Chapter 18: Tribal Funerals

Dr. Sky put on his mask and gloves and walked into the cabin of the monkey farm, walking in front of the rows of monkey cages and observing the monkeys in the cages.

The wild monkeys were unfriendly to the sudden appearance of humans, and Dr. Sky glared at one of them, the monkey holding the edge of the cage with both hands, and also glared at Dr. Sky, grinning and making a threatening sound in his throat.

Although the monkeys were not friendly, they seemed to be in good spirits and robust, and did not look sick.

Dr. Sky wanted to take samples from the monkeys, such as blood, nasopharyngeal swabs, etc., but the monkeys were very uncooperative and did not bring anesthetics, so it was impossible to complete the sampling by himself and the old black man in front of him.

Thinking of the dead and buried monkeys, Sky thought that the dead monkeys could always be sampled obediently, but when the old black man took Dr. Sky to the woods where the monkeys were buried, Sky was stunned.

The stench is disgusting.

Although the monkey was buried in the ground, the smell of the corpse still removing.

The old black man pointed to the woods, "It's in this area, there are too many dead monkeys buried, I don't know the specific location, the dead monkey was buried by the boss himself, and the previous dead monkey was buried by the previous cleaner." ”

The forest was so large that the area where the monkeys were buried was too large to pinpoint the exact location, and with the stench of rotting corpses, Dr. Sky gave up on sampling the dead monkeys.

After investigating the monkey farm, Dr. Sky prepares to go to the home of the original cleaner, kupper, who is a close contact of the boss Kay and shows signs of illness, and is the subject of a key epidemiological investigation at the scene.

Along the way, I found out about the small village where the cleaners were located, a small tribe only a kilometer away from the North Eagle Lumber Mill, surrounded by rainforest, and it was difficult to find this place without someone pointing you out.

Asking the tribesmen about the names of the cleaners, a black child pointed to a thatched hut on the edge of the village, which was the cleaner's home.

Before we could get close to the hut on the edge of the village, we could hear the sound of drums and cries in the distance, the sounds of local funerals.

Dr. Sky had a bad premonition and hurried to the edge of the village, and sure enough, as expected, a funeral was being held in the open space in front of the hut.

While cremation is being promoted in Sierra Leone, primitive burial rites are only held in large cities, such as the tribal villages around the small town of Keith.

At the funeral, the relatives of the deceased and many villagers will come to attend, the body of the deceased will be parked near the house where he lived, the relatives will come forward to kiss and touch the deceased, after the farewell ceremony is completed, people will step on the drums, take the dance steps, carry the coffin to the cemetery near the village, bury it in the soil, and then put stones on it, the funeral of the deceased is completed.

Dr. Sky's funeral was underway with relatives kissing and touching the deceased.

The deceased, lying in a rudimentary wooden coffin, was a lean old black man, with his exposed hands and feet, and he could clearly see dark ecchymosis different from his normal skin color.

The clothes and countenances of the deceased were carefully groomed and looked clean.

An old woman in her fifties, looking particularly sad, kissed the deceased's forehead, caressed the deceased's body with both hands, pressed her cheek against the deceased's abdomen, and said something in her mouth.

Suddenly, the old woman was unsteady on her feet, her body shook, and her cheek pressed against the deceased's abdomen.

The deceased's abdomen was squeezed by external force and sunken downward, and the contents of the stomach overflowed through the cavity in the body and through the mouth and nose.

I saw a black viscous liquid flowing out of the nose and mouth of the deceased, which is a liquid mixed with the blood of the deceased and melted internal organs, after normal people die, the blood will coagulate, but some sick people, such as patients infected by the Ebola virus, the blood does not coagulate for a long time after death, just like the old black man in front of him.

The black viscous liquid that flowed from the nose and mouth stained the face of the deceased and looked eerie.

The old woman was busy wiping the deceased's face with her own clothes.

There was less dirt on the deceased's face, but the old woman's clothes were dirty, black and red. It's shocking to watch.

Dr. Sky pulled a young man who was attending the funeral next to him and asked, "Does the cleaner kupper, who used to work at the monkey farm in Case Town, live here?"

The young man pointed to the old black man lying in the coffin, "He is." ”

Kupper is dead!

Kay, the owner of the monkey farm, Kay, the original cleaner of the monkey farm, died before and after, and there must be some kind of connection between them!

Dr. Sky silently analyzed what was taught during the training of Bi Nan Zhiqiao, and analyzed what should be done in the next on-site epidemiological investigation, since the cause of death of Aelous, the owner of the monkey farm, and the cleaner Kupper is unknown, then it will be carried out according to the suspected Ebola virus infection.

Dr. Sky finds the old woman, who is still in grief, the wife of the cleaner Kupper, whose name is Nana, who was the saddest person throughout the funeral.

Dr. Sky told the old woman that Kupper might have died of an infectious disease and that the body was best cremated.

The old woman disagreed.

The people of the tribe are very resistant to cremation, and Dr. Sky has to start with something else.

Dr. Sky wanted to collect a sample of Kupper's body fluids on the pretext of finding out the cause of Kupper's death, and the old woman happily agreed.

The bloody mucus from Kupper's mouth was collected with a cotton swab, placed in a sampling tube containing the preservation solution, tightened the screw, and placed in the sampling box he carried with him.

After the sample was taken, Dr. Sky began to ask the old woman about Kupper's life, especially about his work at the monkey farm in the small town of Case.

The old woman said that her husband Kupper had been working in the monkey farm in the town of Keith a year ago, mainly responsible for taking care of the monkeys and cleaning, and the owner of the monkey farm, Kay, often arranged other tasks for Kupper to do, for example, when he was busy with the monkey farm, Kupper would be called by the boss to the nearby North Eagle Lumber Mill to clean the lumber mill's dormitory, and sometimes go to the lumber mill's kitchen to help.

The owner, Kay, was paid a low salary, and the locals were reluctant to work at the monkey farm, so Kupper went to the monkey farm because he had a disability in one leg and couldn't find a better job.

A few days before Kupper fell ill, some wild monkeys from the forest were brought in from the monkey farm, and the monkeys were wild and untamable, and while Kupper was feeding them, they bit Kupper's arm, the wound was very large, and he went to the clinic in the small town of Case for two stitches.

After being bitten by a monkey, Kupper felt tired and took two days off work to go home to rest.

As soon as Kupper took a leave of absence, there was no one to take care of the monkey farm, and the owner, Kay, did not want to pay the extra staff salaries, so he informed Kupper and fired him if he did not come to work at the monkey farm.

Kupper couldn't help it, endured the pain in his arm and the discomfort all over his body, and went back to work at the monkey farm.

On Kupper's first day back at the monkey farm, he found the monkey who had bitten him dead in his cage.