British diplomat extends helping hand to Europe's last leper colony

Cristache Tatulea, the mayor of the Romanian village of Tichilesti, has a simple test to show visitors how times have changed in his fiefdom: he offers them his hand. "Ah good, you are one of the ones who will shake it," he says, a smile lighting his tanned face. "In the old days, nobody would do that at all."

Tichilesti is Europe's last leper colony. Throughout its 80-year history, no locals would go within miles of the cluster of whitewashed buildings, hidden in a densely forested valley, for fear of catching the flesh-wasting disease.

Now, however, decades of near-total isolation and extreme poverty are drawing to an end, largely thanks to a British diplomat who aims to bring the lepers back into society.

Jonathan Scheele, the European Union's ambassador to Bucharest, read about the lepers on the internet and immediately did what no Romanian official had ever done - went to see the colony for himself.

"When my Romanian driver found out we were going there, he refused to drive any further and I had to walk through the forest without him," Mr Scheele recalled.

"The colony was not what you would expect - it was very calm and peaceful. It was remarkable to talk to people who had spent their entire lives in this compound. They came as teenagers and now they are old. Some married here, have had healthy children - who have grown up and gone to live outside the colony - and have entered old age without ever leaving.

"Yet they have made the best of their lives, building houses and making gardens on the hillside.

"I spoke to one who had been there since 1949 and never left. That really brought it home to me, because they had been there since I was born." The colony, 140 miles north-east of Bucharest, was founded in 1928 when 200 lepers were relocated from another colony run by monks.

At that time the condition, caused by a bacillus which attacks the skin and nerves leaving limbs and eyes severely disfigured, was still seen by Europeans as a "divine punishment".

Romanian lepers suffered even more under the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who regarded the illness as an affliction of the decadent West.

Victims were evicted from their homes, had their possessions burnt and were forbidden to use notes or coins in case they passed on the infection.

Tichilesti was removed from official maps and many locals still claim to be unaware of its existence.

Today only 23 mostly elderly residents are left, of whom the oldest is 92. Some live in long pavilions, resembling monastic cells, while others, including Mr Tatulea, have built their own houses.

There are two churches, one Orthodox, one Baptist, and a farm on which the colony grows corn. Mr Tatulea, 73, also has his own vineyard.

His sister-in-law, Ioana Miscov, lost her fingers and feet, and has to tend her neat house and garden by crawling on her hands and knees.

"I've been here since 1941, but I couldn't live just in a room and sit on a bench all day," she said. "I keep myself busy with the flowers and the vegetables."

After the fall of the Iron Curtain quarantine continued until 1993, when residents were finally allowed to leave. With no money or homes, however, and fearful of the reaction of outsiders, most stayed where they were.

Now more than £70,000 has been allocated to refurbish the crumbling leper colony and supply satellite television and radios to link residents to the outside world.

The EU has also funded an information campaign about leprosy. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not highly contagious: infection occurs only after prolonged exposure to droplets from the nose or mouth.

Since the 1980s leprosy has been curable, although it remains a problem in parts of the developing world.

The EU also wants local Romanians to become accustomed to living alongside the lepers. An old people's home has just opened next to the colony and the pensioners - who were not informed in advance about their new neighbours - say they have got used to it.

"We were scared of getting the illness, but we now know that you can't catch it and are not worried," said Aurelia Dan, 67.

Local residents insist that had Mr Scheele not defied the taboos by visiting the colony nothing would have changed.

"No Romanian politicians ever visited us in the decades we were here. They probably do not even know we exist, and certainly don't care," said Mr Tatulea. "But Mr Scheele, he cares. He drank wine with me in my home, and we talked about life and all sorts of things. I will never forget it."

source