by Ning Cai
“Eat now while it’s hot!” She urged us, in her thick islander accent. So we did! And I reckon that was the best, most memorable supper we had.
PAM
On another of those carefree days, Ning and I drove up north to a breathtaking lookout point on a cliff. In the distance, we saw a triangular piece of land jutting out into the sea, bound on one side by the tallest sea cliffs in the world (almost a vertical wall of rock!) and on the other sides by crashing waves.
That was our first glimpse of Kalaupapa. So dramatically beautiful in every way, but tinged with such sadness.
Kalaupapa was a former leper colony. Back in the mid-1800s, anyone in Hawaii suspected of contracting Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, was banished here. They were denied contact with the outside world and basically sentenced to die here as outcasts.
Just reading about the history of Kalaupapa from the various plaques at this lookout point brought a cloud of sadness over us. Perhaps it was less painful to ponder this story from a distance, but Ning and I found ourselves being drawn into the story, like a Star Trek tractor beam pulling us into the mother ship.
It was beyond our control and we knew that somehow, we’d find a way to get down to this sadly captivating peninsula.
* * *
As Kalaupapa is owned by the federal government and managed by the National Parks, it is only accessible with a special permit. There are only three ways to get to the peninsula – by air, by mule, or on foot.
Flying there was out of the question with our tight budget. Grandma tried calling the mule company, but to no avail – those mules had to be booked months in advance! So we had no other option but to hike down.
On hindsight, I can understand why hiking is the only free option. Aside from being regarded as the tallest sea cliffs in the world, it has 26 switchbacks! No sane person would willingly opt to hike down 1,700 feet, along a steep and narrow path splattered with mule poop. And if descending those cliffs didn’t pop your knees, hiking back up would surely do you in!
But Ning and I are no softies (or at least we didn’t think so then!). An adventure is an adventure! But I have to say that the thought of the hike made both of us extremely nervous. Being the resident ham, Ning did entertain thoughts of us dying out there. And she had no qualms about sharing her sentiments with me.
What if we slipped and fell off the cliff? Or one of us sprained an ankle? What if there was no phone reception (and there wasn’t!), how would we call for help? What if there were snakes or wild animals out there, and we got attacked?
The truth is, she wasn’t that far wrong. The girl worries quite accurately.
I have weak knees. On hindsight, I regret lamenting about this to the BFF because she started calling me “Weak Knee Houston” for the rest of the day. Climbing down, down, down was extremely punishing on my knees. And having sprained my left ankle twice before, it’s no surprise that I sprained it again that day. But I grit my teeth and pushed on, because there was no way Ning could piggyback me down – or up!
The challenge was for us to make it down before the mules caught up with us. For one, the path was narrow and steep and too dangerous for the animals to bypass us. For another – and this is more crucial – we didn’t want to be stepping on fresh mule poop if they went on ahead! To be fair, we did have a head start, but only by an hour.
I remember my heart sinking at the sound of hooves clip-clopping above us, and getting nearer by the minute.
“Oh fuck, the mules are coming!” I groaned, hobbling faster.
I was using a thick tree branch I had found along the way as a walking stick. Ning, being her usual dorky self, was calling me “Sam” in a way that only Frodo could.
“Go on without me, Sam…” the Magic Ham said dramatically, her eyes lowered. “I… I… can’t do this anymore…”
Yes, we were two best friends on a perilous journey to Mount Doom to destroy the ring before the Nazgûl, the Dark Riders, descended upon us.
And descend upon us, they were about to… in the form of bloody mules!
“Hurry, Mister Frodo! THE MULES ARE COMING!!!”
We ambled along (Ning sprained her ankle too!), our hearts pounding. I could see glimpses of the animals through the thick green foliage. I could hear them, oh my God, their hooves! It was irrational, but we were terrified of the mules.
I think travelling together made Ning and I more God-fearing. We never prayed so much in our lives. In fact, come to think of it, we never spoke so much Chinese to each other either. In those nine months, we spoke more Chinese than we ever did in the many years we’ve been friends. But that’s another story… I digress.
In the words of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, we must have done something good… because God answered our prayers. We tumbled unceremoniously onto the white beach at the bottom of the sea cliffs just seconds before the monster mules trotted ominously into the clearing.
We were safe! We were in Kalaupapa!
A small group of people had already gathered at the clearing, in front of an old yellow school bus that looked like it had been lifted off the set of Happy Days. These folks were clad in sundresses and big hats, loose Hawaiian shirts and branded bermudas, and chatting politely with each other as they waited for the mule people to alight, and for us harassed hikers to crawl over on our knees. Ah, the rich folk who flew in by private plane! Our guide Beverly greeted us, and invited us onto the old yellow school bus.
Because Kalaupapa is so isolated and inaccessible, it is practically untouched by commercialism. Between the years of 1866 (when it was instituted a leper colony by King Kamehameha) and 1969, people from all over Hawaii who were diagnosed with leprosy were banished here. There were times that this peaceful peninsula had as many as 700 lepers at one time.
