Wow. That is how I feel every day! Today my team and I drove about fourty-five minutes away to the nearest colony. Kim, the medical coordinator talked to us a little bit more today about the effects of leprosy on our way there...
(*They told us that we should never call them “lepers” but call them “leprosy affected” people, people with leprosy, or just patients as they would be in a formal medical setting. They do not want the disease to define who they are. )
Just a few years ago, it was common practice here in India to spit on those with leprosy as they sat on the side of the road. If their shadow touched you, you would beat them. If they were on the same side of the road as another individual, they would move to the other side of the street just to avoid even being close to them. Leprosy in India is looked at as God’s greatest curse and is caused by some great sin in the preearth life of this life. Today, as leprosy is understood more as a disease than a curse from God, the cruelty has lessened but they continue to be ostracized- some refuse to even look at them still.
One of our biggest jobs as volunteers is, yes, to help have their wounds treated and take care of them physically, but helping them also to know that we love them. We show them respect and love as we just look into their eyes and smile at them.
Leprosy is caused by a bacteria similar to the bacteria that is responsible for tuberculosis (which in most of them have as well). It is cured by a cheap antibiotic that we would be able to get from a doctor in America for under five dollars. Because of the stigma against those affected with leprosy though, the treatment needed is not available to them. The disease used to be extremely stigmatized by the government to the point that they would screen all of the citizens of India and all those that had remote traces of leprosy were out cased to a segregated colony. Today the stigmatization does not come so much from the government as it does from society in general but patients with leprosy continue to be confined to their individual colonies, separate from the rest of society.
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