Moloka’i is one of the smaller Hawaiian islands. Just under 8,000 people live there, plus another 1,000 tourists – but that’s little compared to the other, overcrowded islands. Moloka’s motto is “the friendly island”. Like almost every visitor who comes to Moloka’i, the first thing I do is go to one of the most beautiful vantage points on the island: the Kalaupapa Overlook. From here you can see almost the entire north coast of Molokai: 22 kilometers of coastline with cliffs that are up to 1000 meters high – according to some calculations, the highest sea cliffs in the world. There is no street here, hardly any people. The coast is completely inaccessible, rugged and repellent – except for a small patch. The Kalaupapa Peninsula.
For decades people who had leprosy were exposed there. The sick were separated from their families, forced into Kalaupapa and more or less left to their own devices – at least in the first decades of the leprosy colony. What looks like a little tropical paradise from up here has become hell for the residents.
I was fascinated by this story. So I really want to get down there. But it’s not that easy. If you want to go to Kalaupapa, you need a pass from Hawaii’s health authorities and the national park and basically only have three options: by plane (extremely expensive), hiking on foot (extremely exhausting) or being carried by a mule. I choose the mules.
I was fascinated by this story. So I really want to get down there. But it’s not that easy. If you want to go to Kalaupapa, you need a pass from Hawaii’s health authorities and the national park and basically only have three options: by plane (extremely expensive), hiking on foot (extremely exhausting) or being carried by a mule. I choose the mules.
Mules on autopilot
And so the next day at seven in the morning I stand in front of a stable that looks like something out of an old Western film. In addition to me, there are twelve other visitors in the group. We watch like a couple of Mule Skinner, that’s the name of the mule drivers who pull Mulis out of the barn. Sali, the head of Mule Skinner, tells us that mules basically work like cars: pulling in reins to stop, small kick for going forward. “But actually the Mulis Auto-Pilot are running. You don’t have to do much, ”he reassures us. I am given a red-brown mule with a white mane and white mouth named Makani. This is Hawaiian and means “wind”.
Sali explains to us what we have in front of us: 520 vertical meters down in 26 hairpin bends, 5 kilometers the way. And then it starts. For an hour and a half the mules struggle down the stony, narrow path – always between rock and abyss. They always look very carefully before setting their hooves. While I have to hold onto the steep places so that it doesn’t lift me off the saddle. Once we reach the bottom, we have to ride along a piece of coastline – where huge waves break on washed, black chunks of volcanic rock.
Leprosy patients still live on Kalaupapa
We leave the mules on a pasture at the Mule Skinners and the whole group gets on a typical American, yellow school bus that has seen better days. Our tour guide is called Norman and is no longer the youngest. While driving us towards Kalaupapa Village, Norman explains that around a hundred people live on Kalaupapa today: “40 work for the Hawaiian Ministry of Health, 45 for the National Park, 14 are former patients.” A third of the patients live on Ohau most of the time because they need special care. “The others live here in the village, each in their own house. They are now 75 to 90 years old, ”says Norman.
Nobody has been forcibly instructed here since 1949. Since the discovery of special antibiotics in the 1940s, leprosy has been curable. But the patients who are still on Kalaupapa have been admitted before, often as children, and have decided to stay. Many simply felt at home after years on the peninsula. Some may also fear being treated elsewhere like the proverbial leper. Even when the tours are in the village, the patients stay in their homes. Understandable, because who wants to be gaped by a tour group in a school bus.
A sleepy village in complete seclusion
Our first stop: Norman stops the bus in front of a small shack with a tin roof and peeling paint, a small shop. But before we can get out he warns that we should be careful when crossing the street. “Leprosy affects patients’ eyesight. And many of the old patients are still driving AUTO here in Kalaupapa, ”he says half jokingly. Because actually there is not much going on in the village. All the time I only see another car besides our bus.
