Isata Kallon

Isata Kallon

Q: This is Sam Robson. It is March 24th, 2017, and I have the pleasure of sitting with Ms. Isata Kallon here at the Plaza in Kenema, Sierra Leone. This is an interview for our CDC Ebola Response Oral History Project. Ms. Kallon, thank you very much for being with me.

KALLON: You're welcome.

Q: Can I ask you first, would you mind saying "My name is," and then pronouncing your name?

KALLON: My name is Isata Kallon, a nurse at the Government Hospital Kenema in Sierra Leone.

Q: If you were to describe to someone, just to summarize very briefly in maybe two to three sentences, the work you did during Ebola, what would you say?

KALLON: I was attached at the Kenema Government Hospital during the Ebola outbreak and I started working there at May 28, 2014 till the end.

Q: Can you tell me when and where you were born?

KALLON: I was born December 12th, 1986.

Q: And where?

KALLON: In Kenema down here.

Q: Oh, in Kenema. Did you grow up in Kenema?

KALLON: Yes.

Q: What was it like growing up in Kenema?

KALLON: Why did I like to grow up in Kenema?

Q: No, what was it like? Can you describe growing up in Kenema?

KALLON: I grew up in Kenema as a child with my parents.

Q: What is Kenema like? What was it like back then, Kenema?

KALLON: Kenema is my hometown and therefore I like it.

Q: Yeah? [laughs] Perfect. How did your parents make a living?

KALLON: Make their living? Well, my mother is a farmer. She farms to live. And also my father is dead.

Q: Did you go to school here in Kenema as well?

KALLON: Yes. I attended school here in Kenema, but not in the city. A village close to Kenema that is Blama, twelve miles from Kenema.

Q: Was there something in particular you liked to study?

KALLON: Yes. I would like to do further studies like SRN, a state registered nurse.

Q: Where did you go after you finished your secondary education?

KALLON: I went to the Eastern Polytechnic School of Nursing in Kenema for three years and I graduated.

Q: What was the school like? Did you enjoy it? Was it difficult?

KALLON: Well, it was average, but I liked it.

Q: What did you like about it?

KALLON: Because there was so much competition in the school and I like competition.

Q: What attracted you to nursing, to caring for people in the first place?

KALLON: What attracted me? Because--

Q: To nursing.

KALLON: I just feel that nursing is my career since I was small, I used to admire the veil that the nurses use. That drove me to nursing.

Q: After you got your nursing training, what did you do?

KALLON: I started working at the work mills. I was enrolled under the Ministry of Health and Sanitation as an SECHN, state enrolled community health nurse.

Q: Was that still in the same area?

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: About what year would it have been that you started working?

KALLON: Pardon?

Q: Sorry, there's a motorcycle. About what year would it be that you graduated and started working?

KALLON: Yes.

Q: Do you remember the year that you graduated?

KALLON: 2012.

Q: So in 2012, that's also when you started working at Kenema Government Hospital?

KALLON: Yes, immediately after my graduation.

Q: Can you describe the work a little bit?

KALLON: Total patient care.

Q: Total patient care. What does that mean?

KALLON: You have to care for the patients and do bed, bathing, medications, and all the rest of it. All things that are about the patient we have to do, so blend it together and say "total patient care." Everything that the patients need, we do.

Q: Do you remember, either in school or while you were working at the government hospital, some early mentors you had--some early people who taught you how to do things who you've learned a lot from?

KALLON: Who taught me?

Q: Yeah, some people who influenced you.

KALLON: My boss, my immediate boss. Her name is Sister Mariama. When I started working at the government hospital, in fact it was the one that forced me into midwifery. We have something that we call midwifery in medical, doing delivery with women, child labor.

Q: This was not Sister Mariama Momoh, was it?

KALLON: No. Mariama Senassi [note: unconfirmed spelling].

Q: Okay, gotcha. I interviewed the other woman a couple days ago.

KALLON: No, she is Mariama Senassi.

Q: What is she like as a person?

KALLON: She is very nice.

Q: So you were doing that work when Ebola happened I suppose.

KALLON: Yes.

Q: Could you just, starting from the beginning, tell me what happened?

