This boy has HIV/AIDS. A few years ago he would have been facing certain death, but now there is medicine keeping him alive. He takes one pill twice a day. He’s healthy, and if you see him smiling you might think he’s “every child” — perfect, innocent, happy.
His future is uncertain, because nobody really knows what it’s like for a child to grow to adulthood with HIV/AIDS. It’s never happened before. They can’t even say for certain the medications will hold. Just three years ago, all the children in Cambodia with HIV/AIDS were dying by the age of six. Now they’re living, and the older ones who saw their older peers die are daring to hope and dream.
Before 2005, when all the children were dying by the age of six or so, other children in the developed world received treatment and lived. Now children in the developed world are still receiving better treatment. This boy is gratefully alive, but most children in Cambodia are taking outdated medications purchased from companies in India at cut-rate prices. Their lives depend on being consistent with the treatment. I hope and pray these kids, who I now know and love, never get a bad batch of pills. I’ve also heard there are treatments available now that you take once a month. I wonder when that pill will come to Cambodia at a price the people can pay.
Since coming back from Cambodia everywhere I look I encounter things that don’t seem to matter: television, stuff I own, worrying about what other people think of my shirt, the over-abundance of news on the Internet, trivial conflicts and competitions… What matters is life, but I’m surrounded by pretenses of life. I don’t want to get sucked back into an illusion, but I’m fighting old habits here.
The boy in the photo is beautiful and true; his story is tragic and hopeful. I want to see him grow up, and that matters very much to me. He reminds me that that truth, life, and love are real, not abstract ideas to play around in deep conversations.
And I’m reminded not to become cynical or despairing despite the foolihness that I see outside and within. As someone else has written and often repeats:
“If anything matters; everything matters.”
(Stay tuned for more photos and reflections in the coming days.)
Beautifully written and summed up for me all the questions I have since I stumbled upon an old copy of Reader’s Digest with an article on the “Partners in Compassion Cambodia”, which led me to the “SOHAM” website. I have been so very ignorant, living a life that is “empty”. I have once been so proud of my achivements…..everything material….now I am ashamed of it all. I long and yearn to hold and cuddle these children, give them kisses and hugs. They have known little but suffering yet they have such a passion for life, they have so much love in them and good cheer (smiling faces in pictures). I could learn so much from them. Like you, I hope we can make a difference. I hope for an opportunity to travel there one day, to be able to finally cuddle and kiss them, every one of them. Fighting old habits…..I need a lot of reminders and strength to help me fight mine. Even as I give to them now, it is me who receives because through knowing their story and their plight, I am the one who received a second chance at living life right, to have a life worth living for.
Thank you again for sharing!
Thanks for the comment, and I wish you the best as you sort out what’s really important and worth choosing in life.
[...] A photo and some background about the kids at Wat Opot [...]