NING
The woman with no nose stared back at me, her gaze unflinching. Her deformed limbs were missing fingers and toes, tragically lost to leprosy. Our guide Beverly stopped next to me and whispered that the leper had lost her tongue too. She also had no lips.
Looking at the sepia-toned picture on the wall made me sad, because it was more than just physical parts of herself that she had lost. Being banished to Kalaupapa also meant that she was forever cut off from her family and loved ones.
“Thankfully now there is a vaccine for leprosy,” Beverly said. “But back then, it was an untreatable curse. Everyone shipped to Kalaupapa was sent here to die.”
They were brought here by boats and dropped off a distance from the shore because the waves were too strong, and the boats could be smashed to splinters on the rocks. Many of the patients were thrown off the boats and forced to swim to shore. Those who could not swim, or were too weak to, drowned even before reaching Kalaupapa.
It was tragic.
PAM
When a cure for leprosy was discovered in the 1960s, most of the residents of Kalaupapa received treatment and were allowed to leave. Today, only seven patients remain, all by choice – the youngest is in his 70s. Because of its rich historical significance, Kalaupapa has been declared a National Historical Park and you can only tour the settlement if you’ve applied for a special permit in advance.
The settlement looks pretty much like any other sleepy Hawaiian town. There are houses, hospitals, churches, a community library, movie theatre, gas station, schools, cemeteries, etc. Once a year, a barge will arrive with fresh deliveries of furniture, cars, dried goods and the like, and it is a big day on their social calendar.
Yet, there was a little building near the edge of the sea, which looked to me like a covered bus stop, that hinted at something graver. There was nothing inside save for a long concrete table that separated the room, lengthwise, into two. Beverly told us that it was the visiting hall. It was hardly a hall.
“In later years, family members were allowed to visit the patients,” she explained. “There used to be a screen separating them, like two worlds. It’s gone now, but the photos remain.”
“Why did they tear down th
e screen?” Ning demanded. “It’s a part of Kalaupapa’s history!”
“Political decision,” was all Beverly would say. But I did not miss her soft sigh.
I had only read about leprosy in the Bible. I do know lepers were outcasts. But I never stopped to reflect on how they must have felt. Ning and I were very affected when Beverly told us that although the patients were permitted to marry, their babies were taken away from them at birth and given up for adoption on other islands. This was to prevent the babies from contracting leprosy. Imagine that. Not even a chance to hold your own child.
Having read a book written by one of the residents of Kalaupapa, I began to understand that these were real people: They were fathers and mothers who were separated from their children; they were children taken from their homes to die here alone; they were lovers, they were friends – people from all walks of life with feelings and dreams.
The book was written by a girl named Olivia who was diagnosed with leprosy at the age of 18. She shared the story of her happy childhood in Oahu, her years in high school and of falling in love with a boy she later agreed to marry. But before her wedding day, she was diagnosed with an illness unknown to her, and which was never fully explained.
The next thing she knew, she was forcefully taken away from her family and fiancé, and admitted to a quarantine hospital, which subjected her to unconventional treatments such as hosing her down, naked, with cold and hot jets of water. When you think about it, this happened at a time when no cure for Hansen’s disease had yet been discovered. So what were these cruel treatments based on?
After trying to escape the insanity of the quarantine hospital several times, Olivia was eventually shipped to Kalaupapa. In her book, she wrote about the years of pain and loneliness she felt, living apart from all her loved ones, isolated from civilisation, abandoned, forgotten and left to die alone. It was heartbreaking!
But it was in putting myself in her shoes that I really started to appreciate the selfless work of a 33-year-old Belgian Catholic priest named Father Damien, who felt moved to serve the lepers at Kalaupapa. From 1873, and for the next 16 years, he worked tirelessly within the leper colony to care for them and restore their dignity.
NING
Because of their debilitating illness, the lepers were unable to fend for themselves or even give the dead a proper burial. Graves dug were too shallow, and wild dogs would drag up the dead bodies and feed on them. In the early years, Kalaupapa was a nightmare because the people had nothing on the island. No shelters or buildings or medication. Nothing.
When Father Damien decided to go to this cursed place to serve the leper colony, he was deemed to be mad. But he did not have a death wish. He had a divine calling.
In the years that Father Damien was there, many improvements were made in the community. He built schools and churches, and looked into the simplest of things, such as inventing special cutlery and utensils that lepers with missing fingers could use during meal times.
Father Damien, of course, contracted leprosy himself and struggled with the disease for five years before he died in 1889, at the age of 49. He has since been canonised a saint.
PAM
There are still days that I can’t believe Kalaupapa is on Molokai. Molokai seems too small and forgotten an island to shoulder a story of such magnitude.
Much as the peninsula is breathtakingly beautiful, there is an undeniable heaviness hanging over the place. The cemeteries dotting the countryside speak of the many lives lost; the presence of schools tells the tale of young children being torn from their families and dumped here; and the churches, of the faith and hope the lepers held on to in the face of their suffering.
Ning and I departed from Kalaupapa in a sombre mood. In many ways, I feel relieved that I’ve finally shared this story because it’s the story not of a place but of a community of forgotten people. It seems to me that they would have died in vain if their suffering was not acknowledged in some way. So if you do journey to Molokai, make sure you make a special trip to Kalaupapa… and please, book a mule in advance.