The scene exudes sleepy little town charm: scattered in the green are typical Hawaiian wooden houses with verandahs, there is a church and a few sports fields. In the midst of this idyll it is hard to imagine how hard life here used to be for leprosy patients. To do this, you have to go back in time:
Hell on Earth – the first years of the leprosy colony
In 1866 the first leprosy patients were brought to Kalaupapa. At that time, the Kingdom of Hawaii was still an independent state. But since James Cook was the first European to land on the islands ninety years ago, five out of six Hawaiians have died of imported diseases. And now another disease is spreading that was previously unknown to Hawaii: leprosy.
The mostly white owners of the sugar cane plantations in Hawaii fear that the disease will spread among their workers and are therefore putting pressure on the Honolulu parliament. This adopts a drastic solution to the problem: complete isolation. Anyone who shows symptoms of leprosy is arrested, separated from his family and friends, first placed in quarantine and shipped to Kalaupapa.
Life is very hard, especially for the first arrivals. In January 1867, a reporter for the Pacific Commercial Advertisers from Honolulu visited the peninsula. He is shocked by the conditions there: “People in all stages of the disease are thrown together – without medicine, without a doctor, without consolation, only equipped with what is absolutely essential for life and, in addition, on hunger rations”.
The last stop on our tour is a bay where the patients came ashore at the beginning of the colony. It is often said that patients were pushed into the water here and had to swim ashore. But Norman thinks this only happened “if the weather and the sea didn’t allow it otherwise, or if patients didn’t want to come here and refused to leave the ship.” Most of the patients probably came ashore by boat.
Coming to Kalaupapa was a death sentence
But even if they had firm ground under their feet again, everything only got worse. Because the Board of Health, which was supposed to take care of the colony, hadn’t even built accommodations. The sick had to find shelter in caves or old grass huts. A death sentence, explains Norman.
Here below the rocks fall two and a half meters of rain a year. Those who have leprosy do not die of it, but become susceptible to other diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. And because the patients with such lung diseases had to live in these damp, cold huts, “many of them died shortly after arrival or after a year or two,” says Norman.
Separated from family and friends
No matter how hard the living conditions were, the worst thing for most patients was to be separated from their family and friends. Because for the Hawaiian natives, “ohana” is one of the most important values in life – family cohesion. There are stories of husbands who did not want to leave their sick wives, followed them to Kalaupapa, and later developed leprosy themselves. And there are stories of children who prayed to get leprosy so that they could follow their parents.
The first real helper: Father Damien
The first to really improve the situation on Kalaupapa was a Catholic missionary from Belgium: Father Damien. Damien came to Kalaupapa seven years after the first patients. First, he built houses for the patients and took them out of their damp huts, followed by a small church and a hospital.
The special thing about Damien was that other helpers always came to Kalaupapa only for a short time. But Father Damien stayed and worked among the patients until he became ill with leprosy and died. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed by the United States and a few years later, the U.S. Congress invested $ 100,000 in a modern hospital. But leprosy sufferers were forcibly brought to Kalaupapa for decades. The isolation laws were only formally abolished in 1969.
What’s next with Kalaupapa?
At the end of the tour Norman has another important concern: It is currently completely unclear what will happen to Kalaupapa when the last patients have died. There are powerful voices that want to turn Kalaupapa into a tourist resort, he says. “Nothing against resorts! But most of the people who have been here agree that this does not fit Kalaupapa, ”Norman says almost imploringly. Many in the group nod in agreement. The tour made us think. And we also have a lot of time to think – up in the saddle on the mule track.
All contributions to the show:
- Leprosy colony Kalaupapa in Hawaii. By Till Ottlitz
- Namibia – German heritage. By Mechthild Müser
- Sri Lanka – shadow of war. By Patrizia Schlosser
The songs of the show
- Jack Johnson – Flake
- Elemotho – Kgala Namib
Moderation: Bärbel Wossagk
The complete program can be listened to in the download center.