Chaiwat
In the picture, five-year-old Chaiwat is twisted sideways and laughing gleefully into his friend’s face, nudging him with an armload of books and toys. But his legs are so slight, dangling from the edge of his mother’s bed, and her smile from behind him is somewhat forced and wistful. She is dying of AIDS.
Six years later, I meet Chaiwat in the principal’s office at the Temple school he’s sponsored to attend. Outside, a golden Buddha gleams in the heavy press of sunlight; inside, Chaiwat perches uncomfortably on the edge of the vinyl couch. Gone is the hyper five-year-old grin. He is cautious with his eyes, reticent with his words… and maybe disappointed to be missing some of his recess time.
He shrugs off the healing bruise under one of his eyes -- from a boxing match, he says, with a friend -- but cannot shrug away the sad shadow in his eyes. Chaiwat resembles his grandfather in so many ways: the fine, high cheekbones; the politely deferential nod of his head; the fidgety fingers; and most poignantly, this haunted composure of defeat. Haunted again by death.
Not long ago, Chaiwat’s grandmother lost her mobility and much of her spirit to a stroke. I have just come from their patchy plywood home, which leans precariously over a polluted canal, where she lies silently weeping and plucking the sparse hair from her scalp. Chaiwait’s grandfather labours every day to the Temple to pick up some free food for his small family, but he is slowly starving himself in mourning for his wife. His thin frame is tattooed over with emblems of death – skulls, crossbones, devouring snakes.
Chaiwat spends all his free time and what pocket change he has escaping into video games with his friends. A troupe of them will wander down to the local hole-in-the-wall internet place and pay about fifty cents to take turns playing and watching one computer screen for an hour. Chaiwat doesn’t care much about school, contrary to the letters he sends to his sponsors, and plans only to finish grade nine.
After that, he’ll follow some of his relatives in becoming a monk, which is a respectable – and more importantly, inexpensive – lifestyle for an impoverished young man with few options. Perhaps he’s intent on leaving home because he knows his grandparents are dying and will leave him first.
The small miracle is: he hasn't left yet.
Not yet.
Six years later, I meet Chaiwat in the principal’s office at the Temple school he’s sponsored to attend. Outside, a golden Buddha gleams in the heavy press of sunlight; inside, Chaiwat perches uncomfortably on the edge of the vinyl couch. Gone is the hyper five-year-old grin. He is cautious with his eyes, reticent with his words… and maybe disappointed to be missing some of his recess time.
He shrugs off the healing bruise under one of his eyes -- from a boxing match, he says, with a friend -- but cannot shrug away the sad shadow in his eyes. Chaiwat resembles his grandfather in so many ways: the fine, high cheekbones; the politely deferential nod of his head; the fidgety fingers; and most poignantly, this haunted composure of defeat. Haunted again by death.
Not long ago, Chaiwat’s grandmother lost her mobility and much of her spirit to a stroke. I have just come from their patchy plywood home, which leans precariously over a polluted canal, where she lies silently weeping and plucking the sparse hair from her scalp. Chaiwait’s grandfather labours every day to the Temple to pick up some free food for his small family, but he is slowly starving himself in mourning for his wife. His thin frame is tattooed over with emblems of death – skulls, crossbones, devouring snakes.
Chaiwat spends all his free time and what pocket change he has escaping into video games with his friends. A troupe of them will wander down to the local hole-in-the-wall internet place and pay about fifty cents to take turns playing and watching one computer screen for an hour. Chaiwat doesn’t care much about school, contrary to the letters he sends to his sponsors, and plans only to finish grade nine.
After that, he’ll follow some of his relatives in becoming a monk, which is a respectable – and more importantly, inexpensive – lifestyle for an impoverished young man with few options. Perhaps he’s intent on leaving home because he knows his grandparents are dying and will leave him first.
The small miracle is: he hasn't left yet.
Not yet.
posted by sparrow anne at
10:34 p.m.
1 Comments:
oh sarah my heart aches for this young boy. the deep pain he's experiencing at such a young age... puts me and my own pathetic problems to shame. thank you for another poignant glimpse into these beautiful people's lives.
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