SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
After four months of living in the Ebola-stricken country of Sierra Leone, Hawa Dumbuya is excited to be reunited with her family in Yellowknife.

Amadu Dumbuya is reunited with his five-month-old granddaughter, Lomprinatu Dumbu, who was stranded with her mother, Hawa Dumbuya, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, earlier this month. - Walter Strong/NNSL photo

Her plane touched down at Yellowknife Airport from Edmonton just after 1 p.m. yesterday afternoon and was greeted immediately by her father, Amadu Dumbuya, and two daughters, Christiana and Destiny.

Dumbuya found herself stranded in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, with her infant daughter earlier this month when British Airways canceled her originally-scheduled flight back home and announced it was ceasing service to the country due to the outbreak. She had to wait more than two weeks for a seat on a Brussels Airlines flight.

She had been in the country to complete her practicum for her masters in social work.

"I'm excited and I'm tired," she said as her father and two daughters surrounded her at the airport.

"I almost missed my flight because of an issue with the ferry to the airport. It's been a long two and a half days.

Dumbuya is scheduled to speak about her experience in Sierra Leone Saturday evening at a fundraiser dinner hosted by a group of Yellowknifers who have ties to West Africa, where the largest outbreak of Ebola ever recorded has hit.

"When I arrived in Sierra Leone, the Ebola was there, but not as bad as it is now," said Dumbuya.

"There's a huge sense of paranoia. You hear about it a lot on the radio and people are talking about it in the streets."

Ebola is a highly infectious and often fatal viral disease that causes internal bleeding and high fever.

Dumbuya went through a rigorous screening process before leaving the country, and in Montreal, which didn't detect any signs of Ebola in her or her baby.

Laurence Wilson, a nurses' aide at Avens Seniors Community, helped organize the fundraiser. His entire family lives in Monrovia, Liberia, the outbreak's current epicenter. He said he speaks to his family once a week on the phone.

"It's stressful sometimes," he said. "I've lost a niece - she died a month ago. Thankfully, nobody else in my family has been affected."

Wilson said he and his friend, Nancy Trotter - who also has close ties to Liberia - wanted to bring people together to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental organization that has been instrumental in fighting the virus.

The two were in Liberia this January just before the outbreak. Wilson said he remembers reports of Ebola cases in Guinea, where the current outbreak originated, just a week after he returned to Canada.

The group is inviting everyone to come out to Northern United Place on Saturday starting at 6 p.m. to enjoy some West African food and learn about how Ebola is touching the lives of people who live across the globe in Yellowknife.

"This disease is ravaging lives in West Africa," explained Wilson. "I want to make people aware about what is going on there because there are connections here."

According to the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S., the outbreak is the largest and most complex in history, affecting Guinea, Sierra Leone, Libera, Nigeria and Senegal. The organization warns the number of cases could climb to 550,000 by January.

To date, there have been 6,553 confirmed cases of Ebola in Africa, with a death toll that has surpassed 3,000.

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