From Yahoo! News

In November 2013, a month before the first Ebola death was recorded in West Africa, two U.S. congressmen stepped off a plane in Monrovia, Liberia, to visit a nation that would be ravaged by the disease within a year.

The lawmakers, Republican Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island, were in West Africa as part of a weeklong “Peacekeeping Learning Trip” funded by the United Nations Foundation to show them the U.N. mission and the impact of foreign aid in the region.

Trips like these, known as “codels” — D.C.-speak for a trip by a “congressional delegation” — have earned a bad rap after years of lawmakers using their privilege to enjoy lavish, lobbyist and taxpayer-sponsored trips around the world. But this trip was different, and the outbreak of Ebola that has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa since their journey nearly a year ago has put Kinzinger and Cicilline in a unique position to discuss how to respond to the disease.

Written by Chris Moody/Read more at Yahoo! News