AMONG THE LEPERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 66, 27 September 1940, Page 34

AMONG THE LEPERS

N a cool, green hollow at the end of a red gravel drive, lay the Training School of the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary. Inside it was quiet and peaceful, While I waited for the Mother Superior, I wandered round the little sitting-room with its long glass cases filled with souvenirs from the Sowth Sea Islands. Models of canoes, grass mats, necklaces of shells, coco-nut carvings, and various exhibits of native craft. While I was

admiring a polished kava bowl, the Mother Superior entered. She was very young for a Mother Superior. About her there was a gentleness; a serene tranquillity that is granted as exchange for a life of devotion and self-sacrifice. These women, I thought, walk far above us. Their calling takes them to distant missionary fields-where the amenities of life are nil-where arduous work and constant sacrifice are accepted willingly and gladly. We talked of Makogai. All Nationalities At the present time there are more than 600 lepers on the island, 89 of them little children, 127 from New Zealand dependencies. The colony is made up of all nationalities, Europeans, Fijians, Polynesians, Indians and Chinese, " Naturally," said the Mother Superior, "you would expect some friction if all these different people lived together. So in Makogai each nationality has its own little village-where they observe their

own customs-and so the colony exists in harmony." The Convent in Wellington is the only training school in New Zealand for this special work. Here novitiates enter till they have completed their two and a-half years’ training, and then they are sent out to the missionary fields. There is another House in Australia, one in America, and one in France, "How many Sisters are at Makogai now?" "Fifteen, at the present time," she answered. "Twenty-eight years ago when we first started our work, there were

only two. To-day we have the assistance of ten little native Sisters. They help our Sisters with the nursing and general care of the lepers." For Life "How long does a Sister stay at Makogai?" "For life." She must have noted the expression on my face. "But that is not a sacrifice-as you regard it. The Sisters find joy and -happiness in helping these poor, afflicted outcasts. It becomes a kind of Crusade with them; fighting death on every hand, helping the despondent to a new hope in life. Oh, no, they are to be envied..." "Let me tell you a little story," she said. "A few years ago a man was sent out to Makogai from New Zealand. It was rather a tragic case. He was engaged to be married, and then suddenly found himself a victim of leprosy--doomed forever as an outcast. He did not accept it easily. In Makogai we were constantly afraid that he would take his life. He was a carpenter by trade, and we got him

a set of tools in an effort to revive his interest. The plan worked. Gradually he came to accept his lot, to notice those about him, and to help where he could, But the story has a sequel, He was treated by the doctor at Makogai-and was eventually cured of leprosy. . . He came to see us not so long ago on his way through Wellington, And do you know what he told me? He is thinking of returning to Makogai-to carry on his work among the lepers." "That is very wonderful," I said, "but almost incredible." "Not altogether," I was told, " Even when a person is cured of leprosy, the blight of having once contracted it often follows through life, . ." "Ts there any danger of a recurrence?" * Yes. They have to be under constant medical supervision-it often does recur." There is a Cure "Ts it true that there is a cure for leprosy?" For answer the Reverend Mother rose and went to the show-case, returning with a little bottle of some white emulsion, and a darkish-looking cone about the size of an apple. "Here," she said, "is the cure for leprosy." She shook the cone, which rattled slightly. " This is the fruit, and inside is the nut from which the Chaulmoogra Oil is extracted." "And does it really cure them?" * Yes," she said," if the disease is not too far advanced. Each- year about thirty or forty people leave Makogai cured." "Tt is dreadful stuff to taste," she went on. "They often inject it hypodermically, and when it has to be taken by the mouth, it is squirted down the throat with a syringe, so that the patient will not taste it." Always Hope "You must see many sad cases?" "Yes, it is a terrible scourge, Some of the cases are dreadful to gaze ongradually losing their limbs and their sight-the whole body rots away. . . I remember one little Indian leper boy who was brought in. He was desolated; crying bitterly at being separated from his mother, "One of the lepers caught the little chap up in his arms. ‘Come with me, my little man,’ he said to him,. ‘I will be your papa. You will share my mat, and I will love you very much,’ "They are like that," she finished, simply. "Helping each other, finding strength through their weakness. There is no real unhappiness or discontent on Makogai. We encourage them to work -they have their own plantations-the women have their beloved needlework. They sing, they play, they dance. And remember, there is always hope-even in Makogai.