Natalia Apaseray was 26 and spent her days hiding her face.
She was born in Jayapura, Indonesia, with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that caused tumors to grow on the right side of her face. In West Papua, she could not find the medical care she needed, and local children pointed at her and demonized her. A medical missionary found her inside a garbage bin while some boys threw stones at her.
That photo set off a chain of strangers. Peter Gray, of the Rotary Club of Phnom Penh, could not stand by: “Nobody deserves to live like this”. Three Rotary clubs raised 27,000 dollars and took her to Sydney. There, surgeons Michael Kernohan and Bruce French persuaded Liverpool Hospital to accept her as a humanitarian patient. A team of specialists operated on her free of charge, performing a seven-hour surgery to reconstruct her nose, mouth, and eyelid.
“I no longer feel the need to hide my face”, Natalia said. Before returning home, between one appointment and the next, she had time to see the beach and the Blue Mountains.
