The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

One had the sense that the connection could go out at any time. But when this man on the other side of the world spoke, my fellow ambassadors—who usually multitasked during briefings—stared up at the screen, rapt. Niamah said that when Ebola came to Monrovia “people began dying,” including his niece and cousin, both nurses, who passed away in July of 2014. “So many of my friends, university classmates and colleagues have died in recent months,” he said. “They die alone, terrified, and without their loved ones at their side.” Niamah had signed up to work for MSF out of a sense of patriotism. His job was to assess patients and then help care for those diagnosed with Ebola. He described what it meant to have more infected people than the MSF clinic had beds. “We have to turn people away, and many are dying at our front gate,” Niamah said. “Right now, as I speak, there are patients sitting at our front gates, literally begging for life.” He then went on: One day this week, I sat outside the treatment center eating my lunch. I met a boy who approached the gate. His father had died from Ebola a week ago. I saw him with blood at his mouth. We had no space, so we could not to take him in . . . When he turned away to walk into town, I thought to myself that that boy is going to take a taxi, and he is going to go home . . . and infect his family. Because Ebola was transmitted through fluids exchanged during physical contact, anyone the boy touched would likely become a casualty of h...