Kalaupapa

My trip down to visit Kalaupapa was one of the coolest things I have done out here in Hawaii. It ranks right up there with hiking out to see the lava on the Big Island. Kalaupapa is the leper colony that sits on a tiny peninsula of Molokai at the base of the highest sea cliffs in the world. The only way to get there by land is to ride a mule or walk down the trail on the side of the cliff. The trail is 3 miles long, 1,600 feet high and has 26 hairpin switchbacks. I elected to ride the mule!
It was an awesome ride down. The vog had cleared that day, so the view was amazing. I thought it would be scary, but there weren't as many places on the trail that made me want to hyperventilate as I thought there would be. Going around a few of the switchbacks was interesting (in an "All I can see is thin air on one side of me" sort of way) as the mules like to walk on the very edge because they have restored the trail with those concrete things to prevent erosion. Once we got to the bottom a bus picked us up for our tour of the town. We drove around part of Kalaupapa and stopped at a few places, including one of the churches. There are very specific rules about where you are and are not allowed to go.
There are still 26 former patients (Leprosy, now known as Hansen's Disease, has been curable since the mid 1940's) so they make the rules. Many of these patients have physical deformities resulting from the disease and do not wish to be seen by tourists. Kalaupapa is jointly run by the National Park Service and the Hawaii Board of Health and will be until the last of the former patients passes away and then it will become fully under the control of the NPS. You must go on the bus tour in order to enter the park. The bus tour only happens once a day at the same time every day. Everyone who lives in Kalaupapa tends to stay out of the visitor areas during the bus tour time. In order to enter the park you must also be older than 16 years. This is another rule set by the former patients. Before Hansen's Disease was curable and leaving Kalaupapa was not an option for them, any children that patients had were taken from them at birth and sent to family or put into foster care. Since their children were taken from them, they allow no children into the park.
Widespread fear of contracting the disease led to the forced isolation from 1866 to 1969 of people suffering from the disease at Kalaupapa. Despite this widespread fear, Hansen's Disease is one of the least contagious of all communicable diseases. Only 5% of the world's population is even susceptible to the disease. The other 95% are genetically immune.
After we drove around Kalaupapa, we drove over to the other side of the peninsula to the site that used to be Kalawao. Kalawao was the site of the first settlement, but was eventually abandoned because the climate there is not ideal for patients (it is very damp). About the only thing still standing in Kalawao is two of the original churches and Father Damien's Grave. Father Damien was a priest who became famous after he came to Kalawao to minister to the patients in the 1870's. The conditions in the settlement at that time were terrible. There were no doctors or nurses to care for the patients. Patients arrived with few if any belongings and were given only a blanket upon arriving. There were few structures and most patients were not well enough to build something, so many remained homeless. There were continual food shortages and many of the patients were starving. There was no real law (what could be worse than being banished to Molokai anyways?) so crime was rampant. Father Damien had a very positive impact on the settlement and is well known for his ministry to the patients. Father Damien contracted Hansen's Disease approximately 10 years after arriving in Kalawao and died about five years later. The church he built in Kalawao is still there, although in need of repair.
After visiting Kalawao, we headed back through Kalaupapa to where our mules were waiting and began the trek back up the cliff .
An intersting side note- The majority of supplies in Kalaupapa come over on a barge. This barge only comes to Kalaupapa once a year! Any appliances that are needed, cars, building materials, gas, non perishables, etc. have to be ordered and on that barge. For this reason there are more cars than residents in Kalaupapa because if one dies, you're going to need a back-up!