When I was 19 I was staying in a small village in Cambodia, not far from the Vietnamese border, maybe an hours drive. The home we stayed in was beautiful, all be it with no electricity. We did our washing in the pond in the garden and the 'kitchen' was outside. But the house had walls, windows, mosquito nets, showers with no hot water and strangely enough it had a tv even though there was no electric
The nice house I was staying in was nothing like the rest of the village. I was staying with two teachers from the local high school, so they were considered rich in the village.
We were going to build a house in a nearby village and I was really excited. It was around an hours drive away when we stopped on a dirt track and started walking through a dead rice field. Soon enough we came across some kind of hut. It was a hut for a cow. Well, it was a 'house' built for the family, but they gave their home to the cow and lived in a make shift tent. This family consisted of 6 children, a mother and a grandfather. There was no father around although later on a few men did pop in and out.
We started building this family's new home straight away. We started by building the frame of the house, then by making straw walls. After about an hour a naked boy arrived. He was too old to be naked, he looked around 12 years old. I could see clearly he was mentally and physically disabled. He started to go in our back packs, take our cameras, our spare clothes and our food and throw them around.
I left the rest of my group to carry on building and decided to try and befriend this young boy. He was not happy at me trying to talk to him. He hit me and ran away. I then saw his grandmother grab him and start whacking him with a plank of wood and rusty nails. I told her no, she shouldn't do this. But she insisted and kept on hitting him. The boy was screaming and crying in pain and eventually she stopped and he ran and hid behind some wood. I went other and again tried to talk to him. I soon realised, no matter what language I spoke to him in he did not understand a word of what I said. So I offered him a banana. He snatched the banana off me, bit in to it, spat it in his hand and then mushed it into my face. I think this means were friends now ? Yes it did !
From then on, I felt like I could protect him. I found out his name was kwai and he was 12 years old. He liked bananas and anything that was not his ! It was a constant battle to stop his grandmother from beating him and to stop him from rummaging through our backpacks and smashing our cameras up.
I gave kwai all my food, water and anything in my bag he could play with. Nothing kept him entertained for more than 30 seconds.
Soon enough it was lunch time, so we left the village and took a 2 hour break and went for lunch. The whole time we were at lunch I was thinking of Kwai and hoping he was okay. His body was battered and scared, he was also malnourished. On his chest he had a big burn, I presume from boiling water. His arms, legs and back were covered in new and old scars.
I couldn't wait to get back to the village and carry on playing with Kwai. When we arrived back at the village there was no Kwai, I couldn't hide my disappointment and no body would tell me where he was. After about 15 minutes of us being there, I heard screaming, and shouting. Then I looked towards the direction it was coming from and running towards me was kwai, this little boy, running through the rice fields and what did he have in his hands ? A chicken. Yes a chicken, a live chicken. He threw the children at me and laughed out loud I could not stop laughing. I soon realised he had stolen the chicken from someones garden and so did his grandmother. What she did next really shocked me. She took him and started to whip him with rusty metal wire. There was nothing I could do but watch, then she led him to a fence and tied him to the fence with this rusty metal wire which had cut his chest open and was now cutting his wrists. As soon as she walked away I untied him, It took a while as he was screaming and crying out in pain but I managed. Once he was untied he wasn't his usual hyper self, he was a lot more timid and hid behind me. I found his mum who had been playing with all the other children happily all day. I asked the man we were working for from the charity if he could translate between us. His mum told me Kwai was a result of rape when she was 14 years old. He has physical and mental disabilities but they did not know exactly what they were as they dont have the money for medical diagnosis. She said she dresses him, but he rips his clothes off. She said that everyone in the village hate him because he steals from their homes and smashes their windows and also because he is the result of rape. She was telling me she loved all her other children but not him. Kwai was sat there on my lap and was trying to touch her and she just pushed him away. It was very sad.
By the evening we had to leave. I really did not want to leave. Everyone else in my group headed on. But I hung back. I did not know if Kwai would understand I was saying goodbye to him but he must of, as he jumped up into my arms and gave me the biggest smile.
I still think about him, he must be nearly 15 now....
