A poem about Ebola

Over the past 10 years, I have made six self-funded humanitarian visits to Sierra Leone, and have a continuing friendship with 30 orphan children. One is Francis Vandi, a young man who attends Christ the King School in Bo, Sierra Leone. Francis has written this poem about the Ebola crisis, which I promised to share with the nursing community:

Ebola Crisis by Francis Vandi

Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!
I called on you three times.
Why have you come into my country?
Where its solidity is been eaten by poverty.

You have brought so many pains and injuries in our hearts.
You have taken away our loved ones.
Prevented us from touching our dear ones.
You have locked all our social recreational centres, where we express our thoughts and feelings to our close ones.
You made us bathe with hot water and salt at midnight, which according to our tradition is not right.

You gave us house arrest for three days, seven days... and the rest.
But still you don’t want us to rest.
With all this respect, it seems you have no interest.
The worst of all is that you want to set back to our education.
For this one, there is no negotiation.

Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!
I called on you again three times.
Everyone is tired of hearing your name,
Nobody wants to hear your name
So please, please leave us, for we are tired, tired of hearing your name.
 

About the author

Heather Lannin has been a nurse for 30 years. She is not currently practising but gives lectures on global health issues to nurses at the University of Salford, Manchester