Henry SamKing

Henry B. SamKing

Q: This is Sam Robson. It is March 21st, 2017, and I am here in Port Loko at the MJ Hotel with the great privilege of speaking with Henry. Henry, what was your last name?

SAMKING: My last name is SamKing.

Q: Great. And we're talking about the Ebola epidemic here in Sierra Leone as part of our CDC [United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Ebola Response Oral History Project. I'm very happy to have you here, Henry. A lot of people at CDC have said you're somebody who I've got to meet. So thank you.

SAMKING: Thank you, too.

Q: Could you first please just state "my name is," and then say your full name?

SAMKING: My name is Henry B. SamKing.

Q: What is your current position?

SAMKING: I'm a bartender in MJ Motel, Port Loko.

Q: When and where were you born?

SAMKING: I came from the East, a chiefdom named [unclear]. I came to Port Loko around 1990. I grew up here. I got my education here. From there, I switched over to MJ Motel. Presently, I'm working as a bartender here.

Q: Were there subjects that you were attracted to in school, or what were your interests? What did you like to do when you were growing up here in Port Loko?

SAMKING: Exactly before, I came to realize music. When I was in secondary school, I was an art student. I loved the political subjects like history and government, but later on, I became interested in music. I didn't want music as 00:02:00in a commercial basis. I just wanted it as a pleasure for my own time. I love playing guitar, and also a keyboard, but my favorite is guitar.

Q: Did you like listening to music as well?

SAMKING: Yeah, some music.

Q: Were there some artists who you would say had an influence on you?

SAMKING: Yeah. Not all music I love to listen to. There is certain music that I know. This is music that is sending messages, and messages which people can learn from. Not all music that doesn't have a good signal to the public and so on and so forth.

Q: When did you make it here to the MJ Hotel? When did you start work here at the MJ?

SAMKING: November 2011. The 1st of November, sorry. The 1st of November, 2011.

Q: Had you done bartending before?

SAMKING: Never.

Q: Never?

SAMKING: I didn't train as a bartender, but this is a common knowledge job. When I came, they taught me how to do it, especially some of the books, and how to do sales, customer service. I didn't do anything about the hotel. When I came, they taught me some of the things you need to have when working in a hotel. You must have some ethics, moral ethics. Customer service is the first priority, you should give to the customers there. You should be polite, you should be honest, all those things. But I was not trained in college as a bartender or anything about a hotel.

[interruption]

Q: How did you find work here? Did you like it? What was it like?

SAMKING: Basically, I love the job. When I was finally [finished] training in 00:04:00college, a friend of mine who we were struggling together--his name was Mr. Kano, commonly known as System, who is presently a receptionist here. He had staffed a very long time, they started the hotel here. He called upon me when I was in the final year, "Man, will you be able to switch over to MJ as a bartender?" I found it difficult because this was my first job when I came from the classroom, but I tried because he was my friend. He encouraged me, and today, working in a hotel is the happiest job ever since I've got because I mingle with plenty of people, somebody like you today, [laughter] Regan [Hartman] and the others, ministers, prominent people all over the world. So I'm very much happy about it.

Q: What was work like before the Ebola epidemic? Were there a lot of people 00:05:00coming to stay here?

SAMKING: No. This part of the country, especially Port Loko, people here were asking, if you build a hotel here, what do you think? Do you think you're going to make it? But the proprietor here, [unclear], is somebody very intelligent. He can think about the future. He knows exactly what he is doing. Before Ebola, we used to have [unclear], those who came and made the railway. There are different-different companies, especially the mining companies. We used to have them here. After, when they went, Ebola came, we have a whole lot of different people here.

Q: Like what kind of people?

SAMKING: Like we have WHO [World Health Organization], CDC. Before Ebola came, we were about to close the hotel because we thought the hotel could be the first 00:06:00place where we would contract this disease, because if we continue the hotel, we have a whole lot of people mixed together. Then, after some time, we thought it wise that--people that are coming to help to fight against this disease were unable to stay to help, so we opened the hotel again. We have CDC, we have WHO, we have CRS [Catholic Relief Services], we have different types of NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] that were staying here, especially CDC and WHO.

Q: When you look back, were there some customers who really made an impression on you?

SAMKING: Yeah. I would like to mention CDC, especially Regan and others I cannot name. I don't know their names now, but they were happy. I don't think we had any trouble with any one of them here. All of them were just so happy. They 00:07:00would love to come back to Sierra Leone and have that time here.

Q: Were you at all affected by the Ebola epidemic, and what was going on in the community?

