April 4 - Easter Gatherings with Lepers (Villages 4 & 5)

We traveled main roads to a large church grounds and could immediately hear singing as we drove in. There were children there gathering to celebrate Easter and play games.


Initially they gathered around as though we were part of their games. Finally we broke lose of the group so we could walk around to the back side of the church and greet the group of lepers waiting for us there. They represented two villages so remote and close to the Cambodian border that we could not visit their actual villages. They had instead traveled to us via a van or their own broken down motor bikes.


Young man in the yellow coat is the leader of one of the villages. He is very young for a leprosy patient but up close you can see that several of his fingers are already missing.




This young man has massive scars and sores all over his head.


We were passing out candies to everyone. After offering a "hand full" to people with no hands...I started putting them in their pockets. Really tore at my heart!




5


Gary is always the center of attention with the children. Here he has a group of young fans around him with one holding his camera taking a picture of him.



We were the lunch guests of this prestigious Vietnamese bishop. He is brother of the only Vietnamese Bishop in the USA (located in Orange County, CA). He was right there ever present interacting with us and the lepers.


Soon there was Gary teaching him his new special handshake (now known as "The Cougar Handshake")


The hand shake was an instant success as an ice breaker wherever we went. Soon everyone was in the act and having great fun.


When it was time to leave, one quiet crippled lady crawled up to Gary and wanted to try it out herself.


We see how badly deformed she was as she crawls over to the van to return to her village...but yet willing enjoy the simple things in life...like a silly hand game played with a strange American man.

April 4 - Easter Mass - A Special Time With New Friends

The heat had gotten the best of Gary the day before so he was not feeling up to attending the Mass on this Easter morning. I felt privileged that they would invite and allow me (a Protestant) to join in this special ceremony with them.

In this picture you see Mother Superior Theresita on the right and our good friend, Mr. Minh on the left. In the center conducting the Mass is our new friend, Father Huu.

The whole time we were there we could feel the warmth of their blessings and prayers for us.



This picture includes the "angels" from our Happy Van (see post from April 28th) sitting in the front, our good new friends Quoc and his wife on the right front and Mr. Minh on the left front.

No sooner had we clicked these photos but they again said..."We go leper villages".

April 3 A Mobile Clinic Under A Tree (Village #3)

This being the day before Easter, our friends from Saigon were out in the Highlands preparing a special meal for a number of village people who were gathering for a service that evening.

That left Gary and I to travel with the nuns to visit another village. Just prior to our departure, another priest showed up and decided to accompany us on our trip.

First challenge was trying to get up the slight hill out of the convent grounds. You see they have a 1995 Vietnamese produced vehicle that they use for these visits and it is badly in need of major repairs or replacement. Since they no longer produce that vehicle, repairs are nearly impossible.

Well our driver repeatedly put this vehicle into gear and lunged it forward but only to have it die on us again and again. I was expecting a walk up the hill but finally after several tries we made it out. The only security against breakdown and getting stranded on this drive, was that we were following a van which was carrying the food we were delivering.

The van has its limitations also as it is limited to two passengers and cannot always negotiate the roads they need to travel to get into these remote locations, especially during the rainy season.



You can see the aging 4 x 4 in the back ground of this picture. This is the priest who went with us. It ended up he was there special to give Mass the next morning at the convent so we spent some time together and have garnered another new friend...English speaking even!



Typical dwelling we saw at this village location was more substantial than the former huts and the one I looked into actually had a concrete floor.





This lady is so skinny from malnutrition that you can hardly tell for sure that she is a woman.



These ladies were proud to put their best outfit on to meet us but shy with the camera.



These people were very poor and their leper wounds had not been tended in quite some time. The sisters got right to work sitting them down and cleaning, redressing and wrapping their wounds.



The nuns used Betadyne for cleaning the wounds and were always careful to wear gloves.



Again it was rewarding to see our hand made leper bandages in use, but again they were the larger ones and too bulky causing some problems with the straps on sandals.



Since two of the nuns had traveled in the truck, they were able to stay behind and spend more time with the lepers as their wounds were in such bad shape and needed additional attention.





