In the same afternoon I also went to visit a recently widowed mother of 5 children. Her husband recently died of TB. She has a pair of twins who are a little over a month old. One of which is severely under weight and as a result the healthier of the twin gets neglected. All five children and the parents live in this little shack. It has enough room for a twin bed made of nylon netting and a little space on the floor for the rest of the five children to lay on. The floor is a dirt floor. A really lame and silly thought ran through my mind, “Is the TB still in the air in this little shack?”
In this culture, the widow is suppose to spend the time in morning to sit at home and pound her chest in grief. She is to stay indoors and not go out in public to do anything. Well, the husband was the sole income provider for the family who collected trash. The oldest child is 11 year old girl who now has to take up that responsibility while her mom does her grieving thing and sit at home and pound on her chest. The other two children who makes up the rest of the five were all toddlers.
I see all the valuable they have in the house is kitchen pots but they don’t have food for the appliances to be used on. They have one blanket which the entire family shares and currently the twins are using them. The twin babies do not have diapers, they use that blanket for warmth and for pooping and peeing on.
The babies cry for nurturing and for food and physical contact. The entire family is malnourished and in need of care. I wondered if the children have the luxury of growing up to resent their parents for their inadequacies and all their lackings. Or is this a western concept, a right to demand and be ungrateful, a right to feel victimized, deprived, or to feel unjust. Such rights are seen as freedoms, but such freedoms do not liberate suffering.
