Thursday, July 05, 2007
Crawling children (re-post)
(This post has gone down for too long, and I would like to draw your attention to it)
Huy and Hanh can not walk. All the time, they crawl around a small yard in front of their house. Hanh and Huy can understand a bit.
Here in this photo, Hanh and Huy are nervous of the visitors. They are crawling to hide from Ngoc, a representative of Vietnamese Red Cross and www.chatdocdacam.info
My friends,
I was shocked when I saw this photo. Yes, they were crawling on the ground and they looked ugly, but I was surprised that they were conscious. They reacted like any typical Vietnamese child, timid and shy when strangers approach, and this made me remember the Humpedback of NotraDame!
Do we sometime look down or mistreat a real human being because of their appearance?!
I love you kids!
Huy and Hanh can not walk. All the time, they crawl around a small yard in front of their house. Hanh and Huy can understand a bit.
Here in this photo, Hanh and Huy are nervous of the visitors. They are crawling to hide from Ngoc, a representative of Vietnamese Red Cross and www.chatdocdacam.info
My friends,
I was shocked when I saw this photo. Yes, they were crawling on the ground and they looked ugly, but I was surprised that they were conscious. They reacted like any typical Vietnamese child, timid and shy when strangers approach, and this made me remember the Humpedback of NotraDame!
Do we sometime look down or mistreat a real human being because of their appearance?!
I love you kids!
Monday, July 02, 2007
“I WILL LIVE”, SHE SAID
Her letters, with its careful handwriting, arrive almost every month. I met Hai when pursuing a story on Agent Orange victims in Thai Binh province in July 2004. Ever since, the letters have told me a lot about her. A young woman’s confession on her efforts at “self-reformation”.
“Sometimes I wish I were blind, deaf or mute. So I don’t have to think and suffer anymore from the pains that Agent Orange has caused to my family.” Ha Thi Hai was born in 1976 in Thai Binh prvince, Northern Vietnam. She is the second daughter in the family. The only one who, until recently, was still able to go to school. Her father, a veteran, had no inkling that the fog which fell down from the planes in Quang Tri was going to contaminate his body. Agent Orange has accomplished its “mission” of silent destruction. It has been sown and grown into the bodies of his three children.
Hai had to quit school after 7th grade. Her health couldn’t keep up. She also felt bad about her deformed body. Ever since, she stays at home, spending her days trying to move her half-paralized hands and feet. She cooks and waits patiently for her father, brother and sister to come home.
“Daddy takes them to the fields with him to keep an eye on them. They look allright physically but they have absolutely no memory. Once they missed the path leading home and walked to the next hamlet. Little Ba cannot even re-plant the young paddy. Sometimes when she has her crises she rolls on the ground and even stomps on the stalks.
As to my brother his eyes start rolling when he’s about to have an attack. Then he chases me to hit me, all the while cursing. He has hit me many times but I only feel compassion for him. When the attack is over he takes me in his arms and we cry together. “
Of them all, Hai’s mother is the better off. That is, her health is the least shaky of all. She helps by selling vegetables on and off. Everything for her children.
Hai continues: “I have just learned what the doctors think of my case. They say that Agent Orange has affected my marrow and atrophied my muscles. It is inoperable and incurable. I am going to lose little by little the use of my limbs and not be able to move.” Convinced that it will relieve the family’s burden, Hai tried to kill herself. She swallowed some tablets, a lot of them. After her attempt at closure, the family has been helping her “reform herself”.
In her last letter, Hai wrote that, along with her brother and sister, she has been admitted to a physical rehabilitation center. “ We have had a lot of visitors. They told me I should make an effort to live.” Period. And a last sentence: “ I will.”
Le Thanh Thuy
(Suc khoe va Doi song)
“Sometimes I wish I were blind, deaf or mute. So I don’t have to think and suffer anymore from the pains that Agent Orange has caused to my family.” Ha Thi Hai was born in 1976 in Thai Binh prvince, Northern Vietnam. She is the second daughter in the family. The only one who, until recently, was still able to go to school. Her father, a veteran, had no inkling that the fog which fell down from the planes in Quang Tri was going to contaminate his body. Agent Orange has accomplished its “mission” of silent destruction. It has been sown and grown into the bodies of his three children.
Hai had to quit school after 7th grade. Her health couldn’t keep up. She also felt bad about her deformed body. Ever since, she stays at home, spending her days trying to move her half-paralized hands and feet. She cooks and waits patiently for her father, brother and sister to come home.
