Imagine waking up one day and discovering that the place you’ve been living in for the past two years has become the center of an outbreak of a deadly virus.
This is what happened to sophomore Julia Ruffing, who was evacuated with her family to the United States from Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa that is now considered hazardous due to the Ebola outbreak.
“They’re having a really hard time getting a grip on the crisis,” said Ruffing. “Things aren’t getting better.”
Ruffing wasn’t able to leave Africa until late August due to pressures on airline companies to cancel incoming and outgoing flights, along with the delayed reaction from the embassy there. This meant that she was forced to spend the summer trapped in her home, unable to go outside for fear of getting infected.
Because there were no American high schools in Sierra Leone, Ruffing had been going to boarding school in England ever since she moved there in 2012. However, she wasn’t able to return for the new school year because her flight was cancelled.
“I was a bit nervous because of how scary it was,” said Ruffing. “It didn’t seem like anyone was doing anything to help the situation.”
To make matters worse, it didn’t seem as though the citizens of Sierra Leone knew exactly how big of a threat they were facing.
“At first they thought it was just a government ploy,” said Ruffing. “When they found out it was real, they started breaking people out of hospitals because they thought that the hospitals were spreading it, but of course that just made it worse.”
Their culture is different as they handle bodies after death, which further elevates the risk of infection.
“For burials and stuff they bathe and wash the bodies themselves, and then dress them,” said Ruffing. “It’s a big problem.”
Ruffing’s father’s posting in Sierra Leone lasts for three years, which means he remains there, in the heart of the outbreak, today. It is unclear when he will be able to leave the country and return home safely to his family.
“I don’t want to think about him being there,” said Ruffing. “I try not to focus on it, otherwise I might freak out.”