Life as Leper

In Ambanja, Madagascar, there is a special place—a leprosarium. It is a place of healing, full of hope, where lepers are welcome and cared for with great love by the sisters of Maria Auxiliatrice.

The heart is filled with varied emotions as one enters the leprosarium: love in the way the sisters treat the patients and in the warm embrace they give to whomever knocks on their door, but also pain that is palpable in the air, in the faces marked by disease, in the awareness of lives disrupted by marginalization, and suffering.

This is a mosaic of touching stories of life inside the leprosarium: Every day, there are different challenges that you are going to face and little victories to celebrate. Sometimes joyous is the moment when a patient gains back a little dignity or is able to smile against all hope. But there is a gamma of moments in which deep sorrow enters into the scene, moments in which the cruelty of the disease shows its force.

There I lived the most intensive moments. The weight of empathy was felt while walking among the sick beds, trying to bring at least a bit of comfort with the warmth of humanity. I saw selflessness incarnate in the actions of sisters wholly consecrated to others' well-being, with nothing in return.

But by then, there was hope, even in the Ambanja leprosarium. Hope glittered in their eyes, in their strength in battling the disease, in their sheer will for a better life. It shone in the quiet prayers of the sisters who would continue to believe in the power of good in the face of adversity. Here, I learned that love and hope can even be born in the most inconceivably dark places, that altruism and compassion can change lives, illuminating a world of absolute darkness. And I learned that no matter what, there is always strength in moving forward, led by love and hope.