“Daddy takes them to the fields with him to keep an eye on them. They look allright physically but they have absolutely no memory. Once they missed the path leading home and walked to the next hamlet. Little Ba cannot even re-plant the young paddy. Sometimes when she has her crises she rolls on the ground and even stomps on the stalks.
As to my brother his eyes start rolling when he’s about to have an attack. Then he chases me to hit me, all the while cursing. He has hit me many times but I only feel compassion for him. When the attack is over he takes me in his arms and we cry together. “
Of them all, Hai’s mother is the better off. That is, her health is the least shaky of all. She helps by selling vegetables on and off. Everything for her children.
Hai continues: “I have just learned what the doctors think of my case. They say that Agent Orange has affected my marrow and atrophied my muscles. It is inoperable and incurable. I am going to lose little by little the use of my limbs and not be able to move.” Convinced that it will relieve the family’s burden, Hai tried to kill herself. She swallowed some tablets, a lot of them. After her attempt at closure, the family has been helping her “reform herself”.
In her last letter, Hai wrote that, along with her brother and sister, she has been admitted to a physical rehabilitation center. “ We have had a lot of visitors. They told me I should make an effort to live.” Period. And a last sentence: “ I will.”
Le Thanh Thuy
(Suc khoe va Doi song)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The little girl's hands
“Hai ban tay em
Nhu hoa dau canh
Hoa hong hong nu
Canh tron ngon xinh…”
"The little girl’s hands
Like two little flowers
Chubby and rosy..."
This is quoted from a poem by a famous Vietnamese poet named Huy Can. His poem describes a lovely little girl in her dance. I couldn't help but feel sorrow when I whispered to myself the rhymes upon seeing the picture of this little girl trying to write with her deformed hands.
Dear friends,
Every little child deserves to be born equal. Every little child deserves to have their hands normal, with chubby and rosy fingers, to reach for their parents' faces and to be kissed.
And that goes without question!
Sunday, March 05, 2006
The determination of an armless boy
The boy in this picture is Tran Ton Trung Son. His father used to be a soldier fighting in Laos, and his family was from the South Bank of Ben Hai river, an area highly intoxicated by agent orange.
Son's birthday was full of sorrow for his family. Son's left hand was abnormally short, and his right arm did not have an elbow. A pitiful baby!
The parents, acknowledging the consequences of the war inflicting on their family, tried their best to get rid of poverty and to get ennough money to help their son.
Going to Hochiminh City empty-handed, Son's parents sent him into Hoa Binh Village in Tu Du Hospital, in which Son was cared by the nurses.
With some more spared time, the parents worked as hired labours and apprentices. At night, they had to sleep in the park. With all the money earned, they tried to afforded Son's study.
The parents' endeavors were well-paid. Son came first in the examination into the Secondary School Nguyen Gia Thieu (in Tan Binh District). Later on, he became one of the top 5 students of the Tan Binh district, also the distinctive student in Mathematics and Vietnamese Grammar of the City. Son was awarded the tittle " A Distinctive student who has overcome difficulties" Now, he is still among the best students of the School with an English mark of 9/10, Math 9/10 and Literature 8,5/10.
Beside school works, Son is keen on programing, practicing taekwondo, and reading.
(adapted from www.tuoitre.com.vn)
Thursday, January 26, 2006
FALLING TO PIECES
This article is quoted from The Guardian
Nearly 30 years after the Vietnam war, a chemical weapon used by US troops is still exacting a hideous toll on each new generation.
Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy report
Saturday March
29, 2003
Hong Hanh is falling to pieces. She has been poisoned by the most toxic molecule known to science; it was sprayed during a prolonged military campaign. The contamination persists. No redress has been offered, no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin has done nothing to combat the medical and environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming her country. This is not northern Iraq, where Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Kurds in 1988. Nor the trenches of first world war France. Hong Hanh's story, and that of many more like her, is quietly unfolding in Vietnam today. Her declining half-life is spent unseen, in her home, an unremarkable concrete box in Ho Chi Minh City, filled with photographs, family plaques and yellow enamel stars, a place where the best is made of the worst.
Hong Hanh is both surprising and terrifying. Here is a 19-year-old who lives in a 10-year-old's body. She clatters around with disjointed spidery strides which leave her soaked in sweat. When she cannot stop crying, soothing creams and iodine are rubbed into her back, which is a lunar collage of septic blisters and scabs. "My daughter is dying," her mother says. "My youngest daughter is 11 and she has the same symptoms. What should we do? Their fingers and toes stick together before they drop off. Their hands wear down to stumps. Every day they lose a little more skin. And this is not leprosy. The doctors say it is connected to American chemical weapons we were exposed to during the Vietnam war."
