This I Believe

Several years ago, I have been involved in a program to volunteer at the Leprosy Village in Kunming, China. It was one of the last places in China that separate the Leprosy patients away from the society. For decades, these patients have been isolated from the outside world in the deep mountains. They weren’t allowed to come out and no one was willing to get in. The lack of knowledge for this disease scared both the patients’ relatives and volunteers away from this place. Our volunteer group aimed to reconcile the patients and gave some warmth for their last few years of life.

Leprosy might sound totally unfamiliar to you as it was to me. We took a few lessons from the director of the village and learned the basic contact and safety rules for our work. Then, we met the patients.

The first word I would describe as I saw the patients was “silence”. It was the deadly silence not only from how they looked but also the feeling. It was an empty feeling that centered around each one of them. It felt like they were from another world miles down of the earth. Even though there were only about 10 of them, but they were all sitting alone by themselves and tried to get as far as possible from each other. There was absolutely no communication or eye contact amongst them. They completely shut themselves down from the reality. Moreover, the patients were just sitting there without doing anything. It felt like they were waiting and waiting for nothing. It was a weird quietness that even has some sense of creepiness. The scene strict my mind and it never goes away.

My faith to help and love got shaken. At this exact time, I felt that I was forming my own shelter just like the patients. I was also closing my world from communication.

I stepped a few steps back, but then a voice raised, “you got to be the one to break the silence.” And just in that moment, one of the patients raised his head and looked at me. Tears started to drip down from my eyes. How innocent, how helpless, how vulnerable he was. It was just like a child asking for some attention or more importantly: love. From that moment, I chose to make the first step forward to the people around me. To help and love as much as I can.

After the visit, I started to observe the people around me, little or more, they all possess the similar quality as the Leprosy patients. I believe that there is always a vulnerable kid hidden in our mind that wanted to be cared or loved. Sometimes, we shut ourselves down from the world when we are afraid of getting hurt. We give out an attitude that just wants some attention and with no intention to hurt others. But we have to understand that, there is always someone that needs to step out their own world and try to understand the others. I believe that we must express the true feeling of ourselves, and to start to open up our little worlds and break the silence verbal or non-verbal.

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