Leprosy day 2

We got up and had breakfast (another fried egg ) and went over to the hospital and had a lecture about what leprosy was. Then we got biscuits and 7-up. And went into the wards, we started with the men’s ward. Walking in, it wasn’t shocking to see them, it was what we expected and what we were prepared for, the conditions of the hospital for the men aren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be. The men smiled and greet us with a small bow. Some were making baskets others candles and palm baskets. It was amazing to see what they could do with such little mobility. There were men there as young as 23 and as old as 70. All had varying degress of the disease. They were happy to show us how they lived. Every smile from us made them happy. At one point wen wet to a man who was blind, the guy leading us a round touched him and he jumped, he seemed so scared, that was the first really sad thing we saw.
After the men’s ward we went to the woman’s ward. It was drastically different, dirtier and hotter. One woman was covered in flies and almost in tears. There was a 17 year old girl with a disease that wasn’t leprosy that they allowed to stay there. An elderly woman sang us a song, Lauren put her and on a woman’s shoulder and the woman’s face lit up. One lady want to pray for us, for anything we wanted her too. Walking through there you just want to sit on the bed and hold them, some of them look so fragile and so scared, its heart wrenching and had all three of us in tears at one point or another. They wanted to give us what they had to offer, even if it wasn’t much, just for being there.
After the ward tours we went back for lunch and a nap, and to reflect on what we had just seen. Then back to the clinic for a presentation by a nurse, and then to the lab to see the M. Leprae bacteria. That finished our day in the clinic and we headed back over to play with the girls, I taught a group of the ‘Johnny Johnny’, Lauren taught them thumb war, and we played blue bells and Jesus (Simon) says we let them take our cameras and take pictures of what they wanted, one little girl tod me she was said I was going to go back to America. They were so sweet. Then we went to prayer and dinner. I love those little girls.