I’m Back From Liberia and Under a (Self-Imposed) Quarantine in Brooklyn

Throughout my 29-hour journey home from the West African Ebola epidemic, one question lurked in the back of my mind: How will America greet me? Will I be quarantined?

When I left the United States at the end of October, the United States was riveted with fear. Doctors Without Borders (or MSF, its French acronym) nurse Kaci Hickox had just been released from her confinement inside a tent near Newark Liberty International Airport, where she’d been placed in quarantine under orders from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie despite her negative Ebola blood tests. Hickox had intended to merely pass through the airport, coming from Liberia with her home destination in Maine. After being released from Newark, Hickox encountered hostility in Maine as well.