Bantchi: Soul credit

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Bantchi Credit is the idea that our actions build us credit as we go on, and we can draw down on that for a time. It needs refilling but who’s to say what actions earn credit and what deplete it. The Burmese turn to this idea to explain many of their circumstances but use other sources as well.

Min Min’s mother wasn’t home when Minoo and Eve and I stopped at Kit 12 to visit the family. His father explained that she had gone out of the Ngan Tawee farm to seek a foirtne teller to explain why Min Min had fallen the day before.

The bravery and risk his mother was taking was enormous. Only two days later, when I knew she had returned safely, albeit after losing two days of pay, did I feel okay about it.
Min Min was climbing a coconut tree the day before our visit. The tree was on the property of an abandoned manor house deep in the middle of the 30,000 acre rubber tree farm. It was said to be haunted by a ghost. That, however, could not have been the reason for Min Min’s fall! No, the spirit was placated daily with offerings and had never caused harm or mischief before. So his mother had risked everything to discover the reason.

Min Min is in a hospital now in Phuket, where he was taken after the fall from the coconut tree snapped bones in his back and caused severe internal bleeding. He is still in a coma as I write this, five days later. The plight of the family is deeper still, Min Min’s and his family are illegals, and thus have no “right” to care in the hospital or anywhere else. The family must pay directly is they want their child to stay in hospital.

Imagine for a moment: You 11 year old only child has fallen and is in critical condition, comatose with a broken back. You are locked in a foreign employers worksite with no communication to the outside world and don’t speak the language. You have no means to ask for help or pay for the help. The reality is your child is now dying in front of you, and there is nothing …..you can do.

This is life for Burmese in Thailand as illegals.

In this case, the guard at the gate called Minoo. Minoo found the Kit Manager (a Thai person) and spoke to him for an hour to receive permission to transport the boy to the hospital. With B/5000 from his pocket he handed him over to authorities who took him to hospital. Min Min will be turned out and left to die if no way to cover his costs are available.

It seems so harsh. For us to hear that…turn out a child to die!? But remember, the Burmese are invisible here…Min Min is taking up space and has no money or rights in this country.

cont...

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Photos

...days old...
This baby is not going ot survive. The young mother is hopeful, but already at a few days old, the baby has a cough. With no medicine or health care, giving birth is a crap shoot. Mn told me bluntly this may be the only family portrait of this mother and child ever made.

...next door...
This woman's child is a few months old. He survived the odds. He has a fever now but the old ladies think he will live. The survival rate in Kit's are about 6 or 10 babies survive to see five years.