关键帧| 抗埃摄影记者生前手记：记录不幸者的尊严

本文由美国新闻摄影记者协会(National Press Photographers Association http://Nppa.org)官方杂志《News Photographer》授权发表。未经许可，不得转载。

《生死埃博拉》（Life And Death In The Time Of Ebola）

图片/文字：迈克·杜塞尔(Michel du Cille)

中文翻译节选：        

        在超过40年的摄影记者生涯中，我可以引以为豪的是：自己能够带给被摄对象以尊严，尤其是我镜头里的病人和那些不幸的人。但是近期，在利比里亚报道埃博拉疫情的任务，却格外具有挑战性。对于死者或者濒临死亡的人来说，尊重往往是世界能够提供给他们的最后东西。然而，我带着相机在现场，这似乎让事情变复杂了，让展示那些必要的尊重变得更难了。相机本身，对于我想要给予他们的尊严感，似乎就是一种背叛。有时，那些可怕场景根本无法被净化。一个死在了路边女人，躺在地上，无人问津，曝尸街头，人们从她孤零零的身子旁边路过，或者远远地藐上一眼：这样的情况，怎么能给她尊严呢？但是我相信，世界必须看到，埃博拉带来的后果是多么的恐怖，让人失去人性。这项工作一定要完成。 所以，必须要带着温柔的关爱去拍照，小心翼翼，不可贸然而动。

        在城市的制高点，我捕捉下了华丽丽的大海，明信片风格的日出。照片里，这座身处危机的城市正在前行，期待着得到尊严，就像一切还正常的旧时候。      

        

英文全文：

        In more than 40 years as a photojournalist I have taken pride in offering dignity to the subjects I photograph, especially those who are sick or in distress while in front of my camera. But my recent photographic assignment to cover the Ebola outbreak in Liberia proved exceedingly challenging. Respect is often the last and only thing there is that the world can offer to a deceased or dying person. Notwithstanding my presence at the scene with a camera, it becomes almost too perplexing and it is hard to show that necessary respect. The camera itself seems to be a betrayal of the dignity I so hope to offer. Sometimes the harshness of a gruesome scene simply cannot be sanitized. How does one give dignity to a woman who has died and is lying on the ground, unattended, uncovered, and alone as people walk by or gaze from a distance? But I believe that world must see how horrible and dehumanizing are the effects of Ebola; the work must be done. So one moves with tender care, gingerly, without extreme intrusion.

        It is exceedingly difficult not to be a feeling human being while covering the Ebola crisis. Indeed, one has to feel compassion and above all try to show respect.

        During one of the most emotional encounters I faced in Liberia, I photographed a family who accompanied a very sick woman who seemed near death as they sought treatment. Eva Togbah was bleeding from the mouth and her breathing was shallow. She was not ambulatory. (Seen at right.) As the husband, a sister, a brother, and a friend descended from the van, each was covered with large plastic bags around their hands, feet, and bodies, urgently trying to protect themselves from Ebola with their makeshift coverings. They knew this was the only way to get their very ill relative to the Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) Ebola Treatment Unit. 

        Waiting outside the unit’s gates was a given, but to the anxious family the one-hour wait must have seem far too long to them as the patient worsened. At one point I approached the woman’s sister, who had secluded herself against a wall away from the others as her sister faded away in the van. I asked her how long her sibling had been sick. She said about one week. She asked me questions that I did not completely understand, nor could I answer. As we tried to speak to each other, both of us not fully understanding the other’s dialect, our eyes spoke volumes. To me her eyes said, “This is the end.” I looked at her and said, “You know, she is very, very sick.” She said, “Yes, I know.” As I tried to continue our fruitless conversation, my voice broke and suddenly tears came involuntarily. I walked away leaving the sad woman to her solitude while I regained my composure. The sick woman was eventually admitted to MSF for treatment. But I presumed she was already too far gone. Later I was not able to confirm my worst assumptions about her condition.

        Existence in Liberia is far from normal during the Ebola crisis. As life moves to the hectic African pulse the Ebola virus continues to kill, seemingly at a faster pace. As the virus continues to devastate thousands, in Monrovia government offices (including the Executive Mansions) are closed. Yet people still move about their daily lives as if all is normal. The Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is the only government office currently functioning. They are the local authority responsible for eradicating the Ebola virus.

