ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE

IN THE olden days, they used to bring leprosy sufferers to their colony on Macau's Coloane by boat. Of course, early on in the century there was no bridge but, in any case, the journey across water to what is still a remote part of the island symbolised the beginning of an isolation which could last for life. The local people were afraid of the disease and shunned the community which, even 40 years ago, numbered several hundred souls. Provisions arrived by boat once a week but that was a problem during stormy weather. The lepers had to become self-sufficient; they planted their own fruit and vegetables and reared ducks and hens.

Some of these lepers recovered enough to disappear back into the folds of society. Many died and were buried in a cemetery which overlooks the sea by which they had come. And some were cured but were left with the disfiguring marks of their disease and felt, therefore, that they could not reintegrate. So they have stayed in this north-eastern corner of Coloane in a place which is baldly marked 'Leprosarium' on the maps but which is also known as Vila Nossa Senhora - Our Lady's Village.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary does not pull any punches in its definition of leprosy. 'A loathsome disease which slowly eats away the body and forms shining white scales on the skin,' it says, adding 'common in medieval Europe.' But it still exists in 20th-century Southeast Asia where the World Health Organisation estimates that there are 1.6 million cases. It is caused by a bacterium called mycobacterium leprae which attacks the nerve endings in the skin. It is curable and, in any case, rates very low on the scale of infectious diseases, although the deeply rooted popular belief is that it is exceptionally contagious. Fear of leprosy is what is truly infectious, however; the word has now come to mean social outcast.

There are 30 of these perceived outcasts left at Vila Nossa Senhora. A couple of them came from Hong Kong when the leprosy hospital in Hei Ling Chau was closed in 1975. They live a few hundred metres from a church called Our Lady of Sorrows but if there is one thing the men and women of this enclave within an enclave conspicuously lack, it is misery. They have a welcome for their rare visitors which is as moving as it is unexpected. 'They like it when people come to see them,' explains Lam Nga Seong, the head nurse.

'They are excited because they all want to talk to you.' And this, puzzling though it may seem, is really the case. No one minded being photographed, no one objected to the strangers from Hong Kong loitering about in the lovely gardens and chatting to them in the bedrooms. If the outside world had scorned these lepers, the experience had not left them so bitter that they wanted to return the compliment. The loss of feeling is only skin deep.

LEPROSY announces itself by a tingling in the fingers and toes. The skin becomes discoloured and rough (the word comes from the Greek for 'scaly' or 'scabby'), the extremities become diseased and wither into stumps and the face can slide into a disjointed semblance of itself. It became apparent that this would happen to Yan Yiu-kam when she was a child, almost 70 years ago, in Guangzhou. Her parents took care of her while she lived on the mainland but, when the Japanese entered China, she became separated from them in the wartime chaos. Like many people who have spent their lives in institutions, she is vague about details but, after some wanderings in the wilderness, she came by steamboat to Macau, whereupon government officials sent her to Coloane. She was 14.

At that time, the leprosarium consisted of six small Chinese-style bungalows which had been built in 1930 and which have only been replaced since 1990. There were many other sufferers. 'Some got well and left,' she remembers, but the illness had gripped her with particular ferocity. She lost a leg and her fingers, her face growing typically dented by the disease - but not so irreparably that it cancelled her capacity to smile. What makes her so happy? 'I don't have to worry about where to live or what to eat,' she says simply. 'My friends are here. When I arrived, Father Wu wasn't here. He came 30 years ago and he makes us happy.' Father Wu is actually Portuguese. His real name is Father Gaetano Nicosia and he is an exceptionally sprightly 80; he likes to play basketball with the boys he teaches at a nearby school during the day and he jogs around Our Lady of Sorrows while he is saying his rosary in the evening. Before he volunteered to stay with the lepers, a priest used to visit them from time to time. Now Father Wu, who has lived in China and Macau for 60 years, ministers to their needs.