Travel: The island of isolation

[Photo: Marina Brown]

Leprosy patients sent to the colony on Chacachacare, a few miles from Trinidad, first viewed the “intake” building, on the beach.

CHACACHACARE, Trinidad -- As our boat silently glided toward the steamy peaks of this tiny island, I glanced at the list my friend the world traveler had sent me:

"THINGS TO DO IN TRINIDAD: Go to Carnival -- world-class party! Watch Sea Turtles Laying Eggs -- too cool! Visit the Leper Colony -- you'll see why."

Trinidad and Tobago, neighboring islands formed into one British colony in 1898, is a vibrant country of contrasts.

Universities, shopping malls, music festivals and international beauty pageants exist in a kind of balancing act with the pulse of nature. Even in developed suburbs, it is possible to hear howler monkeys in the back yard.

But less than a century ago, Trinidad, like numerous other hot, humid locales, had problems with nature, problems that seemed more medieval than modern. Hansen's disease, better known as leprosy, had erupted in the capital, Port of Spain.

As late as the early 20th century, the only method of controlling an outbreak of leprosy was isolation. For the bacillus, which attacks the body's peripheral nerves, there was no cure.

Far from the revelry of its famous Carnival, Trinidad's lepers were systematically rounded up and shunted to an island five miles off the northwest tip of the 1,800-square-mile main island. Chacachacare became, over 60 years, the home, and often final destination, of more than 2,000 sufferers of Hansen's disease.

We coasted nearer the island, draped with shreds of cloud. Jungle-covered mountains surrounded the harbor. Roofs of clapboard cottages appeared on the shore. The large, wooden "doctor's house," its sagging gingerbread eves jutting from the jungle, squatted alone.

The waves had picked up. Just off the shore, the sea drops from shallow to about 150 feet deep. Neither coming to nor leaving Chacachacare is easy.

The leper colony had attempted to treat sufferers beginning in 1922. It was closed 28 years ago, when the advent of antibiotic cocktails made isolation unnecessary.

Today it is possible to see the effort made to ease the lives of the lepers. Scattered on the steep mountain and along the shore are the electrical generators, two churches, a school, a cinema, a hospital and the residence of the nuns who cared for them.

All the buildings, including the numerous little dwellings of the patients and the families that sometimes came with them, are in good condition.

It is easy to let your imagination spin. A white enamel wash basin sitting on a table, a broom made of palm fronds propped in a corner, and the beds -- so many of them -- make heroic the determination of the outcasts to lead normal lives.

We climbed first to the western end of the harbor. The two-story school, with 20-foot ceilings, was spackled with graffiti. Yet among the names of distant cities and adolescent lovers were messages from caring visitors, nuns and, here and there, from the lepers.

A Dominican sister who must have worked in the school wrote in 1947, "Wash their sins, wash their souls, and let them be born again." And in smudged block printing, not far above the floor, was written, "When I grow up I will be a teacher. I can read the best in my class."

Yet, the building on Chacachacare that creates the greatest emotion in a visitor lies nearly hidden in the jungle on the eastern slope.

Shoving our way along a path mostly obliterated with vines and undergrowth, we were tensely aware of the dangers in the jungle. Spider webs stretched 3 feet across our trail, dengue fever-carrying mosquitoes buzzed and we saw a sleeping anaconda curled in a tight grey ball.

High above the beach, we stumbled upon two buildings. The first is a church, its empty altar glowing warmly in the faltering sun. The second, with its roof partially collapsed, is the hospital. There, papers were strewn everywhere. File cabinets filled with medical records were standing open. Little yellow cards with patient's names and the body parts that had tested positive for leprosy -- in some cases the dates of their deaths -- were scattered like so much confetti.

We found ourselves speaking in whispers. The quiet of the afternoon emphasized how slowly time must have passed for the people whose lives had been snatched away by a tiny microbe. The Roaring '20s, the stock-market crash, a world war, a moon landing, more war. Only the nuns who now lie buried on the island in tidy stone-covered graves were there to share the passing of the lepers' lives.

Along the hospital walls were rows of iron beds. An operating table rusted in an examining room. And alongside an obsolete X-ray machine was a disintegrating leather chair where, according to the notes, the lepers had had their wounds scraped and dressed with sulphur powder.

The dispensary upstairs showed changes in the making. Not only did jars of ointments, salves and sulphur line the shelves, but the treatments introduced in the 1950s and '60s, penicillin and Dapsone, were jumbled into the piles as well.

Some of the island's inhabitants had no doubt made it back into the world; we wondered if they ever came back to view Chacachacare.

Today, with the blessing of the Trinidadian government, hotel developers envision resorts, casinos and playgrounds on the island. Some locals want the site turned into a park, and others fear lingering germs.

But a visit to Chacachacare, with its breathtaking beauty and the troubling ambiance of a village trapped in time, is a history lesson hard to forget.

The island of isolation

Until a few decades ago, Trinidad's lepers were sent to a small island off its coast. A visit is a sobering experience.