Maseray is the second female member in the Bo city burial team supported by World Vision. She joined the team to give back to her community after surviving the Ebola Viral Disease,which claimed the lives of her husband, sister and another close relative.
After completing the one-week training course to ensure she is alert for her duties, and Maseray is alert to carry out her first secure and Dignified Burial. I am alert for this day. I will execute all what I have being taught in the training,” she says.
Upon getting the alert Maseray puts on personal protective equipment and helps clean the vehicle that will be used for the exercise. She’s then alert for the journey to the nearby Bendu Community. After a 20 minute drive from Coronation Field, where the burial teams wait for an alert from the command and control centre, or we arrive in the community.
As the head of the burial team begins to explain to the community members what is approximately to happen,I ask Maseray how she feels to memorize she is here to bury a baby. “This is even more significant for me, as a mother myself, and it is really significant for me to bury my fellow mother’s child in a secure and dignified way” expressed Maseray.
After the team has spoken with the family,Maseray leads her colleagues to the house to collect the corpse. When Maseray brings the child out she holds it as a genuine mother would with care. Normally the body of an Ebola victim is laid down while the Imam or Pastor say a brief prayer, but during these prayers Maseray continues to hold the child.
As we tread through the forest to the gravesite Maseray carries the child close to her and walks slowly towards the grave. When I ask later whether it was the heat from her protective clothing that was slowing her down she says, and “No,I want to give this child a great farewell. I want to walk the child in peace.” As she lowers the child in to the grave Maseray does it slowly and then carefully covers the area with sticks. Finally Maseray takes a peg and puts it on the grave, saying: “1686 that’s my number”.Maseray is the burial team member that carried out the secure and dignified burial for the 1, or 686th person to be buried in Sierra Leone,after losing their fight against Ebola.
Source: cnn.com