KALLON: At the beginning we were in the general ward, because in Kenema here we have the Lassa ward and I was not attached to the Lassa ward, but there were a few staff in the Lassa ward. Since the news began to come that there is Ebola 00:06:00around Guinea, our late doctor, Dr. [Sheik Humarr] Khan, came to us in the ward and said, "We need volunteers who will go and help the staff in Lassa units." There was a list going around and the list was empty throughout when it reached my own unit. I watch at the list and said, "Bring this list, I'm going to write my name." In fact, my in-charge there was very angry with me, saying, "You don't even know the disease that is coming and you are trying to go and fight it." I said, "Sister, I'm going to do this for humanity, I'm willing to go." I wrote my name and I was the first person that wrote my name on that list.

After two days, we went for the workshop where we were trained. The following day we started working. When we started working, it was very bloody. We never knew how Ebola was going to be. We just see patients, they brought patients from all around the country and we were not even taught how to dress properly. We 00:07:00were going in there nakedly. We did the fights nakedly because we were not taught. We were all ignorant of the sickness. Therefore, we lost most of our colleagues. We were first ten in number that started the work on May 28th and six of them died, four of us survived.

After this, in June, July, the team was just rapidly, going up rapidly, so they added another staff to us so we became about a hundred staff. We started to fight. Every now and then we got infected, our colleagues became infected, some died. Even when we came to work, we would see this person died, but they were paying us very little money. In fact, my mother told me that I should leave the place, I should not work there. I was being humiliated, I was being rejected by 00:08:00the community, but I still said that I am going to fight this fight until the end of it, till I give up my life.

Q: When you say that it was very little money, was it enough to buy food? Was it enough to live off of?

KALLON: What is it?

Q: When you were paid such little money, what were the ways that you could tell it was not sufficient? What it enough to buy your basic essentials like food?

KALLON: Everything was not enough. We were just doing it on a humanitarian feeling. The reason why we stayed there long is because our colleagues were being infected and we cannot leave them there and go away. That was why we used to stay there because if you want to go--I decide today that I'm going to quit 00:09:00this job, but if I turn around, I see my best friend, my closest friend, lying bleeding. So I will just say, okay, tomorrow I will come again to continue the job. We really risked our life, and today I have bitter memories about Ebola.

Q: When you talk about that best friend that you had, do you have a specific person in mind?

KALLON: Yes, I have specific people in mind. Not [just] one person, whom I was close with, died in Ebola. We were all fighting together, we were all touching each other. It is only by the grace of God that I am alive today. But I thank God because I never became infected.

Q: When you say you were touching each other, what does this involve? Hugging or shaking hands?

KALLON: As long as you have a coworker in the community, you must touch each 00:10:00other. We eat together, we used to play together, and at that time we were not being told that we should not be close to each other. We just went into the fight unknowingly to us. Even that chlorine administration that they came up with later, it was not introduced at first to us that we should use chlorine. We were not using chlorine. We don't even know about it. When we enter into the center, the epicenter, the dead zone area, we come out, we undress ourselves. There was nobody watching after us. We did everything by ourselves. That is how most of our colleagues got infected, during the undoing of the PPE [personal protective equipment].

Q: Is there a particular colleague who you could tell me about, who you could describe, who passed away?

KALLON: Yes. Her name is M--Tugaba [note: unconfirmed spelling]. We were the first ten, she was among the first ten of us that went there and she died in 00:11:00July. When we went there, we were all fixed together to do nights. We did the night for two weeks. Immediately after the night, three of them got sick and two of them died. That is how I lost them.

Q: Did you care for her?

KALLON: Yes, I cared for her. In fact, she was the one that delayed me not to quit the job because I saw her, she has been involved, she has been a victim, so I decided that I will not quit this job. I'm going to continue, my friend is already gone.

Q: Were you also working closely with the doctors or was it mostly nurses?

KALLON: No, we were working closely with the late Dr. Khan.

Q: Dr. Khan.

KALLON: Yes. And the following doctors that were coming in, like Dr. Ian [Crozier], Dr. Suzanne [M. Donovan], and also the nurse that came, William, William Pooley, something like.

Q: Can you tell me about Dr. Khan?

KALLON: Dr. Khan was a physician attached to this Kenema Government Hospital, and also he was the head of the Lassa unit. He was the doctor in charge of the Lassa unit. He was a very nice man. At the time of this Ebola outbreak, he was the one that went around advising people that there is a sickness that is coming and we don't know the outcome of it. "People, be prepared for the sickness. We heard that it is now in Guinea." So he has always been briefing us about the sickness. When we went to the place, he was doing doctor's rounds with us every 00:13:00day. Every day we used to all dress in the PPE and enter into the epicenter, and he did rounds. It was only after I'm off duty I went and I heard that Dr. Khan has been infected and he has been taken to Kailahun. After three days we heard that he has passed away.

