For several years a five-year-old girl we call Miss Ice lived in a shack with her 25-year-old HIV-infected, tuberculosis-sick mum and three stray dogs no one ever bothered to name.
Set at the bottom of Klong Toey's foulest dead-end soi, their shack had no luxuries. No tap with running water, no electric switch for lights. Neighbours had long thought the shack was haunted, but that could be because the three strays inside it barked non-stop at every Full Moon.
With mum sick and bedridden, there was no money, no food and no guarantees of either. So at the age of five, Miss Ice became the family "provider". Each morning she would crawl out from the grubby mosquito net she shared with mum and comb her fingers through her hair. Then she would go to "work" to feed herself and her mother. The dogs foraged for themselves, but since mum had never been particularly skilled at "garbage-can living", Miss Ice had to find a way for them to survive.
At sunrise she would make her way toward the creaky front door, trying not to disturb her sick, snoring mum, step gently over the sleeping dogs, and then hop-skip down a rickety wooden pathway patched together from flimsy scrap lumber and a bit of rusty tin. The pathway was too rickety and flimsy to hold much of anything, but it was sturdy enough for a highly precocious and fearless, barefoot little girl.
Before the deadly virus set in, mum sang and danced in a downtown club, and even occasionally stayed "after hours". That was her downfall. Pretty dresses and nightclub music do not prepare you for garbage-can survival. Nothing really does.
Unable to sing and dance, mum pawned her jewellery, her dresses, her shoes, and soon ran out of people from whom she could borrow money. Her credit was no good in Klong Toey. But as she grew sicker and poorer, one person never left her side -- Miss Ice, her beautiful only daughter.
Desperate for a place to live, mum had returned sick to the Klong Toey slums, where she was born and raised. But her older relatives had long ago died and the younger ones had moved away. Only a few neighbours (four aunties, to be precise) remembered her from when she was a little girl.
Now, at age 25, with her head down in sorrow and sickness, she asked for their help. They didn't turn their backs, aunties never do. They are the heartbeat of our Klong Toey slum.
Out on the main slum soi, a few steps towards the old abandoned railroad tracks, there are four pious aunties who wait most mornings for this elderly monk from the temple by the bridge. The monk always passes by on his morning rounds, offering devoted disciples the opportunity to make merit by donating food in his sacred bowl. To feed a monk is to feed the angels themselves.
As a stand-in for her sick mum, Miss Ice began joining the pious aunties at the break of dawn. Hungry and with no garbage-can skills, it seemed to her like the best option.
However, the four generous aunties preferred not to give their offerings directly to Miss Ice. There's less merit that way. Thus, in their proper old-fashioned manner, they made their donations to the elderly monk, who could decide whether or not to share the food (made sacred by the monk and temple) with Miss Ice and her mum.
With Miss Ice alongside them, hugging on an old teddy bear, the ladies would sit, chat and chew betel nut while waiting on the monk. When they had had a sweet or two, they would give one to Miss Ice to give to Teddy. Even garbage dump teddy bears like to eat sweets. Of course, Miss Ice would have to taste them first, lest Teddy might not like them.
The elderly monk, who had gone to primary school with two of the aunties, learned the story of Miss Ice and her sick mum. So when he would see Miss Ice humbly kneeling next to the four aunties, he would always stop and open his sacred bowl to this five-year-old and her bedridden mum.
Things continued that way for four years until one of the aunties told the story to her daughter, a public health nurse. It was as if a bomb exploded. Worried that the mum, sick with HIV/Aids and tuberculosis was not taking meds and could be contagious, the nurse immediately called for a public-health ambulance. Mum was put in the hospital that very same day and everyone was checked for tuberculosis.
Thank goodness no one was infected. Soon after, the shack was disinfected, blankets and mosquito net burned.
Today, Miss Ice is with us at Mercy Centre and is at the top of her third-grade class.
Mum, even though she started again on her medicines, was too far advanced. She soon died. At the funeral and cremation, the old monk joined the prayers and the four aunties came as sponsors at the temple prayers for the dead.
Following the cremation, Miss Ice was with us when we asked to keep mum's ashes in the temple grounds. This way she does not have to be afraid any longer and Miss Ice knows mum is finally at peace. The dogs survived through it all and they can still be found foraging for food at the end of the alley. They bother no one and no one bothers them. The old shack, abandoned now and disinfected, remains standing at the dead end.
The four aunties, meanwhile, go to the alley's dead end once a month on a night of the full moon and light a candle in memory of mum. Seeing them arrive, the dogs wag their tails in friendship and, mysteriously, no longer howl at the Moon.
Father Joe Maier is the director and co-founder of the Human Development Foundation in Klong Toey. For more information, call 02-671-5313 or visit http://mercycentre.org.
