Here is a story from Hope Home.

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Orphans in a cruel world
08.07.2010

In Myanmar HIV/AIDS is rampant causing grief and misery.

Over the past number of years I sense the slide of HIV/AIDS (Human Immune Deficiency Virus) from the forefront of public consciousness into the bracket ‘of other people’s problems.’ U Din Oo and his family’s story is retold/relived daily in some broken down hut in some corner of our fragile world…

U Din Oo came to Hope Home for people sick with HIV virus from the INGO clinic in Myitkyina. He was a 42 year old man and was seriously ill with the virus. He was born in one of the isolated villages up in the mountains in Kachin State. He had lost contact with his family when he was 18 after he had drifted to the gold and jade mines.

U Din Oo followed the crowd and before long found himself embroiled in a network of drug abuse. Along the way he met a young woman, Than Than Myint whom he married and with whom he had two children.

In 2009 he had grown weak; his energy had faded away and living had become a burden for him and for his family. Through a friend he came to know of the AIDS Clinic in Myitkyina and was diagnosed there as having HIV. His wife also tested positive.

In the early days after being diagnosed, he and his family suffered extreme discrimination and isolation in their neighbourhood. Survival in this atmosphere strengthened his inner spirit and the U Din Oo we met in Hope Home was a gentle, thoughtful and caring person.

When he came to stay at Hope Home the doctors had hoped that drug therapy would prolong his life and that he could look forward to a future of providing and caring for his young children.

But one month after coming to stay with us, his wife died unexpectedly. She had been dead almost a week before U Din Oo returned to his home which is about 18 hours’ journey from the town. (After the boat journey one walks seven hours).

When he eventually got home his wife had been buried and his home had been burned by village elders - they believed her to be a witch. His two young sons, Hein Then Oo, aged nine, and Nye Nye Htwe, aged four, were being cared for by neighbours.

He returned to Hope Home to continue his treatment, knowing that he was the only parent his two sons could look to for security and care. He was beginning to show signs of liver failure and was admitted to the local hospital. We, at the Home, were becoming alarmed and concerned for the future of this family.

With his permission we went to search out his immediate family with whom he had lost contact over 20 years ago. They were in disbelief when we told them of the present situation of their lost son and brother.

We did succeed in getting them to visit U Din Oo in hospital. The visit reminded me of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel returning home to the father but the wounds of the past made communication difficult and blurred any real dialogue about the future care of his two sons.

As U Din Oo became aware that his life was ebbing away he brought his two sons to the Home and requested them to be taken care of in an orphanage. The boys stayed in the Home for a few weeks and we lavished care and affection on them. The day came for the children to go to the orphanage and they had to say ‘goodbye’ to their father.

Their two young faces showed the depth of their abandonment and fear.   

U Din Oo died on January 13. In his death U Din Oo was one of the many abandoned HIV positive adults we ministered to in Hope Home. We decided to visit the orphanage and take the children out for their father’s burial.

The Buddhist burial ritual took place on a hillside outside the town of Myitkyina. It was presided over by three Buddhist monks and a small group of lay followers. Part of the ritual is that family members perform a final ceremonial bow. The most touching part for me was when a young mother knelt down between Hein Then Oo and Nye Nye Htwe, clasped their hands in her hands and with them did the traditional Buddhist bow to their dead father, U Din Oo.

Children like U Din Oo’s two sons are cruelly wounded in places where HIV disease is epidemic. They have to come to terms with the loss of one or both parents.

With the support of Columban Sisters these children are now given some hope.

Sr Mary Dillon is a Columban Sister in Myanmar.

http://www.columban.org.au/Archives/features/2010/Orphans-in-a-cruel-world/