June 7 1987, 10:27 a.m.

Patients in leprosy hospital
 

Today I woke up at four in the morning to get ready for the big day. My whole team was meeting in the main hut to go over our plan. Since I'm not one of the most, well, advanced health care officials in the group, my assignment for the day was to "Observe and take notes. A VERY important job.." according to our group leader. We went into the village at 5:30 a.m. There was a makeshift hospital for the leprosy patients to be treated and cared for. It was terrible! There was about twice as many men as women, and most of them were 10-20 years old! I saw a couple little kids too, and also some old people. Many of them had sores on their skin, and something had happened to their faces! Whoa- some of them were even missing hands or feet, or whole limbs! I don't remember anything about that from what I've learned about leprosy...

I was standing there, gaping, when my group leader began to glare at me. I gave him a questioning look, then looked down at my empty note paper. Oh...