Q: I can imagine how that felt.

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: Were you without a doctor for a while afterwards, or were there others to fill in for his job?

KALLON: Pardon?

Q: Were there other doctors at that point besides him?

KALLON: No, it was only Dr. Khan that we were working with.

Q: Wow. So what did you do?

KALLON: When he was gone, we were doing everything by ourselves except for the 00:14:00United States doctor that was coming in. I don't know what to call it. The WHO's [World Health Organization] doctors, yeah. Dr. Khan was the only doctor that was attached, and as soon as he passed off, no doctor. It was only us, we the nurses, and today we have been rejected.

Q: I want to talk more about that--

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: --but maybe toward the end of our conversation.

KALLON: Okay.

Q: You're saying there were periods of time where it was just you nurses doing everything--

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: --in the hospital. How long was the gap between Dr. Khan and the next doctor, do you think? Was it a week before another doctor came, was it two weeks?

KALLON: No. They used to come in every two weeks. They were coming in every two 00:15:00weeks. If it's Dr. Khan for two weeks, he would leave, we just heard that he was going to Liberia or Guinea for another two, then another doctor will come in. That was not our county doctors.

Q: Right, of course. You said they were WHO doctors.

KALLON: Yeah, WHO doctors.

Q: And you mentioned Dr. Ian.

KALLON: Yes, Dr. Ian.

Q: Did you work much with Dr. Ian?

KALLON: Pardon?

Q: Did you work much with Dr. Ian?

KALLON: Yes. I worked with him.

Q: Can you tell me about meeting him?

KALLON: I should tell you about him?

Q: Yeah. Maybe about meeting him and getting to know him.

KALLON: Meeting him?

Q: Meeting.

KALLON: Oh, yes, I will like to meet him and he knows me very well. Immediately you mention my name, Isata Kallon, he knows me.

Q: Beautiful. Do you remember the first time you met him?

KALLON: The first time we met him, he was very nice. He appeared very nice. Yeah. When we used to enter into the epicenter, if he is passing the IV 00:16:00[intravenous] line on the patient, you know, he's tall. He used to go down on his knee. I would stand and laugh. I said "Hey, doctor." [laughter] He is very hard working. Very, very hard working, Dr. Ian.

Q: And then, of course, he also got sick, didn't he?

KALLON: Yeah, he got infected and he was flown.

Q: You said Dr. Susan was another WHO--

KALLON: Yeah, Dr. Suzanne also came. She was a WHO doctor.

Q: I haven't heard of Dr. Susan before. What was that person--

KALLON: We worked with Dr. Suzanne. She was a short woman around the same height with me. Skinny. Not too much--she didn't put on too much weight. Dr. Suzanne. 00:17:00We had Dr. Tom, Dr. Tim, Dr. Ian, Dr. Suzanne who came and helped us here.

Q: When you look back at working with them, are there certain memories that stand out to you?

KALLON: Yeah, because they were all protecting us.

Q: [laughing] You mentioned how Dr. Ian would kneel to put in the--

KALLON: The IV.

Q: --the IV line. What else do you remember from Dr. Ian?

KALLON: Dr. Ian, we used to make fun with him. When he's coming, we say,

"Oh, the tallest man is coming." He is very tall and huge. We even told him why didn't he go to the army. He should be a soldier. [laughter]

Q: He's kind of doing the opposite work, actually.

KALLON: Yeah.

[interruption]

Q: When you look back, are there patients in particular who you remember 00:18:00vividly, who you remember a lot?

KALLON: Are there patients? Apart from colleagues? Yes. I can remember many of them. Like one, they have a patient who was a pregnant woman, about five months pregnant. She got an abortion. That night we were two on duty, I was doing night duty, and that my friend, Issa French, was in delivery, so we became scared. This is an Ebola patient and now she is going into abortion. What do we do? I [unclear] French, I said, "Just come down, I will do the delivering." I went and do the delivering and the placenta got retained, so I went for oxytocin injection. I administered the oxytocin and I went in for the placenta to remove it manually and I was successful, but all of a sudden, the patient went into 00:19:00bleeding. She was bleeding from all the orifices and she didn't survive. That was one of my bitter memories I had again. She didn't survive the toll.

Q: Were you ever able to talk to her family or any families?

