A reporter from the New York Times traveled to Liberia to collect the stories of Liberians affected by Ebola. When the reportive team arrived, they found a five year-old girl lying on the sidewalk surrounded by a crowd of over 100 people standing at a safe distance away. The reporter began to ask people about this girl and got a great deal of mixed information about the girl’s family and which family members had been infected with, or died of, Ebola. Most of the information, says the reporter, would prove to be wrong. The amount of stigma and fear surrounding the Ebola virus in Liberia is such that many are in denial about themselves or their family becoming infected and others distance themselves from loved ones in acts of self-preservation. Those whom the reporter spoke to were often not forthcoming with information, or misleading in the information they provided.
Eventually, after some time to develop trust, community members began to open up about their stories and the impact that Ebola had had on their lives. Many Liberians said that the Ebola epidemic was worse than the country’s 14-year civil war because Ebola has made Liberians fear their own family members. A week after photographing the sidewalk scene, the young girl, Esther, died of the Ebola virus. Her father, Lester, was wracked with guilt as he had been too afraid to go see her and risk becoming infected himself.