* * *
Book a mule you must, because after popping your poor knees hiking down the 1,700-feet cliff, don’t forget that you have to hike back up at the end of a long day.
We didn’t get that much of a head start this time around. Before we were even one-eighth of the way up, we heard the mules clip-clopping close behind us. We decided there was no way we could remain ahead of them all the way without killing ourselves physically and psychologically, so we pressed ourselves flat against the rock wall and let the beasts (of burden) trot past us… one by one… yes, onward to leave a trail of wet poop for us navigate around further uphill.
In the course of hiking up, we were not only bypassed by mules, but also by two girls who had stayed behind to chat with friends (they appeared behind us from nowhere!), and an elderly couple in their 70s.
“This is my first hike after undergoing a knee replacement surgery three months ago,” the elderly lady said with a kindly smile, as she ambled beside us with her hiking stick.
Yes, we hang our heads in shame to admit that this elderly couple went ahead of us and we never saw them again after that encounter.
After counting down the switchbacks from 26 to 1 (each switchback is labelled on a wooden signpost), and after stopping to squat on the muddy ground 57 times, we finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The gate!
The light of day had dimmed by then. It was late afternoon.
As we approached the ranger’s station, we saw that all the cars were gone. Our Jeep was the only vehicle left in the parking lot. The mules had been washed down and returned to their stalls. Not a single mule or person was in sight. The ranger’s office was closed and all the staff had gone home.
“We could have died out there and no one would have known!” The Magic Ham wailed.
People had told us it would take roughly two hours to climb back up. We had taken four hours!
When we got back to civilisation some days later and logged on to the Internet, we found an old email in our inbox from the National Parks confirming our permits for Kalaupapa. Scanning through the email together, our eyes rested on one sentence: “You must consider yourself of above average fitness…”
I looked at Ning, who smacked her forehead. And we both burst out laughing!
TOP: The Peninsula of Kalaupapa from the top of the sea cliffs, 1,700 ft above. We had to hike down all the way!
BOTTOM: “The mules are coming!”
03
free fallin’!
Hawaii · March 2011
PAM
I will always remember the date we ticked skydiving off our bucket lists.
Simply because I can never get used to the way Americans write their dates. Why do they have to be so different from the rest of the world? Why can’t 9/5/12 read 9 May 2012? How on earth is 5 September 2012 intuitive? Perhaps it’s because I was brought up “Singaporean”, but isn’t everything supposed to have some logical progression or informational hierarchy? Like day, month, year?
As I was trying to twist the numbers around in my head from international convention to American idiosyncrasy, I realised to my delight that it was the same. 4 April.
And then it dawned on me.
These numbers will probably mean nothing to you if you’re not Chinese. But if you are, you’d know why my heart dropped with a heavy thud.
The number 4 in Chinese sounds like the word for “to die”. It’s the single, most unfortunate number in the Chinese numerology system. To put it in context, you can probably buy the car license plate number “4444” for just 50 cents in Singapore. I reckon they’d even give it to you for free.
4/4... not exactly the most auspicious day to jump off a plane at 10,000 feet, even if skydiving tops both our bucket lists!
Ning and I held the 18-page contract in our hands and stared at it for a while. Were we signing our lives away? Should we just come back another day?
I read every word of that contract. Slowly. Twice. That was how nervous I was. Signing our names and dating each page with “4/4” was an extremely grave endeavour for both of us and we did it solemnly.
The entire document is designed to scare the pants off you. It reminds you of your mortality, of the fragility of life. It lists a myriad of injuries – including paralysis and death – and others we never imagined possible from skydiving.
But there we were, signing our lives away... God, what were we thinking?
* * *
Shaun was a downright madman. Body inked with tattoos, he walked with a swagger and spoke with a drawl. Turns out he’s from the mainland and was a drummer in a band before deciding to uproot to Hawaii and be a skydiving instructor.
My “training” took all of two minutes.
“Just cross your arms over your chest, push your head back, and SCREAM!” he instructed as he helped strap me up. “That’s all you need to know!”
Okaaay...
My tall, strapping instructor then led me out to the airfield, away from the rest of the skydivers. I could see the other instructors briefing their jumpers – including the BFF – and it sure seemed like they had a lot more to say.
I glanced at Shaun apprehensively, biting my lip. He was leaning back on the grass, his long legs splayed in front of him as he chewed on a blade of grass and watched the blue propeller plane circling above us in preparation for a landing.
We were at Skydive Hawaii, an established skydiving operator up at North Shore on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. We had just found out about two hours ago that we were going to be skydiving today, thanks to Twitter!
You see, I have a friend on Twitter called @SideGravy, aka Meg T. I’ve never met her in person or spoken with her face to face, but I do know that while she lived in Minnesota, she was hoping to move to Hawaii. We had been chatting on Twitter for a while before Ning and I left for our world tour. Well, it happened that @SideGravy saw my tweet about being in Hawaii, so she sent me this message on Twitter: