The Ebola Tent

The Ebola crisis is a very real threat in Africa. And it is, rightly, being taken seriously.

On our arrival in Kenya on December 27th and again this Monday at Juba airport, we had to first proceed through the Ebola Checking Points before heading through the immigration queues.

When we landed at Nairobi, we were instructed to line up in roped-off corridors, then one by one we were guided to stand and pause on a long white line of sticky tape secured to the floor at the head of each queue. At this specific point, a machine scanned our body temperature. Above us, an overhead TV screen flashed a thermal image of each person, with their body temperature noted on the top left of the screen. As long as we were shown to have a normal body temperature, we were allowed to continue into the airport.
It was a sobering reminder of this horrible health threat posed by Ebola. Our children were intrigued; they asked many questions and needed some reassurance.

When we touched down at Juba, we were again checked for any indication of fever, which might be a symptom of the dreaded outbreak.
This time, two large, beige-coloured tents stood outside the entrance of the Arrivals Hall. We gathered that we were supposed to pass through them on our way to immigration control. As we stepped into the body of the first tent, the immense heat of Juba bore down on us. We had forgotten how hot Juba is after spending a few days away in the cool highland air of Turi! The hot air was condensed under the canvas canopy; with no air-flow, the heat seemed to sit on us.

We were given 5 forms to fill in with our travel information. A plastic table was indicated where we could sit down to complete the forms. Because we had just had a 4-hour flight with no toilet facilities, I had limited how much water the children and I had to drink, so we were feeling a little dehydrated! Gradually, our cheeks turned pinker and pinker...I felt like I might explode with heat - I could not get those forms filled in fast enough!
I started to wonder if perhaps we would all end up with fevers by the time we could move forward to have our temperatures read!

Thankfully, when it came to having the thermometer pointed at our fore-heads,we all had normal temperature readings and could pass through to the immigration queue and on to Arrivals.
It is reassuring that there are checks in place for Ebola, but we hope that the deadly disease will soon be stamped out and the threat one less danger lurking within Africa's continent.

(To read about MAF's response to the Ebola Crisis, see page 8 of the current MAF UK's "Flying for Life" magazine -dated Winter 2015).