("South African House Mix One")
- [Voiceover] Back in August I was
one of the first foreign journalists
to land in Liberia to cover the Ebola outbreak.
There weren't very many of us willing to go
to the world's hottest hot zone
and there was a general global malaise about the disease,
so there wasn't very much information around
about how to prepare.
As the story took off colleagues called me
and asked me what they should do.
I told them how I didn't use a razor for a week
before coming to Liberia because I'm a klutz,
and a careless slice into your skin
is a little Ebola door.
I told them I trimmed my nails
low enough that they wouldn't puncture my latex gloves,
but not so short that I exposed the nail bed.
Raw flesh at the tip of your fingers
would basically be an Ebola welcome mat.
But the most useful thing I told them
was to break the rules.
In journalism and in aid work
you're not supposed to give people things.
But in Liberia, in the time of Ebola,
I felt like you have to.
I gave gloves to nurses at clinics,
and small change to kids
who'd been out of school for months.
When I left Liberia in August
I gave my rubber boots to a midwife.
All this giving isn't being generous,
it's being selfish,
because in the middle of Ebola you can't touch anyone.
Ebola puts a physical distance between you and the world
that no words can bridge.
And you feel that distance in your body.
You feel it like you'd feel
smacking into the end of a fat wooden pole
that's pushing you away from the world.
I'd never understood that it was qualitatively different
to say to someone, "A pleasure to meet you"
while you're holding onto a stranger.
I'd never appreciated just how much groundwork
is laid in the way I extend my hand,
the strength and the length of a handshake.
Touch transforms everything.
And without it I'd also lost a skill.
Liberia is famous for its finger snap in greeting,
but there's no more Liberian handshake.
There's no more hand holding,
there's no more arm around the shoulder.
You can't comfort anyone who is sad.
And you can't hug anyone out of joy.
So, you give.
You give what you have because you can't touch,
and because you can't cure,
and you can't walk away either.
You give not because you're nice,
but because when people are dying all around you,
the kindest thing that you can do for yourself
is a tiny, ordinary kindness for someone else.
("South African House Mix One")