There are an estimated 650,000 like Hong Hanh in Vietnam, suffering from an array of baffling chronic conditions. Another 500,000 have already died. The thread that weaves through all their case histories is defoliants deployed by the US military during the war. Some of the victims are veterans who were doused in these chemicals during the war, others are farmers who lived off land that was sprayed. The second generation are the sons and daughters of war veterans, or children born to parents who lived on contaminated land. Now there is a third generation, the grandchildren of the war and its victims...
Nearly 30 years after the Vietnam war, a chemical weapon used by US troops is still exacting a hideous toll on each new generation.
Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy report
Saturday March
29, 2003
Hong Hanh is falling to pieces. She has been poisoned by the most toxic molecule known to science; it was sprayed during a prolonged military campaign. The contamination persists. No redress has been offered, no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin has done nothing to combat the medical and environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming her country. This is not northern Iraq, where Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Kurds in 1988. Nor the trenches of first world war France. Hong Hanh's story, and that of many more like her, is quietly unfolding in Vietnam today. Her declining half-life is spent unseen, in her home, an unremarkable concrete box in Ho Chi Minh City, filled with photographs, family plaques and yellow enamel stars, a place where the best is made of the worst.
Hong Hanh is both surprising and terrifying. Here is a 19-year-old who lives in a 10-year-old's body. She clatters around with disjointed spidery strides which leave her soaked in sweat. When she cannot stop crying, soothing creams and iodine are rubbed into her back, which is a lunar collage of septic blisters and scabs. "My daughter is dying," her mother says. "My youngest daughter is 11 and she has the same symptoms. What should we do? Their fingers and toes stick together before they drop off. Their hands wear down to stumps. Every day they lose a little more skin. And this is not leprosy. The doctors say it is connected to American chemical weapons we were exposed to during the Vietnam war."
There are an estimated 650,000 like Hong Hanh in Vietnam, suffering from an array of baffling chronic conditions. Another 500,000 have already died. The thread that weaves through all their case histories is defoliants deployed by the US military during the war. Some of the victims are veterans who were doused in these chemicals during the war, others are farmers who lived off land that was sprayed. The second generation are the sons and daughters of war veterans, or children born to parents who lived on contaminated land. Now there is a third generation, the grandchildren of the war and its victims...
Monday, January 23, 2006
GO TO SCHOOL IN BASKETS….
For eight years, Mr Le Van Nhan carried his children to school in baskets
One day in May, the sandy region of Duy Nghia, Duy Xuyen is burning in the heat of the noon. A man tied his two children onto his bicycle and forced it through the sandy road without a shade, their backs were soaked with sweats. A fairy tale in life!
"For me this is much better now. A few years ago, I used to carry them in baskets …" The man is Mr Le Van Nhan, father of two agent orange children named Le Van Anh and Le Van Trang. Leaning himself against the bicycle to wipe out sweats on his face, Nhan said he had carried his sons to school for the past nine years
"During the war, I lived in the area toxicated by the American but I was unaware of the consequences. After the war, I returned to my homeland and get married in 1985. For two years, we had two deformed babies. We took them from hospital to hospital but the doctors could not help, they said that the boys were infected by agent orange" Nhan said.
The two deformed sons were a heavy burden on the shoulder of the young parents. Living from hand to mounth, they tried to bring up the sons with a little hope one day they can find a cure for their children.
When the two boys turned 8, despite their withered hands and legs and their deformed body, they both asked to go to school. Feeling pity for them, Nhan, tearfully, carried his sons to schools. "Those days, I and my wife took turns to carry them to school in baskets. Fortunately, they are both smart and hard working, so they have been studying well for seven years" Nhan said.
When his children reached grade 8, a concrete road was built. The parents decided to buy an old bicycle, and tied their children onto the bicycle to carry them through the 3-kilometre road to school. Now their children have just finished the graduation examination from secondary school, and are preparing for the next entrance exam into high school….
2.
…On the tortous and rocky road in a mountainous area of Tien Son, Tien Phuoc, I found Mr Pham Viet Canh who carried on his back his deformed son Pham Viet Tuong to school. Rain or shine, Canh has carried his son through 3 kilometre rocky road to school for the past 5 years. In return to his father's endeavour, Tuong has always been the distintive pupil of the Primary school Nguyen Ba Ngoc. However, his father is still worried: " Next year, my son will move to secondary school, which is 6 kilometres away from home, he can not stay in a dorm, and I am afraid I can not carry him that far. If only I had a bicycle…"
3.
