, can still vividly recall the shame she felt when the group of quarantine personnel took her out from their village and brought her to the treatment center.
Greater than the physical affliction, the pain was much more intense for a grandmother like Esther when she saw other kids in their village being taken away by their parents from playing with her grandchildren because they belonged to a family whose many members were infected with Ebola. Esther and other 6 members from her family contracted the EVD. She and her 3 daughters survived the ordeal while her husband, son, and grandson did not.
Many of them have family members who were taken to treatment facilities and they never heard any news about them afterwards. They assumed they all died and buried in mass graves somewhere. It hurt them thinking about their loved ones gone eternally without them seeing their dead bodies and providing them a culturally decent burial.
Burdened by all these psycho-emotional and economic stresses imparted to them by the Ebola epidemic, many Sierra Leoneans found it hard to sleep at night. Some women shared that even though they were not used to drinking alcohol, they were forced to do so just to bring themselves to sleep.
For us CTF people, we were able to meet the representatives of the more or less 400 recipient-families during their monthly group therapy session in their respective parishes. Aside from being an occasion where the family heads were given further information and education as regards the facts of Ebola and how they can continuously help themselves cope with the challenges it accorded them, especially that it also affected their cultural practices, it has in the same vein helped them know that they were not alone in this battle. Since many of them didn’t know each other before, the gathering enabled them to foster friendship and family spirit among themselves, giving encouragement and support to each other. They likewise shared how the program was able to help them and gave their recommendations on how the program can be further improved.
Mohamed, a father, said: “Many thanks. When I lost my wife and mother [due to EVD], I thought I was also going to die. I can’t sleep at night [thinking] how to take care of my children. I didn’t feel like eating. I feel like getting sick. I will not forget my wife and my mother. And my children won’t forget [them]either. But the meetings (monthly group therapy sessions) encouraged me to continue on living. I also encouraged my children [to do the same].”
"When my husband and other members of my family died [of Ebola], it brought pain to my heart; my shoulders were heavy, as if I could not breathe. Because of the assistance of the Camillian Task Force, yes, the pain is still there, but it has become lighter. And somehow I can laugh now," shared an old widow, Marie.
Hearing testimonies like these and being able to listen more to these families’ stories of courage, strength, and bravery in overcoming the challenges brought to them by the Ebola outbreak were so inspiring. Their faith in God, or Allah, since most of the families we served were actually Muslims, kept them going and gave them hope.
After my two months and a couple of days deployment in Sierra Leone, I left behind the people whom I was beginning to love. I left and they continued with their daily struggles to survive amidst their beloved homeland’s widespread social, economic, and political challenges, plus the looming problem of having to raise boku boku pikin (many many children) orphaned by Ebola. I left with my mind jeering at me: “So, do you think you have done something good for them?”
My heart, to the rescue, comforted me: “Well, very short-term missionaries like you can only do so much. And even if you spend your entire lifetime there, in the end you will still be called missionary, not messiah.”
I went back to the Philippines with my heart, and my mind, filled with stories and memories, and a deeper sense of joy, fulfillment, and inspiration from this very short but very sweet Salone missionary experience.
They were right. It was contagious.
________________________
Fr. John Jay C. Magpusao, MI, is a Filipino member of the Order of the Ministers of the Infirm, better known as the Camillians, a group of Catholic religious priests and brothers who dedicate themselves to the service of the sick. He shared in the joy of the Sierra Leoneans and joined them in giving praise and thanksgiving to God/Allah when the World Health Organization (WHO) finally declared SL Ebola-free on November 7, 2015.
They warned me about it. Stubborn me, I did not listen.
I must confess that before engaging into it, fearful, my mind asked: “Do you really need to do it?” Yet curious as a cat, my heart insisted: “Do it, dude!” Now I’m confronted with its consequences. With nobody to blame but myself alone – fully aware that it was my personal choice to be in this kind of situation after all – then I have to deal with it, head, and heart, on.
I volunteered to participate in the Camillian Task Force’s Ebola Response Program in the Diocese of Makeni, Sierra Leone (SL), West Africa. Camillian Task Force or CTF is the international disaster response and social service arm of our Order with central office based in our mother house in Rome. With the help of the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana 8xmille Chiesa Cattolica, in collaboration with the Catholic Mission in the Diocese of Makeni, through the assistance of the Xaverian Missionaries and the full support of their confrere, newly ordained bishop, Most Rev. Natale Paganelli, SX, Diocese of Makeni’s apostolic administrator, CTF aimed at aiding the diocese in strengthening health care facilities and community mobilization building psycho-social and pastoral support during the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) crisis in Sierra Leone.
This was my first ever missionary ministry outside the Philippines, my beloved developing nation (they say this term is more politically correct than Third World country) which has its own share of social, economic, and political problems. So why do mission in another poor and problematic country when my own country is poor and problematic as well? Why not just stay and do the mission in my own backyard? Then I heard somebody saying that no one is poor enough (and problematic enough, if I may add) in order for him/her not to give help.
I was able to easily adjust myself in Sierra Leone. First of, the food. Their food is spicy but I like spicy food. We have similar climates. They too have oh-so-beautiful mountains, greeneries, birds, and other animals. Being in Salone (Sierra Leones’s native name) felt like being in the provinces in the Philippines. And exactly like other provinces in the Philippines, many of Sierra Leone’s interior towns have terrible to very terrible roads. Most houses in both urban and rural areas do not enjoy yet the comfort of having electricity. Please pardon my observation: Economic poverty, from the perspective of an outsider (even if he/she is coming from a developing nation like me), is very much felt in SL. These, however, were not deterrent for the Sierra Leoneans to become warm and nice people. In this Muslim country, religious tolerance is one of their best assets.
