Friends say the 33-year-old freelance photojournalist who contracted Ebola in Liberia this week knew that traveling there was a huge risk.

But the patient, Ashoka Mukpo, “wanted to help Liberians make sure that their stories were told,” said Katie Meyler, founder of More Than Me, an educational charity in Monrovia, Liberia. “There’s not a lot of people to be that intermediary, able to speak both languages like a cultural translator,” she added.

Thus, Mukpo was in high demand, contributing to a range of sites including NBC News, Vice News, Africa Is a Country and Al Jazeera English, among others.

His stories reveal a humanitarian striving to show the world Ebola’s horrors.

On Tuesday, Mukpo began a freelance job with NBC News as part of a news crew in Liberia telling the story of Ebola’s latest outbreak for NBC properties.

On Wednesday, Mukpo felt tired, achy and sick. He has had a few fever scares before, but told friends he thought this time it was real. He quickly self-quarantined; then, on Thursday, he tested positive for Ebola at a Doctors Without Borders facility.

Friends aren’t sure exactly how Mukpo contracted the virus, which requires direct contact with a symptomatic patient to transmit. He may have gotten to close to someone with Ebola; it have been through cigarettes.

Regardless, the thing Mukpo was most paranoid about had, in fact, happened.

Now, “it’s all been a matter of logistics of stabilizing him,” said NBC’s chief medical expert, Dr. Nancy Snyderman. She added that Mukpo likely became infected before they began working together, and that her crew had shared equipment, working space and vehicles with him.

Snyderman says the journalist will be airlifted on Sunday to the U.S. for isolation and treatment. “He should have a very good prognosis,” she said.

Thanks to everyone for the kind wishes. Our NBC cameraman diagnosed with Ebola is in good hands and will be air lifted to the U.S.@NBCNews

— Dr. Nancy Snyderman (@DrNancyNBCNEWS) October 3, 2014

The patient’s father, Mitchell Levy, told friends and family the same: “The doctors are optimistic about his prognosis.”

“The enormous anxiety I have as a mother … is the delay between now and him leaving on Sunday,” his mother, Diana Mukpo, said on Friday. “The State Department has been fantastic. They’ve been compassionate. I can only hope and pray that his symptoms don’t worsen.”

Mukpo, who hails from Providence, Rhode Island, arrived in Liberia on Sept. 4th, returning after a brief absence to a region he called home for the past several years. He was scheduled to stay in the country through Friday.

In a Facebook post announcing his arrival in the country, Mukpo wrote he was “taking serious precautions and washing with chlorine regularly.”

“The virus only passes through open cuts and membranes like eyes and mouth so with gloves, chlorine washes, and care to not touch anyone there’s a low risk of transmission,” he wrote in the Facebook post.

His tweets also depict a man bearing witness to horror, frustrated with the United States’ slow response to come to the region’s aid.

“Obama’s plan to give 25 beds for Ebola treatment to Liberia is a nice start … oh wait they’re only for Americans who get the virus,” he tweeted on Sept. 11, when the president announced aid to west Africa. “America: the absentee parent that never shows up for life events but sends a $5 Arby’s coupon two weeks after your birthday.”

The U.S. government has sent CDC advisors to Liberia and 3,600 troops are on the way to help set up Ebola treatment centers there.

In the two weeks since, Mukpo encountered a range of cases: Patients being turned away from a Doctors Without Borders facility, where three bodies lay dead outside; a woman, after getting rejected from a clinic with her two kids, hopping into a cab to go home; a family of seven, all of whom had contracted the virus, surviving.

On Sept. 18, while in Monrovia, Liberia, he reflected on the “bad things” he has seen, of the “raw coldness of deprivation,” and expressed a hope that humanity can “figure out how we can take care of each other.”

“Bearing witness is not easy,” one of his friends wrote in a comment on his Facebook post. “Take care of yourself and the rest that you need.”

On Sept. 30, he posted a video from Pan-African Beach in Monrovia that showed an Ebola awareness “freestyle rap session.”

Two days after posting that video, Mukpo tested positive for the virus. He will leave Liberia on Sunday, two days behind his initial scheduled departure date — not on the terms he imagined.

“Thankfully, he’s on a plane,” said Meyler, the charity worker. “We’re all hoping and praying. He has a lot of friends. Lots of positive vibes going his way.”

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