…Dai Hong village, on a small road skirting a mountain, there was a little girl helping her friend go to school. For the last 6 years, the journey from home to school have been an embody of a fairy friendship in life. The two girls are Tran Thi Thu Dung and Truong Thi Thuong, pupil of class 6/3 in the Secondary School Phu Dong.
Mrs Luong Thi Hue, mom of Thuong , recalled " After giving birth to Thuong, I was so shocked, I got fainted again and again. After that, despite of our poverty, I tried to find a medical treatment for her, but all hospital people were unable to help, they said my daughter was infected by agent orange…"
Thuong, now 16, is only half a metre tall. She can only sit, she can not walk. Without the help of her friend, Dung, Thuong could have dropped class long time ago. Up to now, the little Dung has been carrying Thuong to school for 6 years. Many people of Dong Phuong Village said, at first, they thought that the two girls were beggars because they looked so pitiful. But they now know that the two girls have just been awarded the certificates of merit for their achievement at school…
In many regions of Vietnam, thousands of agent orange children are going to school with the help of parents and friends. Despite their physical disadvantages, they all share the same aspiration to live, to study, and to better themselves.
(Translated from www.tuoitre.com.vn)
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
STORY WRITTEN BY AN A/O VICTIM
The story below is written by Giap Thi Giang, a 23 years old girl, living in the Van Canh Friendship Village. Except for her withered legs, Giang is a lovely girl with a good looking face. She is wellread, and like many million children in the world, she is reading Harry Potter...
Giang wrote this story in both Vietnamese and English. I have made some minor grammar and spelling checks for her.
If you read this story carefully, you will find behind the story is a delicate and sensitive soul that needs much caring...
THE SEA'S ECHOES FROM A SHELL
“A boy dreams of becoming a painter,
but he is blind.
A girl dreams of becoming a student,
but she is mentally insufficient.
A young girl dreams of becoming a model,
but her face is deformed.
…………………………………….”.
Along time ago, in a beautiful Kingdom with green countryside and busy towns and endless glittering sand beaches. The people lived in happiness and harmony there.
However, in a village, there was an unfortunate girl who fell sick. Even though her parents invited all the best doctors in that Kingdom to their home to cure her sickness, all of they came and left with a same words: “Sorry, I can’t help your daughter”.
The girl’s sickness got worse day by day, and her world was only a room with four walls, and a piece of sky through the window.
To comfort the girl, her parents bought many toys for her, and they read stories for her every day.
One of the stories was about the sea. Even though she never saw the sea, but in her mind the sea was a beautiful and wonderful place with the glittering sand beach, the soft blue water and the melodious sound of the waves rushing to shore, the rustle of the casuarina trees in wind.
Since then, she dreamed of a day when she would go to the sea to see waves lapping the beach, run on the glittering sand, and hear the the mellodious sound of the waves, the rustle of the casuarina trees in wind.
Her parent really wanted to help her realise her dream but they couldnot. However, they thought of a way so that the girl still in her room can feel like standing in front of the sea.
On the walls they hang the pictures of the sea with heaving waves like real, they lit glitering lanterns in the room, they even tried to mimick the sound of the waves, and the sound of the casuarina trees rustling in wind.
However, the girl still said:
“No. That is not the sea.
The sea is beautiful and wonderful.
The sea is not like this”.
An the girl still longed for her dream, but her parents couldn’t do anything further.
One day, there was a traveler passing by that village. He called at her house to ask for some water, he by chance learned about the girl and her dream. The traveler gave the girl a glittering shell of a sea snail and said: “Before you sleep, put this shell the next to your ear, and then close your eyes, it will help you realize your dream”.
That night, the girl followed the traveler’s advice, then fell sleep and dream…
In the dream, the girl saw herself running on the glittering sand beach between the casuarina trees rustling in the wind and the waves singing to comfort the golden beach....
Andexen once said: “The best fairy tale is the tale written by real
life”.
Like the little girl in the story, we (AO victims) have many dreams. We believe that the fairies will make our dream come true. And like the little girl in the story we make them come true by the “fairy of imagination”
--------
And I just want to tell Giang: Come on, my little sister. Let your imagination be the wings to flutter you to the sky of dreams and wishes. If only I can do anything for you....