        By October 15, the World Health Organization’s Ebola Response Report counted 4,493 deaths and 8,997 cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, and the United States. The figures do not include an Ebola outbreak in the Health Presbyterian Hospital nursing staff in Dallas who attended to Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who died of the virus in mid-October.

        Although the Ebola crisis has nearly crippled the Liberian economy, affecting businesses and day-to-day life, the streets remain choked with heavy traffic. Old vehicles with smoke blowing from the exhaust maneuver around giant potholes and deep puddles, a result of the heavy West African rainy season. Barefoot children in shorts race up to cars at intersections hawking assorted items like candy, chewing gum, cream biscuits, plastic bags of water, and windshield wiper blades while everybody seems to ignore traffic laws.

        The government offers no buses or any kind of public transportation. The only feasible options are small yellow taxicabs, motorized rickshaws, and the ever-present motorcycles (of which most are not road worthy). These motorbike-taxis that scurry into crowds and dash around traffic have become such a public nuisance that locals refer to them as “suicide.” They are banned from some downtown Monrovia streets because of their wanton recklessness. Every taxi option, in which they carry far too many passengers and where people are in very close contact with each other, has been debated as one way in which the Ebola virus may be spreading. The motorbike taxis often carry three or even four passengers at a time. Often these taxis are the only way people with Ebola symptoms can make it to the Ebola Treatment Units, which increases the potential spread of the virus.

        Monrovia is by the Atlantic Ocean on Africa’s West coast. Vibrant street markets line the motorways in the Liberian capital. All are open for business, even during the Ebola crisis. Most vendor stalls are simply large beach umbrellas, and music seems to blare from every stand.

        During Monrovia’s rainy season, which locals joke lasts six months of the year, the sky is gray by day and the nights are pitch black, leaving visitors asking, “Where is the moon?” The ocean provides magnificent views from most high points in the city. Although locals walk and enjoy being at the beaches, few Liberians will swim there. Residents say the canals and rivers flow raw sewage and garbage into the ocean. 

        The New Kru Town section of Monrovia has been hit hard by the Ebola virus. Burial crews, in protective suits, are so overwhelmed that bodies of people who have died from Ebola often lay on the ground for long periods of time – even at the doorsteps of Redemption Hospital. The hospital, which is now closed to daily health concerns, only receives Ebola patients. It is used as a holding and transfer facility for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases. When it is full, those who show up must frequently wait outside, lying on the ground or sitting for hours in an ambulance where they often eventually die. No one can approach or touch the bodies without protective gear. Health professionals say that the Ebola virus is the most contagious when the host has died. Subsequently, bodies lay for hours before teams wearing protective suits can retrieve them.

        In Monrovia the Ebola dead are cremated, but in rural counties far away burial is still the only way. Health workers in protective gear bury the dead who are placed inside plastic body bags. They lower the body into the grave using simple strips of white cloth; then leaning over, a couple feet down, they have no choice but to simply drop the body down the rest of the way into the six-foot by four-foot by six-foot deep hole. There is no coffin, no ceremony, no family or friends. The authorities have decreed this method to prevent the future spread of the virus during burial.

        West Point, a bustling Monrovia slum of 70,000, looks like one giant market filled with dozens of small shops and vendor stalls. Here life moves like a chaotic dance with ordinary people who call it home. The shacks, stalls, shops, and houses are indistinguishable from each other. Startlingly, people line up body-to-body for food handouts from the United Nation’s World Food Program (WFP), blatantly ignoring the call from government health authorities not to touch each other for fear of spreading the virus from close contact.

        Irony is no stranger to the state of things in West Point. When a Liberian magisterial judge in a small courtroom was trying to arraign a man and woman accused of grand theft, the man vomited while handcuffed to the woman. Suddenly, the court was cleared and the couple was isolated as an ambulance was called to the scene. After spraying down the two accused thieves and the surrounding area with a chlorine solution, health workers dashed off with the duo in an ambulance headed for the Redemption Hospital. As the vehicle with siren blaring arrived outside the treatment facility, the doors opened and the two immediately took flight, running away down the street, escaping their earlier certain fate of a Liberian jailhouse.

        Monrovia is on the Atlantic Ocean, on Africa’s west coast. During the rainy season, which locals joke lasts six months of the year, the sky is gray, day and night. The nights are pitch-black, leaving visitors to ask, “Where is the moon?”

        From high points in the city, I captured magnificent images of the ocean, the postcard-worthy sunset. It’s an image of a city in crisis and moving forward as if things were normal, hoping for dignity.