Introduction :)

Introduction time! You know those awkward introduction games you play on the first day of a new class or summer camp?  EX:  Hi my name is Sophia, I’m from Pennsylvania and my favorite color is purple.  Repeat wayyyyy too many times with wayyyy too many people. Lame.
  Yeah this isn’t going to be like that.  Thankfully.  It’ll hopefully be a lot more interesting!  My family caught the Africa bug a long time ago.  We just can’t stay away.  My dad is on his 7^th trip, my mom is on her 5^Th and my younger brother and I are on our 4^th trip.  My older brother is actually South Sudanese so we will be meeting up with him there

 It all started way back when, when my dad was in seminary (priest school for the lay people in the audience) and he and a bunch of the other students went on a mission trip to Uganda to work in a small orphanage and in the refugee camps (more on the political and civil situation there later).  Most of the other students moved on to other callings after seminary but for my dad it was different.  The culture, the people, the place, all of it had gotten into him, body, mind and soul.  He was hooked and he soon passed it on to the rest of us.  And so begins the Reeder saga of African trips.  All of our experiences have been a huge influence on my life.  I would not be the person I am today without them.  It’s become a passion for me just like for the rest of my family.

 It’s even decided what I want to do with my life.  Because of our work there, my future career path is to get an M.D./ PhD in tropical medicine, focusing on third world countries.  I’m honestly disgusted with the way the medical world works.  Fun fact: 90% of the world’s funding for medical research goes towards ailments that affect 10% of the population; such as male-pattern baldness and impotency.  PATHETIC.  People are dying every day, every minute, from diseases that could be cured if scientists were given the resources to study them, but instead we spend our money on receding hairlines.  Does anyone else see a problem with this?  So that’s what I plan on doing with my life.  Not just finding the cures, but campaigning for the rights of those who cannot speak for themselves - or more accurately, those who are trying as hard as they can to speak for themselves, but whose voices are drowned out by the clamor of the developed world. 

Along those lines, while my parents will be pursuing their usual occupations during our time in South Sudan, I feel called to do something a bit different this time.  The umbrella group that we work with, IWASSRU (International Widows Association of Southern Sudanese Refugees in Uganda), is composed of three main branches: The widows themselves, the orphans (residing at either Amazing Grace Orphanage in Uganda or St. Bartholomew’s Orphanage in South Sudan) and the leper colony.  I will be spending my time this summer working in the sub-village designated for people suffering with Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy), AKA the leper colony.

As you may imagine, the far-reaching devastation in Sudan caused by decades of civil war and the associated ills of famine and disease have produced no shortage of people in desperate need of help.  Thankfully, international aid agencies (NGOs) and governments are bringing extensive resources to bear on many of these needs.  However, there is still not enough help for all of those who are suffering.  Some groups have been overlooked.  Those suffering with Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) are among those most neglected.  The forgotten status of these people is the precise reason why I would like to turn my attention and efforts to them. 

In the developing nations (third world) even today, people suffering from Hansen’s Disease are treated in much the same way as lepers where in the ancient world that we read about in the Bible.  In those times lepers were looked upon with fear and disgust.  They were segregated from society, shunned, forced to live apart, cut off from relationships and resources.  It is the same today in Sudan, Brazil, India, and many other underdeveloped nations that have populations of people infected with Hansen’s Disease.  The reason for the persistence of this sad circumstance is a lack of modern scientific and medical knowledge about leprosy coupled with entrenched traditions of fear and marginalization. 

Hansen’s Disease is infectious, but not highly so.  Left untreated it causes nerve damage, which results in infection, which can further result in loss or disfigurement of extremities and limbs.  It is the disfigurement of untreated leprosy that has caused so much fear over the centuries.  Nevertheless, today medical scientists know that nearly 95% of people are naturally immune from the bacteria that cause the infection.  If one becomes infected, Hansen’s Disease is highly treatable with a multiple drug antibiotic regimen, provided those drugs are available.  In other words, there is no rational medical or scientific reason to avoid casual social contact with people infected with leprosy, and certainly not to quarantine them in segregated colonies.  And yet here we are. 

In practical terms what this situation looks like in Kajo-Keji, South Sudan is a group of disfigured people who have been ostracized and segregated by mainstream society and so have grouped together in a separate cluster of huts and homes away from non-infected people.    Oftentimes their faces are disfigured due to loss of tissue around the ears, eyelids, lips and nostrils.  This causes social fear and has resulted in their isolation.  So they have to fend for themselves, economically-speaking.  But they have often also suffered the loss of fingers, hands, toes, and feet, making fending for themselves difficult to impossible.  Even basic subsistence farming is a great challenge.  Many have no choice but to beg for handouts.

The situation has become so desperate that these people have little or no access to such basic commodities as food, soap, salt, clothes, cooking pans and the like.  And while some anti-leprosy drug treatments have become haltingly available through government programs, it is even more difficult for them to get basic medicine such as anti-malarial pills and even analgesics and vitamins.  Because of this they often have health problems aside from leprosy. 

In order for a person with leprosy to receive any of these items a non-infected person must agree to travel to a local village or city and bring those supplies back to the colony.  To add to the difficulty of procuring such items, people with leprosy have little if any money for such purchases

My project is multi-faceted and includes not only offering material support.  I hope to take an accurate and up-to-date census of the people living the Kajo-Keji leper colony, not just to provide needed data to aid agencies and government ministries who may be able to help, but also so that I can get to know these people by name.  I want them to know that there is someone who cares not just about their disease but about them as individual human beings.  With photographs, videos, and diaries I plan to document their living conditions to share with the outside world in the hope that with knowledge comes action.  I hope to teach people, little by little, that they don’t have to fear and segregate those with leprosy.  Of course I hope to temporarily alleviate some of the more immediate needs by providing bags of rice and beans, soap, bandages, flour, medicines, and other such useful items.

This trip has been in the planning stage for what seems like forever and it’s almost unreal that we leave in two days.  I’m excited but also a wee bit apprehensive as this is the first time I’ll be managing a project of my own.  Wish me luck! And just so you know… all of the posts will NOT be this long,(and if they are they are probably covering a longer period of time due to lack of daily internet access.  Feel free to read them in sections)  there was just a whole heck of a lot of background information that I thought was important… otherwise you guys would be like what the heck is she doing? Weirdo… and although it’s a possibility that you still think I’m a weirdo at least you’ll think it for the right reasons, whatever those may be, now that you are well educated about my trip.  Ta ta for now dears :)