KALLON: Yes, because her husband was with us. Her husband was within the office of pregnancies. I went outside and told her husband that we have tried but we did not succeed, so therefore we have lost your wife. He went about--I think he's going mad, but we tried to calm the situation down and we talked to him. He understood the plight and today he is even working with us now as a cleaner in the hospital because he lost everything. He lost his mother, he lost his wife. Therefore, he was called upon that--they need to encourage him, so they attach 00:20:00him because he say that even if he goes to the village now, he will have nobody to be with, therefore he wants to stay in this town. I think the sister that was in charge, and the sister also is late, late Sister Balo [note: unconfirmed spelling]. She was our immediate boss. She also died of Ebola. So that was what happened.

Q: When your boss died, the person you looked to for direction and guidance, that sounds very difficult. How did you cope?

KALLON: It was not really easy, our coping, but we still have to cope because we have already been told even if you quit, people will still sideline you, people will still marginalize you. They say this person has been working in the Ebola unit, so we just decided, okay, we stay.

Q: Did you treat both adults and children?

KALLON: Yes, we treated both adults and children and even old age.

Q: Were there many children?

KALLON: Yes, there were so many children. So many children. One of the experiences I got from that place, at first in the Lassa ward, they have a very small room. You will see the bed of the patients like this. Very close, close. If you turn around, you want to give medication for this patient, that other one will just vomit on you. That was how most of our colleagues were being infected. The room was very small. If you have a room like this and you have about twelve patients in it, even the way of walking, you strain yourself to walk between 00:22:00them. That was a very strenuous thing, and there was no chlorine.

Q: Was there ever a turning point or a change when you started to get more resources like chlorine?

KALLON: Yes. They provided a changing point for us. It was outside when you want to enter. We have entering points and will have turning points that we will not return after entering. That was when Dr. Ian and Suzanne were around. They had to maintain that for us.

Q: At what point did you start to get more resources like the chlorine and more PPE, and who provided that? Or did it just not happen?

KALLON: They started providing it at September, during September. At that time, 00:23:00the Red Cross have already arrived. The Geneva Red Cross, they also intervene and they make another center. There were two centers in this town. So they also created another center at twelve nights, or from here also. At September in Kenema Government Hospital, it began to go down, the disease rate. The death rate was going down and there was a law passed that no patient should no more enter this place and they were all transferring now the patients to the Red Cross. The Red Cross also came to our mission and told [us], "We need some of your staff because they have started this fight and they know more, and we have never been in a fight like this." Therefore, my mission called me again and gave my name there. I was going there crying again. I also worked with the Red Cross. I worked with the government hospital. After they closed down, I also 00:24:00transferred again to the Red Cross.

Q: It seems like a time when you could have said, "I'm finished."

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: But you kept going.

KALLON: Even my mother became so angry with me when she heard that I'm also going again to fight with the Red Cross. I told my mother, I said, "Just continue to pray for me. There is no amount of words that will save my life except God. Just continue praying for me." I said, "I am doing this for humanity and I know I will be safe." That was always my hope.

Q: What was it like working for Red Cross in comparison?

KALLON: In comparison, the Red Cross were much better than the government. Much better than the government because they are [unclear]. In fact, the protection was very high. Before they come in, they have already studied our constraints, 00:25:00so they came in well equipped. Therefore, there was a vast difference.

Q: And the kinds of things they were equipped with included--

KALLON: The personal equipment. They were highly equipped, really. The safety of the staff was the first paramount thing they did. Not regarding government hospital, our safety was nothing.

Q: I take it at the government hospital you often had no resources.

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: Do you remember a time when you ran out of resources?

KALLON: Yes. I can remember in early June we ran out of resources, and that day I was on the afternoon duty. I came out from my house, came to work, and I met 00:26:00the late sister, her name is Sister Sanko [note: unconfirmed spelling]. When I came, there was a colleague who got infected in another unit and she was brought in. She was a pregnant woman, three months pregnant. She went into abortion and when I came, the sister just said, "Isata, go in there, your colleague is bleeding. Go and massage the uterus for me." And I said, "Sister, where is the PPE?" She said, "Today we have no PPE, can you just take the protective gown?" I said, "No, Sister." I said, "When we went for this workshop, Dr. Khan strictly told us that without PPE we should not enter." She got annoyed with me. She said, "If you are not ready to work in this place, just leave." I said, "No, Sister, it does not mean that I'm not ready to work, but I'm going strictly by what you told us in the workshop." When she got annoyed, she called two people: I.P. Boylate and Mosu Ensalate [note: unconfirmed spelling] They went in. Three 00:27:00of them. Both of them became infected and they all died. The patients died. The three of them that entered to do that delivery, they all died. So my friends started telling me, "Isata, you were smart on that day." That was what my friends were telling me. I said, "It is all the direction of God because if I had listened to that woman that was forcing me to go and do that delivery when she well knew that there was no PPE, forcing me--" I rejected, and when they went there, they got infected and died. That was what happened.

Q: That was how close you were to getting infected.

KALLON: Yeah.

Q: Wow. I don't know if you ever worked with anyone from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, the CDC?

KALLON: I can't remember. I just can't remember.

Q: That's okay. [pause] Do you remember what month you transferred to the Red Cross?

KALLON: Yes. In October.

Q: And how long were you there?

KALLON: I was there for five months, and in the Red Cross, it was being headed by one in Geneva, a woman called Amanda [McClelland]. She was the in-charge of the Red Cross for both Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. I worked there for five months. Immediately when I went back, the Sierra Leone, the national society said they are going to do redundance, so therefore we were cut down. That they 00:29:00don't need too much people to get in the center. That was in February. They [do the redundance] and the doctors. I came back to the hospital and started my normal job.

Q: This was the government that decided this?

KALLON: No, the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society. I was first in the government hospital, yes, and later I was then sent to the Red Cross Society. In February, the Red Cross--not the national society--yes, the national society decided that we are going to do a cut-down of staff. I was among that group, so I had to return back to the government hospital and report back. I am back on my normal duty so I was affected also.

Q: What did you think of that?

KALLON: The Red Cross? According to the news, we were gathering that it was not the international body that stopped them from cutting down the number. In fact, 00:30:00we are badly maltreated again. Since the [unclear] we are gone, the national society, up to date we are promised that they are going to give you some amount of package. Nothing was given to us up to date. Throughout those fights that we fought, we were even thinking that today somebody might have even a motorbike. I cannot even have that on my own up to now. I still struggle for my daily survival. It is really frustrating.

Q: Can we start at the very beginning of when Ebola happened again and just trace the history of that stigma or of that--you used the word "humiliation" that people faced you with. How did it begin? What happened?

KALLON: When Ebola started, it was very bloody, deadly and it was very fearful. If anybody who is very close to you knows that you are working in that particular place, they will marginalize you, they will push you away, "Please don't come and infect us." Because the moment they say one person has been infected, all the others around will be infected too, and if people die, you will be blamed. Therefore, when I was working at that place, I was being marginalized. Even my children, people will not touch them. They say, "Your mother is working in the Ebola unit, we are afraid of you." Even the house, the place I was occupying, I was warned, asked by the landlord to leave the place because I am working in the Ebola unit. My own colleagues were even sidelining me. When I go to the ward, I want to sign our day-in book. Everybody will just run away. I stand, I watch, I say, "Why are you running away from me? Is it that 00:32:00I am the one that is carrying Ebola in my bag that you are running away from me?" They said, "No, you are working in the dead zone." That was how I was marginalized. But I still have to suppress that because I knew what I was going about. I thought it fit that I have to do it, it is my job, I don't have to run away from it. There were some people that were not even working in that epicenter, they got infected and died. So there was no need for me to run away from my job.

Q: What did you tell your children?

KALLON: My children? All I told them, "If you are being marginalized, you know the way people are fitting. They stop going to people's house. Just stay indoors within our own compound, don't go out." They listened and they adhered to my advice. They never went out to people.

Q: Did you get kicked out of your home?

KALLON: No.

Q: You mentioned your landlord did not want you--

KALLON: He just informed me, but I have to go down on my knees. At that time, even if they do move you out, you will not have somebody to rescue you. Therefore, I talked to him. I said, "Please, just give me hope that--" I even denied that I'm not going to work for that place again. When there is a time for me to go to work, I will just pretend. I say, "I am going for a class," and nobody will think that I am going to work. When I go, I used to balance the house, pass around for them not to see me that I am coming from the place. That was how I was able to sustain at that place because if I had been caught, definitely they were going to drive me [out] and I will have nobody to rescue me. Even my mother was afraid of me. She stopped me, not to go to her house.

Q: What did you say to her?

KALLON: All I said to her, I said, "Even if you drive me and you stop me not to 00:34:00work in that place, that will not save my life. This is Ebola. We don't even know the enemy we are fighting with. We don't know how it comes about. Let's just give God the glory and pray to God for our lives. There is no amount of protection that will save you. It is only God that will protect you, and your fate." That was always what I was telling my mother.

Q: Were you seeing similar things happen to some of your colleagues?

