Travel Sized Bites.

A selection of short stories submitted by visitors to the site between 500-1000 words

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lair of the untouchables

By Author: Peter W. Morris
E-mail: petertraveler@usa.net

Submitted on Monday 19th November 2001

Leprosy. For centuries, the word has struck fear into the hearts of people around the world. Literally a disease of Biblical proportions, leprosy has only recently become controllable...stoppable but not curable. Today, in all developed countries and many undeveloped ones, leprosy is fading away thanks to medications offered internationally by the World Health Organization (WHO); freed from the further onslaught of leprosy, its victims choose either to re-enter society or live out their lives in leprosariums which have been the only homes they’ve known in adult life.

Yet, there are still those places in the world where leprosy strikes with the same intensity as it did in the times of Moses, decimating families and rendering those so afflicted lifelong untouchables.

Stepping off a dilapidated bus in jungle terrain not far from Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), the leper colony loomed before us as an image out of an old William Holden movie. Neat and enclosed by whitewashed concrete walls, the unguarded compound consisted of multiple structures housing an office, cafeteria, spartan medical facilities, and separate dormitories for couples, men, women and children.

The complex’s ambulatory residents milled about the grounds in small clusters, some sitting on palm-shrouded benches as the tropical sun loomed overhead, others enjoying a walk about the lushly foliated grounds. From a distance, the scene looked as if it might have been lifted out of a travel brochure, one touting the laid-back pleasures of an island paradise.

Up close, however, the flesh-eating ravages of leprosy were readily apparent...toes missing from feet, stumps where functional hands and fingers once served, grotesque facial deformities now obliterating beautiful Asian features.

Be it fact or fiction that the Vietnamese government sells the WHO-provided medications on the country’s black market (to those Vietnamese who can afford not to contract the disease, as opposed to giving it to those who suffer), there was no doubt that we were witnessing one of ancient history’s most dreaded scourges at the dawn of the third millennium.

"These people have no physical contact whatsoever; those who care for them always wear rubber gloves," we were told by Charles Fredrick, our mission leader. "As for our team, each of you do as you feel led. The most important thing is that you treat them with love and respect," he continued. "Above all, do not look upon them as objects of pity. Anyone who gets too emotional—starts crying or becomes hysterical—will be asked to leave immediately."

Our group of 13 had traveled from various points in the United States to South Vietnam to "bring Christmas" to leper colonies within a 50-mile radius of Saigon. Our simple, unwrapped offerings— washcloths, soaps, tooth brushes and toothpaste, combs and hair clips, jigsaw puzzles, dolls for little girls, rubber balls and Frisbees for boys—would please each leper as much as any gaily wrapped gift might an American child. Prior to entering the dormitories, our rather rotund leader donned a red and white Santa-hat and proceeded to pass out dispense presents to dozens of enthusiastic youngsters.

None of the children, we were to learn, actually had leprosy; they were in residence at the leprosarium because they had nowhere else to go when one or both of their parents became infected. However, their fate was sealed as they would, no later than their early teen years, contract the disease and inevitably die shortly thereafter. Mercifully, the children would not slowly "rot away" as would their parents; rather, their deaths would come from the havoc wreaked by the disease within their still-formative internal organs.

Once within the housing units, the true ravages of leprosy became alarmingly evident. One woman grasped our meager offerings between two stumps, her weathered, wrinkled face awash with a girlish smile of delight. Another, possibly in her mid-20s, could only communicate in labored sobs, her face almost completely covered in bloody gauze...her nose having been removed earlier in the day. A gift was laid beside her pillow.

And, then, there was the 30-something man with whom I felt an immediate bond. Kim, as I would later come to know him, seemed a natural born leader with both a stocky, powerful build and a winning presence. While neither of us could speak the other’s language, we quickly established a spiritual rapport; upon parting at day’s end, the stump which served as his right hand caressed my forearm, his left arm encircling my shoulder in what can only be described as a bear-hug.

Tears blurred my gaze as moisture filled his eyes; we were relatives within the family of man...kinsmen.

Moments later, son Jonathan came to my side, his own face glowing with a radiance born of experiences unique to most of the world’s 19-year olds. "Dad, I just held a leper’s newly born baby," he said with near-reverence. "It was awesome." After the passage of what seemed mere seconds, I noticed he’d made friends with a female leper of his own age; as she sat in her bed and leaned forward, he removed a cross from around his own neck and placed it around hers. Touching, smiles, laughter translated unspeakable words. A love, the most basic of human communication, was given silent witness.

Perhaps the most poignant of all contacts that day came as we talked to one of the colony’s newest residents, a robust young Vietnamese who would do any American football team proud. "I will be able to go home soon, perhaps in a month or six-weeks," he told us through an interpreter. "I look forward to that day."

We smiled, nodded our heads, and placed prayerful hands upon his broad shoulders. Perhaps, we thought, he’d end up in one of the tiny, hot cages which were reserved for those lepers who could not accept their diseases, those who had simply "lost their minds."

This visibly healthy young man would, in fact, never leave the leprosarium. He would slowly watch, over the years, as surgeons removed his toes, his fingers, his arms and legs, the facial features which made him...him.

Death would prove his only release.