The nuns set up a make shift table from which to dispense a variety of common across the counter aspirin, tylenol and cold medicines.





Knowing we were there with the intent of helping them, a number of the lepers came over and showed me the shape of their foot wear. I was aghast at the fact that some had none and some wore broken sandals or even torn flip flops. Note the foot on the right in this picture. It appears to be a standard man's sandal, worn backwards!

April 2 - A Tarp Along the Path (Village #2)

At village #2 we were greeted with many warm, wide toothless grins. Dental care is obviously non-existent as this was a common sight.



Nothing formal here as we just spread a tarp on top of the dirt path upon which to sort out the food allocations.



Most of them bring these traditional baskets. They pile them high with the bags and boxes and then hoist them upon their back for the walk back to their hut. Many of the people are so thin that I would swear that the baskets weigh more than they do but they are very determined to carry it independently.





This is the most common attire we saw the nuns wearing. They were all very gracious and loving to these village people who obviously love to see them come visit.





The children were very dirty but typically happy and polite. We had one large bag of clothing that they eagerly picked through for something to wear.





One man was so badly crippled that they had hoisted him onto the back of a motorbike to travel just a block to this gathering site. He sat on the ground and drooled out one side of his mouth while he smiled out the other side.



As I stroked his back, he mumbled to me. It was obvious he was grateful for our attention and the receipt of much needed food.



Loading him back onto the motorbike, we could see that all his toes are gone and his feet and hands are curled up as though he has had a stroke. He was so thin than a second adult was able to fit on the motorbike seat behind him...to hold him secure for the ride.



I happened to walk in and take pictures inside one shack. Note the dirt floors. I cannot imagine what it is like for them when the rainy season arrives. The furnishings were almost non-existent with the exception of pictures of a family elder hung on the wall. A small fire simmered in doors to heat water.



It was obvious that, prior to our arrival, this family had very little rice and only a small bag of dried fish hanging from the ceiling. What a bleak existence to not know where your next nourishment is coming from.



The children are always more eager than the adults to pose with us before we leave. This day was no exception as most of the adults in this picture are volunteers who traveled with our group.

April 2 - "They don't know meat" (Village #1)

We had hardly arrived at the convent, when they announced..."We go to leper village now". We joined our traveling companions in the "Happy Bus" for a dusty drive into the back woods. We arrived at a central gathering place to a crowd of villagers clustered around bags of rice which had already been off loaded from a truck.



This was our first exposure to what our $15 food packets contained. They were supposed to provide survival food for a leper family for a month. By American standards we were skeptical about the adequacy of this food. They explained to us that each packet included rice, sugar, cooking oil, fish sauce, salt, noodles and dried fish. Gary asked them about the rest of their dietary needs beyond the rice and little bit of dried fish we were giving them. We were told that for the lepers "they don't know meat"...it is not even an occasional thing for them.



You can see it was all smiles and no complaints from these Vietnamese villagers as they graciously accepted their allocations.



These people were cleaner and not as emaciated as others we saw on later visits...but they were nonetheless needy and extremely appreciative of our presence.









We met this husband and wife, both lepers who arrived together. Note his hand and her missing leg in the following photos.



The stump of her leg was wrapped in an old ace type bandage which the nun removed in order to check her stump for abrasions.



It was then re wrapped in our of our hand knit leper bandages. The only bandages that had been brought along were the ones made out of larger yarn. It was much too rough and bulky making it difficult to get the stump back into the artificial leg.

Good example for our Bandage Brigade volunteers as to why we need them to use only the #10 crochet thread.



We spoke at length through an interpreter with the sister in charge. She said, yes she is able to get the leprosy medicine to use with these people. However the cost of taking them to the hospital in Qui Nhon for initial treatment is often a problem which they run up against.

They also distribute to the people the basic across the counter medicines for headache and colds at the same time as they work with them to check and tend their leper sores and amputations.



This final picture tells the whole story of this our first leper visit and the importance of your donations for the food packets which we delivered.