A Filipino nurse, who works for the United Nations, whom I met in SL, informed me that I was in the country depicted in the 2006 American-German political war thriller film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamonds. The film portrays the Sierra Leone Civil War in 1991-2001. Sierra Leoneans were not yet healed from the trauma caused to them by the atrocities of that war when the Ebola outbreak took place last year.
I used to complain a lot about the many facets of our current realities in the Philippines. Sierra Leone allowed me to realize, please pardon me again for my reflection: I must count more our blessings in the Philippines.
The time I was on-board in this Sierra Leone mission, CTF was already halfway through its 8-month (May-December) psycho-social and pastoral support program in almost 20 parishes of the diocese located within SL’s 4 districts, namely, Tonkolili, Bombali, Port Loko, and Kambia. Guided by the set criteria, each parish selected 20 families who suffered most the lingering psychological and emotional effects of the Ebola outbreak and involved them in the program.
One of the chosen recipients was the family of the teenage boy, Sheka. He and his older and younger brothers were the only ones left alive after 32 members of their family died of Ebola. Family in Salone means extended family. Here’s the maths: A Sierra Leonean family is usually comprised of 6-12 members. Add to it the family extensions which most likely numbered almost the same. They live together in one household.
CTF trained local counterparts serving as community-based psycho-social facilitators. Most of them were teachers, retired teachers, and university students who were also active parish workers. There were priests also. They were the ones visiting the villages where the affected-families and survivors resided.
The facilitators were able to journey with these families as they cope with their losses, loved ones and livelihood alike, due to the Ebola Virus Disease, towards healing. Their emotional burdens, by the way, were made heavier by the stigma and discrimination they also suffered from other members of their villages.
A young man, Alusine, belonged to a family that lost 16 members. His older brother who died first was identified as the bringer of the Ebola sickness in their community. The shame and the blame pointed at their family were too much to bear for him.
Fatu, a wife and a mother who was infected with EVD but survived, can still vividly recall the shame she felt when the group of quarantine personnel took her out from their village and brought her to the treatment center.
Greater than the physical affliction, the pain was much more intense for a grandmother like Esther when she saw other kids in their village being taken away by their parents from playing with her grandchildren because they belonged to a family whose many members were infected with Ebola. Esther and other 6 members from her family contracted the EVD. She and her 3 daughters survived the ordeal while her husband, son, and grandson did not.
Many of them have family members who were taken to treatment facilities and they never heard any news about them afterwards. They assumed they all died and buried in mass graves somewhere. It hurt them thinking about their loved ones gone eternally without them seeing their dead bodies and providing them a culturally decent burial.
Burdened by all these psycho-emotional and economic stresses imparted to them by the Ebola epidemic, many Sierra Leoneans found it hard to sleep at night. Some women shared that even though they were not used to drinking alcohol, they were forced to do so just to bring themselves to sleep.
For us CTF people, we were able to meet the representatives of the more or less 400 recipient-families during their monthly group therapy session in their respective parishes. Aside from being an occasion where the family heads were given further information and education as regards the facts of Ebola and how they can continuously help themselves cope with the challenges it accorded them, especially that it also affected their cultural practices, it has in the same vein helped them know that they were not alone in this battle. Since many of them didn’t know each other before, the gathering enabled them to foster friendship and family spirit among themselves, giving encouragement and support to each other. They likewise shared how the program was able to help them and gave their recommendations on how the program can be further improved.
Mohamed, a father, said: “Many thanks. When I lost my wife and mother [due to EVD], I thought I was also going to die. I can’t sleep at night [thinking] how to take care of my children. I didn’t feel like eating. I feel like getting sick. I will not forget my wife and my mother. And my children won’t forget [them]either. But the meetings (monthly group therapy sessions) encouraged me to continue on living. I also encouraged my children [to do the same].”
"When my husband and other members of my family died [of Ebola], it brought pain to my heart; my shoulders were heavy, as if I could not breathe. Because of the assistance of the Camillian Task Force, yes, the pain is still there, but it has become lighter. And somehow I can laugh now," shared an old widow, Marie.
Hearing testimonies like these and being able to listen more to these families’ stories of courage, strength, and bravery in overcoming the challenges brought to them by the Ebola outbreak were so inspiring. Their faith in God, or Allah, since most of the families we served were actually Muslims, kept them going and gave them hope.
After my two months and a couple of days deployment in Sierra Leone, I left behind the people whom I was beginning to love. I left and they continued with their daily struggles to survive amidst their beloved homeland’s widespread social, economic, and political challenges, plus the looming problem of having to raise boku boku pikin (many many children) orphaned by Ebola. I left with my mind jeering at me: “So, do you think you have done something good for them?”
My heart, to the rescue, comforted me: “Well, very short-term missionaries like you can only do so much. And even if you spend your entire lifetime there, in the end you will still be called missionary, not messiah.”
I went back to the Philippines with my heart, and my mind, filled with stories and memories, and a deeper sense of joy, fulfillment, and inspiration from this very short but very sweet Salone missionary experience.
They were right. It was contagious.
________________________
Fr. John Jay C. Magpusao, MI, is a Filipino member of the Order of the Ministers of the Infirm, better known as the Camillians, a group of Catholic religious priests and brothers who dedicate themselves to the service of the sick. He shared in the joy of the Sierra Leoneans and joined them in giving praise and thanksgiving to God/Allah when the World Health Organization (WHO) finally declared SL Ebola-free on November 7, 2015.