Hallo. I am Amari. I am a 14 year old boy living in Labe’ Guinea. Labe’ is a rural area with a population of 59,000 people. I live with my mother, my baby sister Dalia, and my oldest brother Cilombo.

Recently, a mystery plague has been spreading around. There have been Americans running around wearing white. First it was caught by a little boy. He died. Then it infected his whole family. It spreads around quickly, and we have heard that neighboring villages have the plague too. It starts with extreme heat in the body, then you bleed from every orifice that can be found. Blood leaking from wherever it can, trying to escape the awfulness that is the sick body. I am scared that it will come to my family, that they will all be gone.

My worst fears have come true. Dalia has caught the mystery plague. She screams and cries in her cradle, my mother hovering over her, and trying to calm her. It doesn’t work. Even more white clothed Americans have arrived today, and they have built tents where the sick people are to go. There is a knock at my door. They are speaking in Afrikaans that is not fluent, and hard to understand.
“Is daar 'n siek persoon in hierdie huis?” The people in white ask. They are asking if there is a sick person in our house.
“Ja.” “Yes”, my mother replies.
“waar is hulle?” Where are they?
“Sy is hier,” She is here.
“Sy is net 'n baba.” My mother tells them. Dalia is only a baby.
“Hoe oud?” How old, they ask.
  “Ses maande”Six months.
“Ons kan nie in staat wees om haar te red , maar sy nodig het om saam met ons.” They may not be able to save her but she has to go with them.
“Ek sal haar te gaan haal . Wys die pad.” My mother takes Dalia in her arms. She says she will carry Dalia. She says to show her the path.
“Op hierdie manier.”
This way.

And then they leave. My mother, Dalia, and the men in white.

My mother comes home that night. She tells me Dalia is dead. She was so fragile only being a baby. I am very sad. My sister has died. The people in white place us each in our own tent, with a small bed, and a dresser in which we are to put in a few clothes and a few possessions.

My brother has caught the mystery plague. The men in white are calling it Ebola. For three weeks we stay in the small tents. My brother dies the week before we are allowed to leave. My mother and I go home. I do not play soccer with the other boys. I know what I will see if I do. I will see a group half the size of what it was. Half the boys dead.

Soon, my mother too catches “Ebola”. They take her away, back to the big white tent, with the men in white running around. I wonder why it is all white. Is that what death like? A sudden whiteness? I am put back into a small tent, just like before when my sister died, followed by my brother. Soon my mother will die, the only family I have left. It is then that I start hoping that I too, will die, so that I can escape the sorrow and the fear that consumes my every waking moment.

This time, before I am allowed to leave the tent, the doctors must first do many health exams. They shine a light in my eye. They look inside my mouth. They press a cold metal circle to my chest and to my back. Then they come with a large amount of thin, long, metal things attached to tubes with lines and numbers on them.
“Dit is net ' n gereelde inspuitings wat die Amerikaanse kinders kry om die siekte weg te hou . Ons sal ook 'n paar bloed neem sodat ons kan seker maak dat jy gesond is.”
They tell me they are going to give me something the American children get to keep away sickness. They are also going to take my blood away to see if I am healthy.
“Hoe kan ek 'n gesonde as jy al my bloed?”
I ask them how I can be healthy if they have all my blood.
They laugh and tell me that they only need a little, as much as they would get if I cut my finger. The things they give me sting. They poke my arm with the things, and push on something. I see the amount of liquid in the tubes drop. Eventually, all the tubes are emptied. They then take a new tube, one that is empty and dry. They stick it in my arm, and pull pack on the same thing they pushed on the full ones. They pull the tube out of my arm, and insert my blood into a vial. Then I am told I can leave. I go to gather my things. A drop of blood falls to the ground. I assume it is from all the places where they poked my arm and I keep packing. Another drop falls, this time I notice that it is coming from my nose. I press a button on a remote they left on my dresser, and a few minutes later a man in white comes in. He sees my face, everything below my nose is covered in blood. He takes my things from me, and motions for me to get into bed. He hands me a box of white paper and I take one and hold it up to my face. He nods and I begin wiping away the blood. He asks my name. I tell him. “Amir.” “Amir Jalloh?” He asks, and his face darkens.
“Jou ma is dood” He tells me my mother is dead.
“Waarom het niemand my vertel?” Why hasn’t anyone told me?

I start to cry. Thick, hot tears run down my face. I am all alone in this big world with its diseases and mystery plagues. I have no family. The man looks at me in shock. I wipe away a tear, and realize that I am crying blood. I reach a hand up to feel my ear, and feel that the inside is damp and my finger comes out bloody. I take a sip of water, and my lips leave a bloody mark on the cup. I am scared. Suddenly I faint.

When I wake, I am in a different tent. I am clothed in a thin white gown that is open at the back. I am lying on a cot. I feel awful. I am hot, and yet I am shivering. My body aches. There is sticky blood covering my face. They have stuck the metal things back in my arms, but one is attached to a tube leading to a bag of clear liquid. The other is attached to a metal box that has a wheel spinning on it. I see a red liquid that I assume is blood, in a tube that spins around and around. A man comes up. But wait! No, it is a woman. Dressed in all white. But instead of just wearing the normal clothing, she is covered head to toe. Her face covered by a mask, her hands covered in very thick gloves. There isn’t an inch of skin that I can see that is not covered. Even her hair is covered by a poofy blue material.
“Hoe voel jy?” How am I feeling?
“Wat het gebeur?” What happened? I ask
“Jy het Ebola . Jy het in skok wanneer jy die bloed      sien aan die glas.” I have Ebola. I went into shock when I saw the blood on the glass.
Great. I think. Now I will die like my mother and brother and sister before me. I begin to cry again. The woman in white and blue sticks another metal thing into my arm and I drift off to sleep. The sickness is horrible. I am hot all the time, but still shivering. I bleed constantly. blood leaking out my mouth, my eyes, my nose. My waste is bloody, my clothes and sheets soaked in blood. But I stay alive. The blood they pump into my arm through the tube, and whatever the clear liquid is, they both keep me alive. Slowly I start to get better. They tell me that I will live, that
50% of the people who get Ebola die, but that I will live. They tell me that surviving is a game of waiting and luck. They tell me that my surviving is a result of my will to live, my will to stay alive.

“Well.” says the woman in white. The same one who told me I had Ebola. “Y’all lived. Y’all must have something pretty important to have survived that.” She has a strong accent, but I can’t place it. I have never heard it before. “Ya’ got family left? School? A pet?” After a few years, I have learned to understand some of the english words. I tell her I have no family. I don’t go to school. And I ask her what a pet is. “A pet is an animal y’all keep, and it’s like a friend.” She says. “I’m sorry ‘bout y'all's family. I went to school in the U.S.A. Y’all heard of that before?” “No.” “How’d ya like to come on back with me? We could get y’all some proper learnin’!” “ I would like that very much.” I reply.

Once I am better, and the doctor is no longer needed, we get on a great metal bird. We are flying in the sky for a great time. So long that I fall asleep on the way.

A few weeks after we arrive, the doctor tells me I need to go to school. I go to a “university”. Even though I have never been to school, I am able to learn as quickly as the other students. I am younger than all of them, and they seem surprised to see me since I am so young. I am taking courses to be a doctor, like the one who brought me here. After four years, I graduate from the university and become a doctor. I move back to Africa, and everything is better. It is now 2022, and Ebola is long gone. I work at a new hospital that is treating new diseases like Zeeka. Even though my story has some horrible parts, it has a happy ending. And that is what I tell the children that I treat. I tell them every day.