Economy in the Time of Ebola
In a market in Monrovia a woman sits on a square carpet,
weaving multicoloured bands of beads into bracelets and necklaces,
which sit untouched throughout the long afternoon,
now that these are the days when no one wants to buy,
because to buy means
to touch something.
A young man, 19, owns his own art studio,
where he sells carvings of horses, paintings of streams and
of mountains. Some days, he makes the two hour walk
from his house outside of the city, to do nothing more
than to sweep the floor of the shop that no one enters,
because to enter means
to breathe the same air.
A lawyer sits at his favourite table
in a bar. He hasn't been here for weeks,
but he is glad to be back now. Glad to be able
to get out of the house, to move around, to watch
his favourite football team, Arsenal, playing on the television
propped above the bar. There is a dispenser
just outside the doors of the bar. It dispenses a
cleansing solution of bleach and water.
It washes every hand clean.
MR
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