KALLON: Yeah. Many things happened to most of my colleagues that are dead and some who have been infected, they are now survivors, and some who were not infected but we are fighting with them. The most interesting thing of my colleagues who I was working with, the government promised them that we need nurses to fight this fight because it reached a time that our colleagues were 00:35:00quitting the job. Even if you don't want to quit, when you meet the death rate you will quit. When they quit, the government announced that if you want me to enroll you into the government's payroll, you have to fight Ebola, and I will give you a PIN [personal identification number] code. So at that time we have a lot of nurses that went in and most of them died again. At the end of it all, they have all been driven from the hospital that they don't want to see them. We were getting nothing from it. We have been excommunicated. Nobody is even communicating to us. That is another bitter memory I have for my colleagues.

Q: Is it still that way?

KALLON: Yes, it is still that way. All those that volunteered to be nurses who are not on government payroll, and they promised them that after this Ebola, we will all give you PIN codes so that you will start having a monthly salary. They 00:36:00have driven them all away. They said they don't want to see them in the hospital. It is existing right now as I am talking.

Q: Do you interact with many survivors these days?

KALLON: Yes. Most of them know me. At the time of your fight, we used to wear the face mask. You don't even recognize a person. But they know us. When we were being on rest the day of their discharge, they say, "Oh, so you were Isata." I say, "Yes, that was me." So they used to know. Even these days I met one other nurse around the Plaza here. She gave me ten thousand and said thank you. She introduced me to one of her friends, "This is my nurse."

Q: So the survivors, at least some of them were appreciative.

KALLON: Yes, some of them, they are very appreciable.

Q: So in February of 2015, you transferred back from the Red Cross to the government when the Red Cross eliminated some positions, most positions.

KALLON: Yes.

Q: What was it like going back to the government hospital?

KALLON: I feel nothing because that was where I have been attached. It is my permanent station, so I just have to go there. But to my own planning, if I had enough money, I was not planning to go back to the government hospital. Straight off, I should have gone to further my studies. That was my aim, but it did not turn out that way.

Q: And you have not been back to continue your studies since.

KALLON: No. The funds, I don't have.

Q: If you were to do so, what would you specialize in?

KALLON: I want to specialize as a state registered nurse.

Q: That's right, you said that. I have asked a bunch of questions and I have very, very much appreciated hearing what you have to say. Thank you. But I'm sure that there are questions that I haven't asked and experiences and memories that you have that you haven't shared. Are there any that come to you when you think of Ebola that we haven't talked about yet?

KALLON: I think we have already discussed about everything. The only thing that 00:39:00you should ask now is our constraints we are going through.

Q: Yeah, please.

KALLON: Since we all, we gave up our lives to do this job, we are all expecting that someday we will be recognized, and we are not being recognized. Even now we are being stigmatized, although we are not physically infected, but mentally we are stigmatized.

Q: What form does that stigma take today?

KALLON: The form? If they promise me that you are going to have this and you are doing a job, somebody is marginalizing you hoping that today if you are laughing but tomorrow you will see me progressing and it did not turn out to be it. You will be stigmatized. Just as I was saying, I was even supposed to have a 00:40:00motorbike on my own to come to this place through the fight I fought for this country. Nothing like that happened. Today I'm struggling for my daily bread, not even for my future. What I will eat today is what I'm struggling for every day. I don't even have reserves in a bank. That is stigmatization, and it is general for all of us. That is what we are going through.

Q: How old are your kids?

KALLON: My kids, they are doing well.

Q: How old are they?

KALLON: I have a twelve-year-old kid, eight years, and five months. I have three kids.

Q: Girls or boys?

KALLON: All girls.

Q: All girls. [laughs] Do they know yet what they would like to do when they--

KALLON: When they grow up?

Q: When they grow up?

KALLON: Yes. The older one said she wants to be a doctor. The second one says 00:41:00she wants to be a lawyer. Because that one is just five months old, she has not started speaking.

[break]

Q: Is there anything else that you'd like to say?

KALLON: To send to the people?

Q: To say to anybody. This is a record that will go to be saved in history.

KALLON: I'm just appealing to the CDC, all members and staff of the CDC that they look into this problem and please rectify it. One thing personally for me, I need your help that I want to further my studies. Come to our aid, please. That is just a message. I'm glad to give out my experiences to all of you.

Q: Thank you, thank you very much. I cannot promise myself to help in any way with that, but I'm happy that that message is going to be part of the record.

KALLON: Even if you do it for me to study abroad, I would be very much--

Q: Yeah. [laughter] Okay. Thank you so much Ms. Kallon. It has been a privilege.

END