As Mariatu Kagbo makes her way up the steep
hillside from her family home and walks towards the main road, several
people shout out "Ebola!"
At best, they mean it as a taunt. At worst it is a threat - an expression of the fear people hold in Old Wharf, a poor suburb outside Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, that Ms Kagbo could bring the virus back home with her from her new job.
"They're mocking me. They call me names. Sometimes they attack," says Ms Kagbo, a 37-year-old mother of six, who volunteered to join a Red Cross burial team a fortnight ago.
"They can say what they want. I say to myself - if I don't do it, who will?" she declares with conviction.
“Start Quote
Mariatu Kagbo Red Cross Burial TeamAt night when I lie down I see their faces”
"Two dead," says her supervisor, as their two-vehicle convoy sets off for the first job, in a nearby fishing village called Tombo.
A crowd has gathered outside a small home near the water's edge.
Some women are wailing.
A man approaches to say that someone else has fallen ill.
"We're only here for the dead - you need to call the hotline," says one of the burial team.
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