SAMKING: One way or the other, all of us were affected. If I'm not personally affected with Ebola, maybe a friend of mine or my family--like an experience I got, one of my cousins died out of this. Before he died, I was with him. After he died was the first three-day lockdown in this country. Since I was with the man when he died, I became sick. But I was sick out of a gastric ulcer. I didn't know. What I did, I went straight to the DHMT [District Health Management Team] to do an Ebola test. I did it. I was sick by then, but I did it. Regan was one of those who were monitoring my test, and after some time, my results came. I 00:08:00was negative. I think also of 366, what I saw in the paper was six negative. Something like that. I was having some trauma, stress here and there, and a whole lot of things were happening that affected most of our brothers and sisters, especially those working here. Some of them were affected indirectly, not personally.

Q: Can you describe your cousin who had Ebola?

SAMKING: Yeah. Victor [unclear]. He was a graduate from UNIMAK, University of Makeni.

Q: What was he like?

SAMKING: He, too, liked music. He was an educated elite. I think they were the first, the third graduate from UNIMAK University in Makeni.

Q: Were you able to get treatment for your ulcer?

SAMKING: Pardon?

Q: Did you get treatment for your ulcer when they found out that's what it was?

SAMKING: Yeah. What happened, when I become [unclear] my usual sickness, I went for some medication in one pharmacy. I was given the wrong medicine. I came to realize that later. So it reacted on me seriously. After some time, I came to realize that this was the thing that happened to me. But I thank God I know the medicine now I can take anyway.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to say about Ebola, about your experience then for the historical record?

SAMKING: Thank you very much. It's one of the most interesting questions I was expecting. It's a bitter experience anyway because if I look to what happened, 00:10:00I'll be always shedding tears because I know I'm not better than those who died. But that is what every nation can expect. We must have some casualties for any natural disaster. But it was a bitter, bitter experience we got in this country. We all thank God for the intervention of the foreigners, especially America, UK [United Kingdom], and some other aid from different countries. So far, so good. The experience I got is a very wonderful one. I learned some lessons from the experience I got. One of the lessons is we should always accept the situation as it is, and put modalities in place for how best we can help to fight against it. 00:11:00One of the things that killed a whole lot of people was denial, and there was no good [sensitization] that was given to the people, at least for them to know that this is what was happening. A mix-up was taking place. Everybody was going helter-skelter. We didn't know what was happening. This was a sickness that people--you can't run from it. Anywhere you go, you will meet it. The only thing, you should be able to adjust and prevent yourself from what the people who know about Ebola are telling us. So we thank God we had a very good experience for the future. If anything like that happened again, which we are not expecting, but it's just [unclear] we may be able to fight against it. It is 00:12:00really a bitter experience, just like the ten-year war in this country. We've got some negative experiences out of everything. For now, we thank God because most of us are living a happy life, although some families are empty, especially homes. Plenty, plenty things went wrong, but at least we thank God everything is okay now. We are peaceful, happy.

Q: Can I also ask, you described how right before Ebola, you guys were thinking, maybe we're going to have to shut this place down. We're not getting too many people. But what was it like at the peak of the epidemic, when you had people here?

SAMKING: Before the epidemic?

Q: No, at the peak of the epidemic.

SAMKING: When we were having the people here. Well, it was a wonderful situation 00:13:00because everybody was just like a pendulum, without a final destination. Nobody knows where we are going, nobody knows where we are coming, because we have a flux of people coming in and out. We're having doctors here, we're having different types of people, and according to the state of emergency, they don't want gatherings. They don't want gatherings. But the hotels were having a whole lot of people. But one of the things that we are really, really blessed: nobody contracted the disease in this hotel, and we didn't have any negative experience from the hotel. Everybody was just okay. But everybody at the hotel was conscious. The foreigners, they were conscious. The workers were conscious. One of the most interesting things, we the workers were coming from different homes. Some people were thinking, maybe if I go home, I will contract the disease and 00:14:00bring it here. But since we were in front of fighting this Ebola, we knew exactly what we were doing. We were also in place to help people, to tell them what to do so that nobody would contract the disease and bring it here and cause a problem. We were conscious of what we were doing. Our manager was always conscious, always advising, always talking to us every day, every now and then, so that the hotel would not contract anything like that. But we were also afraid because we didn't know--doctors were going to the field, playing with these people, coming back here. So we were just like that.

Q: I want to thank you, Henry, for talking with me.

SAMKING: Thank you very much.

Q: Of course.

END