Don’t forget leprosy campaign: Life story from Kenya (1)

Leprosy/Hansen's Disease

25/3/2022

Activity area：

Kenya

For the “Don’t forget leprosy” campaign, we received life stories of people affected by leprosy from Kenya. All three contributors were very positive about the campaign and they hope that leprosy, together with discrimination and prejudice, will be eliminated. Here are their stories.

Life story of Fungue Masanja

At 73 years of age Fungue Masanja has almost seen it all. He was born in North Mara district of Tanzania in 1948 and joined the country’s military at the age of 21. He was about 10 years into the service of his country when the former Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin Dada, invaded Tanzania in 1975. He proudly remembers his stint in the military as the best time of his life, especially when he went to war for his country. In 1980, he married in a traditional Muslim ceremony and the couple were blessed with four children.

However, in 1995, Masanja was diagnosed with leprosy and his life was crushed. His wife, on realizing that her husband had the disease, left him and ran back to her parents with their four children. Masanja says that he had no time to fight for his marriage or children as the disease made him a social outcast. He absconded from the military and became a vagabond, moving from place looking for treatment for his condition. He says that stigma and discrimination of people affected by leprosy was worse at that time, with people affected not expected to show themselves in public places.

His first believed that he had got the disease because of some sin or abomination that he had committed, so he started off looking for treatment from magicians and traditional healers. It did not help and his problem only worsened. In1999, he had tried enough traditional medicine and decided to go to the hospital. He crossed into Kenya and went to a hospital in Kuria District, which is at the border of the two countries. That was where he was put on MDT treatment as he survived by begging for two years in the little town.

In 2002, after completing his treatment and with nowhere to go to, he travelled to the capital, Nairobi. He has lived there since, begging on the streets. Masanja believes that one day he will able to go back to Tanzania and meet his people again.

“The disease took away everything from me, my wife, my children, my people, my home- everything. One day I will go back there and I am not sure if I will find anything, even the house cannot be still standing after all these years”