Molokai History:
(from “The Separating Sickness: Ma’i Ho’oka’awale: Interviews with Exiled Leprosy Patients at Kalaupapa, Hawaii” by Ted Gugelyk and Milton Bloombaum, Ma’i Ho’oka’awale Foundation, Honolulu, HI, 1979)
(continued from yesterday)
Male
Part-Hawaiian
Partly Disfigured
48 years of age
37 years in Kalaupapa
There were five years spent at Kalihi. But in the beginning, it was very difficult. But people adjust to any kind of new environment, and I did too. As a young boy, I was very extroverted. I was not shy, but always outspoken. Sometimes, that got me into difficulty, because I would speak my mind about different matters. I guess that part of my personality was formed very early. Yet, no matter how good a front I put up during the day, there were tears every night, for my family. I missed them. I looked forward to my mother’s visits each Sunday.
What I tell you are only a few of the highlights — there is so much I could say, so much I have not told, about those years. But the events I remember most relate to my separation from my family, the loneliness, especially at night, crying myself to sleep. Also, I remember getting experimented on. I remember the chaulmoogra oil injections, extremely painful. The women fainted, and the men trembled. And of course, I remember especially December 7, 1941.
(to be continued tomorrow)
Blessings, pono and much pule!
Fr. Brian, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai