Two-year-old Chorn sleeps. |
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PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
Chorn rides between his mother and father on the motorbike.
He has chicken pox, and his body is covered with sores, even his tongue.
But he finds the ride to a pagoda among thousands of motorbikes in the
snaking traffic amusing. Perhaps the cool evening air gives him some relief.
He is two years old and appears to have grown accustomed to being sick and
enduring the pain. He weighed less than two kilos when he was born and has
suffered from countless bouts of diarrhoea. He is often feverish for no apparent
reason. He is also malnourished.
Twice his parents thought he was going to die.
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The day before, the boy and Sinat, his mother, went to the public
hospital. He was diagnosed and received medication. She could not
afford a private clinic. But because of the long trip and wait she
lost a dayís work ñ a vicious circle.
Although chicken pox is not a dangerous disease, it can be for a child
living in Cambodia who is born impoverished, underweight and in poor health.
In Cambodia the infant mortality rate is the highest in Southeast Asia.
Sinat and her husband Chorn (father and son share the same name) are not
aware of the statistics but suffer like all the poorest Cambodians. They
donít trust the public hospital, but prefer the flexibility of the many
small private clinics, even though they have to solicit loans from moneylenders
to afford them. Or they go to the closest drugstore where an employee listens to
their symptoms and, despite his limited knowledge, hands out a prescription.
The child keeps his mother awake almost all night in their straw hut. It is
built near an open sewage system that emits a nauseating stench. Very early
in the morning, at 3:30, Sinat cooks and prepares along with other members of
her extended family. At 5:00, they open a small restaurant catering to the
army of employees from a nearby textile factory.
By mid-morning she is back cooking at the restaurant for the afternoon shift.
Despite the medications, the child shows no signs of improving.
On the motorbike once again, Chorn and his parents pass by lines of
houses where very young monks are chatting on the doorsteps. They
reach a pagoda where they have a private conversation with one of the
monks, and from there go to the side of the red-and-gold building.
Chorn sits on his motherís lap with his hands as if in prayer while a
Buddhist monk pours water over them. Chorn shares the same attitude of
concentration as his mother and maybe the same sensation of cold ñ
they both get goose bumps.
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Chorn in the street outside his house playing with boys
from his neighborhood |
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The monk says that mother and child were born in opposing years.
She was born in the year of the dog and Chorn, in the year of the goat.
He explains that this is the reason why they get ill so often and why
when one is well, the other is ill. The ablutions, he says, will bring
them happiness and luck in their work and protect them from all illness.
There have to be twelve such rituals done twelve days in a row.
But Sinat doesnít seem to put all her hopes there either. Back home, a
neighbour says she knows of a clinic where Chorn can get an injection
that can cure the illness in two days. Sinat wonders if she might try
that too ñ tomorrow.
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