LEPER COLONY

During the morning briefing, the Sister’s informed us that we could go visit a leper colony on the following day. I was down. I paid them the bus hiring money and turned up the next day at the right time to head there. After about an hour and a half of driving, we arrived at the colony on the outskirts of town. We had to cross some large railway tracks to get to the main compound, which I couldn’t help think was a bit of an insensitive location for the many people missing limbs who lived there. 
The colony specialized in making various cotton clothing and material there and when we entered, long rows of cotton looms stretched down the hallways. Lepers who still had enough appendages worked the machines with a relentless intensity. The whole corridor vibrated with loud sounds resembling a fast moving train. We moved through the corridor filled with these machines and entered the wards that were full of lepers who were too far gone to do anything other than just lie in bed and wait to die. Most ignored the line of foreigners moving through the room and studiously avoided our eye contact. 
We got to the infirmary where some of the lepers were having their wounds dressed. The man being attended to was missing most of his toes, blood dripping from the raw pink flesh, as the doctor poured dark brown antiseptic solution into his wound. The man squirmed but did not make a sound, staring at his wound, sweat pouring down his forehead.
‘Please. Please. My name is Jameson Suvari.’ Said the man waiting next in line. He was missing his left leg from knee down and his left arm from the elbow down. Both limbs just ended in large round balls of bandages.
‘My name is Jameson Suvari! I have a daughter and son!’ He said, before breaking down and crying into his hands. I sat down and put my hand on his back. I wanted to say, ‘Don’t worry it will be okay,’ but I knew that I’d be lying. It was easy for me to say, I still had the same arm that he had lost. I was using it to pat his back. Instead I just sat there with him as he cried and kept patting him on the back while saying, ’There, there’ over and over again, all the while thinking about how meaningless that phrase was, I mean what did that even mean, ‘There, there’? What exactly was there? Intense suffering?
There, there.
Afterwards we moved to the children’s ward. These were the children of some of the lepers, but none had leprosy but were doomed to stay there, as even though they weren’t contagious, being associated with someone with leprosy guaranteed an automatic ostracisation from the rest of society.
They all stood bashfully in a group and then at the advice of one of the nurses burst into a rendition of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
I stood there listening to them in the breeze and in the sun while thanking the goddamn Lord that I didn’t have leprosy.
Yep, it was a wonderful life alright.
Some of the other volunteers were high school kids and teachers from New Zealand, and in response they burst into an impromptu rendition of ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes.’ 
‘Heads, shoulder, knees and toes, knees and toes!
Heads, shoulder knees and toes, knees and toes!
Aa-a-and mouth and ears and eyes and nose!
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes!’
They sung with gusto, which I thought was a bit insensitive, considering the amount of missing toes we had all seen, or rather not seen, that day.
After the New Zealanders finished, the leper’s children sung another song in response. The song was about Chinese people and the chorus went,
‘Ning nong, ning nong, ning nong ning!’ Repeated over and over again.
 It was kind of fucked up. But even if they were a bit racist, their parents were dying of leprosy, so I decided to be the bigger man and let it slide.
We all then waved goodbye and piled into our bus and headed back to Kolkata, driving through the crowded streets, processing all the horror and humanity we had just witnessed while rubbing ourselves down in antibacterial hand sanitiser, hoping that it was strong enough to kill any leprosy germs that might be on us.
Yep, it was a wonderful life alright.