More than 3,300 people have been killed by Ebola in Liberia this year, with the outbreak affecting every area of daily life from recent elections to preparations for Christmas.

The website Ebola Diaries has been documenting the outbreak “beyond the white hazmat suits and sensational headlines”, and has given us access to some of their Instagram photos. They’ve captured a country getting on with life, under the shadow of Ebola.

Senate elections

In recent senate elections voters were required to have their temperatures taken, told not to stand too close together and made to wash their hands before and after visiting the polling station, the BBC reported.

But no such precautions were taken at rallies. Here, supporters of football legend-turned-politician George Manneh Weah pack into trucks for a big rally in November. Weah was running against President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s son and political wingman, Robert Sirleaf, in the hottest senatorial race of the season. By Christmas Eve provisional results suggested Weah had won a commanding victory.

Weah supporters brought the city to a standstill and raised concerns about the possibility of Ebola transmission during the elections.

Sexuality has been a key point of attack during the Liberian elections. Critics of Robert Sirleaf have accused him of being gay and chant homophobic slogans at political rallies. The Liberian Guardian in turn raised questions about Weah:

Around Monrovia

Street vendor Alfred Sirleaf’s chalkboard newspaper The Daily Talk on Tubman Boulevard, the main thoroughfare in the capital, is an institution. Every day crowds huddle around the chalkboard and read the controversial headlines. This popular headline underscores the difficult relationship between the US and Liberia, a nation created by freed slaves from America. Many Liberians were suspicious that Ebola had been introduced by the US. This headline appeared a few weeks after Eric Duncan became the first and only person to die of Ebola in the US.

This bulletin says that prostitutes, called hopojoes in Liberian English, are losing clients because of the outbreak.



Further down Tubman Boulevard there is a mural informing people about the symptoms of Ebola and how the disease is transmitted. This is an insert of a patient vomiting. Literacy levels in Liberia are low and images play an important role in illustrating the illness.

Ebola campaigns

A man at a HipCo concert to raise awareness about Ebola. HipCo is the Liberian version of hip hop, where artists rhyme in unique, squeaky patois. NGOs frequently commission HipCo artists to spread social awareness messages; Ebola has been no exception.

HipCo performer Soul Fresh, who wrote the song Ebola is Real, wears a t-shirt advertising an Ebola awareness concert in Logan Town, complemented by a chunky Versace chain.

West Point is Monrovia’s largest slum, where more than 75,000 people live in zinc houses on a stretch of sand surrounded by the Atlantic ocean. They shower in makeshift structures and draw water for cooking and cleaning out of dirty wells. At the entrance these posters are for sale.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the launch of an anti-Ebola campaign in New Georgia. Johnson Sirleaf was the first democratically female president in Africa and has been lauded by the international community, but at home her popularity has been hit hard as her government struggles to manage the Ebola outbreak.

Daily life

A girl sits with her sister quietly, out of shot people queue up and fight for food rations from the government. In August, the Liberian government unsuccessfully attempted to quarantine West Point due to fears that Ebola would overrun the community and the city. The quarantine ended after 10 days, instead of the planned 21, the maximum incubation period for the Ebola virus.

Ebola has inspired filmmakers to make movies about the illness. Ebola vs HIV was released some weeks back and sold out.



Arthur Johnson, a security guard at the outpatient department at Redemption hospital, draws up cards for patients with a blue marker. The hospital and its staff have been hit hard by the Ebola outbreak, and dealt with the first cases in Monrovia.

At Christmas

In neighbouring Sierra Leone, the president has effectively cancelled Christmas with a ban on public festivities and large gatherings. In Liberia people who work in the capital Freetown have been encouraged to stay in town rather then travelling to back to rural areas to see their families.

Meanwhile the Lebanese supermarkets that line Monrovia’s main thoroughfares are stocked with goods for expats, UN staff and Liberian elites. There’s a strange mix on offer: the United States’ worst selling books; cheap, odd bits of china and other paraphernalia and the Christmas decorations are no exception, every year the Harbel supermarket puts this “saxy Santa” in their entrance.



Elsewhere, Christmas light adorn the Temple of Justice:

And cupcakes go on sale at the famous Kaldi’s Koffee shop: