Hi all. Happy New year. We trust the Christmas season was a blessing for your family. Yes, lower mainland, we heard all about your snow and now your flooding potentials! Sorry, but also sounded a bit like some fun was involved. I don’t like missing the Christmases with snow, but this year, it was a hot one for us.
Dean is going to write a bit about our Christmas break, and time in Thailand. He is also going to upload a ton of pictures, cuz it takes him a much shorter time to do so. I take the pictures, he posts them.
But I will tell you, since school has started again, we’ve had a good week. Maya Roxy had her 5th birthday on Friday, Jan 9, and she got lots of e-mails, phone calls, well wishes. She had chocolate cake with her classmates on Friday at lunch, and a nice small party with 3 little prek-4 friends (they’re so CUTE) on Saturday. She had fun, opened a few presents, wore her new fancy dress (the Khmer kids can get REALLY dressed up for their parties, so we thought Maya wouldn’t mind) and was quite pleased with her little life! Would have ended great, if she hadn’t landed on her head on the concrete by tripping over a soccer ball after the party was over. Nice blue goose egg to match her eyes! Oh well.
Dean is really requesting me tell you how we spent the rest of our Saturday afternoon yesterday, and I’m hesitant, because it’s still pretty raw, and I’m still reeling from it all. I’ll try to tell a very long story consicely, to give you yet another glimpse into this crazy (but still loved!) country.
When the kids were leaving Maya’s party at 2 pm in the afternoon, we all noticed a lady sitting directly outside our gate, she had a small child with her, and was very pregnant. She was moaning, eyeballs were rolling, the child was pretty dirty and dressed in a little dress, but was really a boy! She didn’t look well or all there, motioned to me for some water, which I gave her, then proceeded to make hand signs for help and kept moaning. Some Khmer neighbors came out and tried to ask her her name, what was wrong, if she had a husband, but were met with no answers, just ignoring them and acting mute. All she could translate was that she had “no money.” I was certain she was in labour.
We were starting to collect a crowd, her moaning got worse, so we started phoning people we knew, to ask what to do—where to take her? Who to call? What hospital would take her? (again, no money) and friends of ours, some who spoke Khmer, arrived to help. She would offer no answers, just moans, cries, and hand motions. We called a tuk tuk to take her to a hospital, we waited for phone conctacts to tell us where to take her, and Dean and another coworker even tried to physically lift her (gently) into the tuk tuk so we could send her to help, and she screamed and resisted, acting very out of her mind the whole time.
It was distressing to say the least, we felt very helpless, although she seemed to be in great need she was very unco-operative, and when we had finally exhausted all our “human” capacities of ideas, we decided to pray (duh! Like why not do that in the first place? We humans are so slow to learn sometimes.) Within minutes we had somehow convinced her to get up, move to the concrete, so as not to actually give birth in the dirt she was sitting in. It appeared by now her water had broke, or urine. We managed to maneouver her into a missionary doctor’s van who had also come to the scene to aid, and we were set to take her and the little “boy” to the Japanese hospital, as that hospital would take her. (I was told that some Khmer dress their sons, especially first born sons, in girls clothing, to trick the evil spirits into thinking they are girls, and then they will be left alone and safe. I thought for sure she was just so poor that this was the only clothing she had. There is always more to the story, here…)
So, we are driving in Eda’s van (the doctor) with the lady in the back seat—we’re not far from our house, and she starts screaming and pointing to a clinic on the side of the road. Motioning she wanted to go there. I thought we should go, as she might know the doctor or something (perhaps this is where she was headed and just couldn’t make it from our house???) We turned back and she got out into the clinic. There, the 4 attendants recommended we take her to the hospital, but this was all without any real examination---they were starting to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, but that’s as far as it got. Out of the clinic we take her and she diverts from the van, refusing to get in and sat a few feet away on the driveway. The clinic staff, us three foreigners and a few bystanders then tried to ask her questions.
Suddenly she could communicate pretty well. No more moans or rolling eyeballs. She used hand signs and some words to convey the following information: She was from one of the provinces (outside the city) and wanted to go back there to have a c-section. She needed money. Her mother was blind (picture her acting it out) and her husband had beat her (showing punches to the stomach). She was divorced. She needed money to go back to the province and have the baby. She also indicated that she was only 7 months pregnant.
As these truths unfolded before my eyes, I began to realize what was happening; A desperate scam for money. There was no baby on the way. The moaning, and pain? I guess it was a pretty good front, because I’ve given birth 3 times and I was pretty sure she was in significant labour pain. The broken water? For sure urine. The crowd began to dispurse, and she sat there while 3 of us foreigners tried to figure out what to do. We were of course not going to give her money, but wanted to help. We asked her how much it would cost just to get back to the province, and she told our friend an exorbitant price that he, having lived here for 10 years at least, knew was 3x the actual amount. She wanted money. Somehow a taxi stopped to look at her, and she got up and started to wander away. This lady, who was stuck in front of our house moaning, and unable to move without help from others, was now walking on her own accord, took the little boy’s hand, and wandered down the street in the other direction. No wonder she was so resistant to going to the hospital and accepting help!
The good doctor who had conversed more with the bystanders, were told point blank that she was trying to trick us. So, I got back into the van, and we drove a very quiet ride home. It was all over.
I was in complete shock. It was 4:10. We had been dealing aggressively with this woman for over 2 hours. We had made phone calls, given her water, given the little boy food, order tuk tuk’s, driven her in a van, and it was all a hoax to just get money. Flabergasted is the word to describe what I am still feeling, 24 hours after the incident.
How desperate is a person, to do this kind of thing??? Her situation was obviously poor in the first place, but to take things so far as to use up other people’s time and concern like that, and to go to the lengths she went to to get money??? I can’t conceive of it, because I have always had what I needed. I still feel sorry for her and especially for this little child, who has no choice. But whether or not she really needs a c-section, was beaten, lives in the province… who knows. It was pretty emotional for me anyways, and I certainly hope I don’t avoid helping someone else for fear of being taken in again.
So, that was our Saturday afternoon. How was yours?????
PS. The pics are just Random, but there is alot of dust and smog in the air these days!
