Apologies for My Silence - My Research Has Continued Despite My Lack of Posts!

After the abrupt end to my pre-dissertation research trip to Liberia in August 2014 because of the Ebola crisis, I was, perhaps understandably, not in the mood to write for a bit.  I even had a draft of a post started that included a couple of final images from Liberia relating to Ebola that I never put up. I will start this post by putting those images here since, even at a little more than a year and a half's distance, I still think they will interest people.

The first is of the form that I had to fill out at the airport in Monrovia about my activities during my time in Liberia.  When I arrived at the airport they took my temperature (with the coolest sort of lazer-gun thing which they pointed at my ear), had me fill out this form, and asked me a question or two at a separate medical history sort of desk, and then I was on my way.  After that, I went through customs in 3 different countries on my way home.  In all 3 places I declared to the agent that I had been in Liberia.  Not once did a single person ask me how I was feeling (which would have been logical as symptoms certainly could have arisen in the time span of my excessively long itinerary to get home) or if I had been in any circumstances that would have placed me at a higher risk of contracting Ebola.  I still haven't really decided what I think about the lack of these inquiries, but I will say I find it noteworthy.

Airport Form - apologies for the blurriness!

The second image was of this flyer which was posted at my hotel on the day I left and at the airport.  I thought it was a particularly good one, albeit fairly text heavy, but with decent graphics relating to the progression of the symptoms.

Flyer

While I didn't end up taking any more research trips during the summer of 2014, as moving up my departure from Liberia had made my plans for the remainder of the summer quite precarious, since that time I have had the pleasure of visiting:

• The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. to look at the American Colonization Society Records in January 2015 (and I have subsequently used inter-library loan to continue using their microfilm materials)
• The Liberian Collections at Indiana University (again) in March 2015
• The United Methodist Archive at Drew University in June 2015
• The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives in Chicago, IL in August 2015

While I cannot retroactively do all of these research trips justice here, I will do my best to share a few choice stories as I continue to make use of the resources I accessed in each place.

For example, a few months ago I posted this gem from the Africa's Luminary (accessed at the United Methodist Archive at Drew University) on Facebook when I came across it again in my research materials:

Africa's Luminary - Vol III, No 19 - December 17, 1841

It just raises so many questions! 1) Given that the number of white people in the area at the time was quite small and it couldn't have been severed for more than a few hours, how did they not already know who this "perfectly white" hand belonged to??  He's the guy who recently lost a hand!!  2) Provided he wasn't connected to or known by the Methodist missionaries, who goes around checking the Methodist newspaper printed every other week for a notice about their missing hand??  I feel like he maybe should have been more preoccupied dealing with what was undoutedly a life threatening injury.  Which brings me to 3) What is the owner of the hand supposed to do with it when he gets it back??  And finally, and perhaps most importantly, 4) What in the world are these "all sorts of creeping things" and why did you put them in with the hand???  Unfortunately, as this article was in the last issue of Africa's Luminary the archive had, I couldn't follow up on what happened and thus, as the title claimed, it remains "Mysterious."

Alright, for now, that will have to suffice.  I am currently back at the University of Minnesota where I am holding a semester-long writing fellowship through the Consortium for the Study of the Premodern World, giving me more time than usual (although never enough!) to work on my dissertation, so hopefully I can have more research-related stories to post soon!