[Friends of Korea] Finding 'home' in a leprosy settlement

Incoming Peace Corps Volunteers visit Benjamin Bryan in 1980. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

By Benjamin Bryan

As a 21-year-old African American fresh out of college with a sociology degree, dreaming of faraway places and exotic cultures, I decided that it was time to see the world and to right all the wrongs in life.

To that end, I joined the Peace Corps more than a year later, and in March 1979 I was directed to the tiny leprosy settlement of So Ah Village in modern-day Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province. This experience completely transformed my life, and was the basis of enduring memories that bound me forever to this place and its people. My Peace Corps language instructors tried to assimilate our given names phonetically to Korean names, and I was renamed Park Myung-sik.

The home where Benjamin Bryan lived in the village, seen in 2006 / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

Despite having spent three months in a leprosy research center in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, immersed in extremely intensive cultural, language and medical instruction, it soon became obvious I did not have the practical skills I needed to be effective in my job. Neither was I prepared for the sight of weeping and malodorous sores, marked by gnarled, gangrenous appendages and paralysis.

Benjamin Bryan poses with a coworker at the health center in Jinju 1979. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

Those were humbling times. Not only was I struggling to learn the practical skills that were required, but I had lost the little confidence I had gained in my knowledge of the Korean language and culture in this village of just 300 souls. They spoke a language dialect different from the language instruction we received in standard Korean, which is spoken primarily in Seoul. So there were some feelings of confusion and isolation until I began figuring out the dialect and ways to communicate.

A husband and wife, both leprosy patients, at the village community center in 1979 / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

Six months into my term found me struggling with an extreme case of depression over the perception of my flaws, but I now look back on that time as a turning point, as I determined to overcome the drowning negativity. My host "mom," who affectionately referred to me as Mr. Park, deserves a lot of credit for encouraging and nurturing me during this very difficult period.

Time passed, and I gradually began to understand the workings of the system, within which there was a definite hierarchy that was not always obvious. However, I slowly began to understand, by degrees, who I needed to approach to receive the care and supplies that were so desperately needed.

Village residents at the community building during a Health Center/clinic visit in 1980 / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

"Mom" would occasionally assist me with providing medical treatment to patients who came to our house, either in search of medicine or to change the dressing on a wound. She would also travel to the local market six days a week to sell eggs. My "father," a quiet man, spent his days preparing sermons for the Presbyterian Church of So Ah Village, where he was a deacon. My 11-year-old little "sister," Mi-kyung, left home before sunrise each morning to attend school.

Benjamin Bryan poses with his 11-year-old host sister in 1979. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

Benjamin Bryan poses with his host sister and her son in 2006. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

Just as I was beginning to adjust to Korean life, and to feel that I was finally making a difference in the lives and health of the villagers, it was time to return home. Two years had passed, and my service period had ended. Feeling I had only begun to achieve the expected results, I requested a one-year extension. This was denied as a result of Korea being phased out of the program in 1981. I was transferred instead to the Fiji Islands, where I would spend the next two years providing critical care for leprosy patients at the P.J Twomey Hospital in Suva.

Life continued, as I became fully absorbed with my work in Fiji. It was also there that I met my future wife, Joyce, who traveled back with me to the U.S. following our marriage in 1984. We have returned to Fiji multiple times since then to visit her family and to renew treasured memories.

However, it took a return visit in 2006, about 25 years after I left, to fulfill my promise to return to So Ah Village. By then, of course, my ability to converse in Korean had practically vanished. The countryside I so fondly remembered had also been completely transformed, and the dusty road I had traveled often to get back and forth from the health center in Jinju City proper was now a paved, two-lane expressway. The leprosy resettlement of patients was still there, and appears to have increased in the number of homes and population.

Benjamin Bryan visits the health center in Jinju during a return visit in 2011. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

When I reunited with my Korean family, finally, it immediately became clear to me what a profound and lasting influence my two years with them had played in my life. In a single day, the past merged with the present. To my great relief my host parents both looked well, and my shy little sister was now happily married with three children.

Benjamin Bryan returns to visit his host mom and dad in 2006. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

As I reluctantly left the village that evening, I remembered with a great deal of emotion how completely I was welcomed back by those villagers, many of whom I had cared for so many years ago. Again, and again, I was greeted with thanks, embraced with warmth and shown overwhelming kindness.

Benjamin Bryan visits village residents with leprosy during his return trip to the village in 2006. / Courtesy of Benjamin Bryan

It was finally, in that moment, that those incessant niggling doubts and nagging sense of guilt where I questioned whether I had made an appreciable difference in these people's lives, vanished with each exchange.

I had returned "home," and I was healed.

Benjamin Bryan lived in Korea from 1979 to 1981. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, he worked at the Jin Ju Clinic and Health Center as a health educator in leprosy. He currently resides in southern Maryland, and works for the Department of Homeland Security as a human resource specialist, providing workplace accommodation for employees with medical conditions. All proceeds from this column are donated to charities in Korea as part of the Friends of Korea Giving Back Initiative.