Students and nuns at St Joseph's with their shoeboxes of presents. Sister Mary is far left. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll/Guardian
Christmas gatherings have been cancelled in Sierra Leone, but 900 children in one town have been brought some cheer by celebrating it early, thanks to the foresight of a local school teacher.
Sister Mary Sweeney, an Irish special needs teacher, has been distributing presents to children whose families have been hit by Ebola in Makeni, a busy commercial hub three hours north of Freetown, after private donations of 1,000 shoeboxes stuffed with presents arrived from schools in the UK.
"We started to distribute the presents because we wanted them to have something. We couldn't bring them altogether because of the ban on gatherings this Christmas," she says.
"They were all so beautifully wrapped and it was a joy to see the little ones' eyes light up. They were so excited. There were the most gorgeous things inside: socks, shoes, sunglasses, notebooks, markers, football jerseys. In one of them a child had even put in a few pound coins," said Sister Mary, who has lived in Sierra Leone for 42 years.
"The first thing they did after taking a peek was put the box on their heads and take them home. Some of these children have been traumatised. It is so fantastic to give them something to show them somebody is looking out for them.
"The gifts are bringing a lot of joy to the children, despite the grief and trauma that they have to deal with."
The boxes arrived at St Joseph's school for the hearing impaired in early December after supporters in the UK decided to take action in the absence of an international response to Ebola in Makeni.
Sisters and students at St Josephs. Photograph: Lisa O'Carroll/Guardian The Christmas delivery was one of 12 pallets of freight to be sent out since September by UK supporters. Although humanitarian aid is flooding into Sierra Leone, little was reaching Makeni in the first few months. The pallets cost about £14,000 to get through customs, more than half the charity's annual funds.
Supplies from chlorine tablets and body bags to gloves and medical equipment filled the first few pallets, packed by volunteers Scott Wilkinson, a freight expert, and Louise Baines, from St Anselm's college in the Wirral.
"Having been so closely connected with Sister Mary over the last five years and seeing her desperation at trying to do something for the school and the community, and knowing the international response was so slow, we felt we needed to do something," said Linda Freestone, one of the trustees of St Joseph's.
The Bombali district, of which Makeni is the capital, is one of three hardest hit by Ebola in Sierra Leone, but got its first treatment centre only this month.
Like in many other places, families have been ripped apart by the virus, leaving young people as heads of their households.
Sister Mary says people in Makeni were getting "fed up" because of the lack of support. There may be medical care now, but food and psychological support is still thin on the ground. "Where are the NGOs? Where are the NGOs?" she says.
She says she knew one 24-year-old woman who is now caring for 12 children after the death of her sister and brother. "They are one, two, three years old. My legs were shaking thinking how are they going to survive? The breadwinners are gone so where are they going to get food?"
Can you imagine what it must be like for a child who survives Ebola and then nobody comes for you?
Another problem she has identified is missing children. Recently, one woman told how she had managed to get outside the quarantine zone and get to Kailahun where Ebola patients were initially sent. She had retrieved two of her three children. Another woman said she thought her children were there too, and alive.
The failure to trace families across district borders raises questions about efforts to reunite families. Sister Mary says that in some cases whole families were sent to Kailahun but got separated.
"Can you imagine what it must be like for a child; you survive, you are discharged and then you spend three or four months in an orphanage and nobody comes for you? Can you imagine the trauma of it?"
But Sister Mary, whose school was commandeered by rebels during the civil war, says there is hope amid the despair in Makeni.
"Knowing the resilience of Sierra Leoneans and their gratitude for life will not stop them rejoicing as the new year church bells ring out at midnight on 31 December and they all dance and sing 'Papa God we tell you Tenkie, me no die oh': Thank God, I did not die."
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