Community leaders plan vigil for unidentified male patient at local Texas hospital on Thursday
Cynjoe African Market is the sort of miraculous little shop that manages to sell a bit of everything, from hair braids to DVDs, shawls to soft drinks. Its fridges stock the usual selection of mainstream American beers but lettering on the front window advertises matooke, gari, pondu and fufu: African dishes that sound especially exotic given the store’s prosaic location in a north Dallas strip-mall just off the Lyndon B Johnson Freeway.
A Liberian flag hangs in one corner of the window. One customer on Wednesday morning was deeply familiar with the American-esque, single-star and stripes design: Helen Brent was born in the west African nation but grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Dallas six years ago.
She found out the previous evening that the Texas city is the site of the first US case of Ebola, the disease that is ravaging her homeland. Less than four miles south-west of Cynjoe a thicket of television trucks has sprung up in a parking lot at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital, where the as-yet unnamed patient is being treated.
The hospital borders densely populated Vickery Meadow, among Dallas’s most diverse areas and long home to many of its poorest refugees and immigrants. Just a couple of minutes’ drive away on the other side of Highway 75 is the swanky suburb of Highland Park, home to many of the city’s richest residents and the George W Bush Presidential Library.
Comprising an estimated 5,000-10,000 people, north Texas’s Liberian community is widely spread out across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex of 6.5 million residents, the country’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. There are several churches with majority Liberian congregations in Arlington, midway between the two big cities.
Cynjoe sits in a heavily African American area close to several African restaurants, bars and beauty salons. Brent, against her better judgment given the news, had come to buy a big bottle of cooking oil. “The only reason I’ve come here is because I have to cook. But anyway I’m a healthcare worker so I know how to protect myself,” said the 39-year-old. “I’m not going to hug or shake hands – for real.”
Brent said that Ebola was a frequent topic of conversation and concern with her relatives in Liberia but it still felt unexpected that the virus turned up in north Texas. “I was surprised that it came here, but people are travelling in and out of the country so anything can happen. It was bound to happen one way or the other,” she said.
“It’s a big community so we’ll really have to teach people how to protect themselves, or people have to learn. Because we’re somebody that, we like to socialise with each other, so we have to learn to protect ourself.”
Community leaders held a meeting on Tuesday evening to discuss their response and have provisionally planned a vigil for the man outside the hospital on Thursday.
Alben Tarty of the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth said that people generally have confidence in the ability of government officials to contain the threat but were eager for the patient’s name to be released.
“The reaction from the community is what you’d expect: people are concerned about what the situation really is and what it will lead to. People are very much concerned about the outcome,” he said. “Initially I was frustrated that I didn’t know the name of this person but I’ve got real consolation right now given the fact that CDC knows who it is.”
There was no panic – more like mild anxiety – among commuters at a station across the street from the hospital. Waiting for a bus, Billy Herman, 62, said that he was worried “to some degree, yes, but I have confidence in the CDC, that they have a standard process in place that they’re doing a traceback to see who he’s come in contact with.
“I am sure and confident in the healthcare system in America and that if other individuals are infected, if they start having symptoms that we can control it and it won’t be mass death, fear and destruction like in those third world countries,” he said, adding that he would move away if seated close to someone with flu-like symptoms.
“Use cough etiquette – our parents taught us as kids, cover your mouth when you cough, that’s just respect of someone else. And always wash your hands. But adults you can’t retrain, and then if you say something they get mad. But yes, I would have a concern, I would definitely move, not to take any chances,” he said.
Waiting for her ride, Kayla Layman said she was a frequent patient at the hospital and was slightly anxious because she has an immune system problem and reports suggest the man had spent several days in the Dallas area, and sought medical help and been released, before falling severely ill and being isolated and correctly diagnosed.
“I know that this hospital’s very careful about wearing masks, gloves and all that,” she said. “[But] I come to this hospital for treatment, whenever I have to come to the hospital I’m afraid that I might get it.”
Seated on a bench at the bus stop, Vickie Derrick and Amy Williams seemed fully aware of Ebola’s symptoms and how it is transmitted. They said they had watched the news – not just in the past two days, but over several weeks. Ebola had already generated plenty of local attention because a Fort Worth doctor working in Africa, Kent Brantly, contracted the virus earlier in the summer and was successfully treated in Atlanta.
As a result, many people here have long been following Ebola media coverage, limiting the spread of the shock factor, though not the vague sense of uncertainty about who else may have the virus and what might happen next. People in Dallas understand that the chances of contracting Ebola are still extremely remote; but the disease itself is no longer distant. “I’m concerned but they said you can’t catch it unless you come in contact with them. So all we can do right now is pray,” said Williams.