One Body Village - Một Thân Hình

According to the group’s plan, this day we visited a mental center (a.k.a lunatic asylum) and a center for children victims of orange agent in Can Tho.

Actually, I had no idea of what a mental facility would be like since I had never visited one before.  I visited the lunatic asylum today just because everyone in the group was going.  I could no longer keep this attitude once I arrived here.  Over 500 “people” were treated and cared for here.  However, I wondered if the word “human” could be correctly applied here? Why? I think as human beings, nobody can be kept prisoned 24/7 as dangerous criminals just because they had some mental illnesses.  As human beings, nobody could accept a living arrangement where 20 people were forced to live in a room of 12 square meters with only the floor used as their beds and an open common toilet nearby.

This environment was extremely horrible!  The smell from open toilet was everywhere.  Drinking water was unclean and uncooked.  Piles of old sport clothes for mental patients were spread everywhere on the floor.  Shaken did I discover some patients having skin breakdowns everywhere on their bodies due to scabies and self-mutilation.  Why had they been treated yet?

Cannot say a word

Father FX Tuan Tran – who had been always with mental patients here – reported that this facility belong to Can Tho isolated prison reserved only for the most dangerous criminals who were denied by society.  I wonder since when mental illnesses were a sin, a life imprisonment sentence and a waste from society.  Certainly not!!!.

With innocent smiles and hospitality, people inside the cells stretched their arms outside to greet us and sang for us few songs that they could still remember.  With saddened hearts, I felt extremely guilty when I felt like I went through the zoo.  I wanted to cry and wanted to find out why I had that feeling.  Was it because of me or because they were treated not as human beings? And what if I were one of those behind the bars, how would I feel?

Cooking special rice  for the mental illness

We were especially extremely emotional when we found out that there were a lot of HIV mental patients living with other healthy patients which certainly meant those healthy patients would get affected with HIV due to poor living condition.  I felt that this was like hell because once you were in here, you can only wait to die.  Despite all the hardship, people always hope to survive.  However, this place killed that very hope.  To these people, at the end of the tunnel have there no light, only darkness.

When I left the mental center, I still felt my heart so saddened.  We quickly grabbed lunch, headed to visit the center for children affected by orange agent and hoped to feel less tense.

Visiting orphaned and dioxin children

Once there, we were introduced about the center as well as the children’s conditions.  We also got to visit every area of the center.  Certainly eye witness is the best evidence when we saw poor little children left by parents for many reasons.  One child was left behind because he suffered from hydrocephalus (brain with excessive water).  One was because he was born with cleft lip and cleft palate.  I wonder if maternal feeling still held to be most valuable in these cases.

Making friend with a boy

Those children were too young to be aware of their big lost since they still smiled and clung to us.  However, they still felt they needed more love because they cried out loud when we stopped holding them.  Reluctantly we left the area to visit children play area.  From there, we entered the next area with urinary smell from bedwetting children or from incontinent people.

I almost cried when I saw about five children lying on the floor with deforming bodies and waiting to get fed.  Although just lying, they looked like they were in most pain.  Their eyes still open but I know they could not recognize their surroundings.  In a corner, one person with deforming body tried to get attention by hitting on the floor and shouted out with meaningless sound.  She was 32 years old and she had been like that since she was born.

K.V. - the writer - playing with a girl

Unlike many other places, this place witnessed a sad truth that those children’s meaningful lives stopped when they were born.  Never before did I feel death as a good solution for life as in this place where life was marked by lost, pain and sadness.  Those children without limbs or Down children were still luckier than children affected by Orange Agent in that room.  How many times should I feel luckier than the children here?

I felt my own stupidity when I always thought I had gone through all the ups and downs in life and thought I already knew everything.  Now I felt my smallness, aware that all I suffered was like a tiny drop in the ocean.  I realized that I was childish when I always talked about what I did and what I achieved because I was nothing compared to those people like Father Tuan, Sisters and volunteers who sacrificed even their lives to take care of mental patients and children affected by Orange agent.

In our world, there was still dangerous darkness.  However dark it was, there were still simple, friendly but whole-hearted people who lighted up the world with their big sacrifice and left so many valuable lessons that would stretch my entire life. 

Cần Thơ – One sad night, 15/01/2013

K.V.

Translated by Tu Nguyen. You can read the original version in Vietnamese, entitle "Hành trình Cần Thơ (Ngày 2): Tận cùng nỗi đau

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