On her face and neck, beneath star-shaped plastic earrings, her skin bears the same marks - the telltale signs of the first stages of leprosy.
Since she was discharged from her local hospital last May, the symptoms have recurred. Liberia has the drugs needed to treat Kerkular but the health ministry is not distributing them.
Bureaucratic chaos aggravated by the devastation caused by years of civil war mean patients in this West African country are being deprived of badly needed drugs donated by the international community.
Without the drugs, Kerkular's feet and hands will gradually begin to rot, like the old men and women shuffling around her in the leprosy-afflicted village where she lives.
Some of the older people have no fingers or toes left. They contracted the disease during Liberia's 14 years of on-off war when treatment was unavailable and many lepers fled into the bush to escape fighting.
A 2003 peace deal paved the way for presidential elections last month, but many people say that corruption and mismanagement mean the health system is scarcely better off than at the height of the war.
"We haven't had leprosy drugs for three months," sighs Tokpa Wakpolo, the director of the leprosy and tuberculosis programme at Phebe Hospital near the central Liberian town of Gbarnga, where Kerkular was treated.
"I have 48 patients who need them and others who have not come in to register because they know we cannot treat them."
Liberia's conflict killed around 250,000 people, uprooted hundreds of thousands and left the once prosperous country in ruins, bereft of basic services. The war ended after former president and warlord Charles Taylor fled into exile.
Many professionals, such as those working in the health sector, left during the fighting.
Efforts to rebuild the country's shattered services have been hindered by rampant corruption among members of a transitional government made up of former belligerents, according to diplomats, donors and local residents.
Tamay Binda, who has six children, says she and her younger sister both went to register at Phebe Hospital but were turned away because no drugs were available.
"I am disappointed, if I don't get medicine I will be deformed," Binda said, lowering her eyes.
Beside her, farmer Stephen Bando nods in agreement. The 40-year old started treatment a year ago, but had to stop when the medicine ran out.
Now half a toe is gone and the knuckle on his left index finger is black and ulcerated.
Like Kerkular and Binda, he does not have the money to travel to the nearby town of Ganta to receive treatment.
The Catholic-run rehabilitation facility there says it has seen an increase in the number of reported leprosy cases and only has enough medicine for its own patients.
Yet the drugs are there, insists Arkor Gbanoe, the health ministry official responsible for their distribution. "They (Phebe Hospital) made a mistake on the form, and that's why they have no drugs," he said.
Finding fuel for vehicles was also a problem, he added, after the German Leprosy and Tuberculosis Relief Association suspended aid this year following serious concerns about the ministry's budget plans.
Nobody at the Health Ministry was able to explain why regional officials continued to travel to the capital to pick up hundreds of dollars in cash bonuses from international donors while patients went untreated for months.
Ensuring donated drugs reach patients is an enormous problem in Liberia, according to Westman Lars, a consultant for the Global Drug Facility, an international initiative to ensure tuberculosis drugs reach the needy.
Liberia is currently down to its last supplies of tuberculosis treatment after donors declined to finance the programme after much of last year's shipment disappeared.
"(Last year's) consignment was sent out to clinics, where supervisors were unable to account for the drugs," said Lars.
An emergency delivery is expected soon, but hospitals in many counties say they have already run out. In some cases privately-run institutions have had to contact suppliers in Germany directly.
In the meantime, parents of young children with tuberculosis queue up every morning outside Phebe Hospital to find out if the medicine has arrived.
"When I see them and there are no drugs, I feel bad," said hospital director Wakpolo. "But this is just the tip of the iceberg."