It's been a year and it's really hard to say how they've been or become. When I came back to visit the school, now in summer vacation, I asked one of the teachers how the first kid, Yun, is doing.
"Not too good, becoming even more "mindless" as before. He's now moved in with his dad but no one really wants to care about him, and being energetic, he simply can't stay put and wonders around. The village folks told me that he's been wondering around late in the night..."
While the "wondering around" part doesn't surprise me at all, him moving in to his dad's place was a bit of a surprise. He used to live in another village about 3 km north of the school with his grandma, his older sister, his dad and his step mom. His grandma is pretty much the only person who will pay attention to him, fetching between home and school and look for him when he forgets to go home while busy playing with his friends after school. His dad started to work for this company to take care of the stationery fishing trap in another town 3km south of the school and moved over there. His grandma then decided that she can no longer spend time looking for Yun all the time, and sent him to live with his dad and step mom, who don't give a crap about this boy's well being.
Who's Yun?
Yun's a kind hearted boy. He's never known to be smart and some will regard him as "stupid". Stupid as in illogically adventurous. Riding his bicycle into a wall, tying both his shoelaces together just to see what happens next, swimming in the ocean the day after typhoon has passes.... just to name a few. To me, Yun is not stupid, he's just a restless boy who isn't satisfied by what people tell him. He wants to know for himself. Yun is also a boy who has little concept of "causes and consequences". He lacks the motivation to learn and keep time.... that is, before I realized that he didn't know how to tell time! While I spent many months understanding and working with him, I found that Yun is not stupid at all. He's not smart, but he learns quickly. It didn't take me long to teach him all of the alphabets as well as all the different phonics. It's a big achievement to him, and it also proves to me that Yun is indeed a talented boy.
So this time when I came back, late at night, Yun and his buddy who I also tutored, Wibber, came knocking on my hotel door. They were bored... It's been a year since I've seen both boys, and while Wibber hasn't changed much, Yun grew taller, but his expression lacks soul. There was barely any happiness.
Ok, bored, let's have an English quiz!
That shock in their face.... actually, they were really excited to play this game again. It's not any fancy game, just to see how fast they can write the alphabets.
Yun took a bit longer than before to complete it, but to my surprise, he remembered everything I taught him a year ago. Earlier I mentioned that learning English is a big achievement to Yun, but teaching Yun is the biggest achievement and satisfaction in my life.
And then, the smile that Yun used to have came back.
It it a pain to me to see Yun and all these kids here suffer for various reasons. It's not just simply because of the lack of wealth, but also the lack of will and consideration. Most people have already given up on kids like Yun and Wibber before they have left their childhood. The fact is, kids like Yun and Wibber are talented and smart kids who have much more potential than many others. Chance, is what they desire.
Then to Wibber, the talkative one but also one who dread in hand writing. Writing is something Wibber find extremely uninteresting. It will take him hours just to write one line of homework, so painful to him that it's quite amazing to see. Wibber is yet another case. Wibber lives with his grandma in a small metal shack. His mom and dad are far far away, like what you will hear in a fairy tale. They are divorced, and Wibber's mom lives in the city, not exactly doing very well, so all of the responsibility of caring for Wibber falls onto his grandma. His grandma, a tough old lady, not only has to take care of Wibber, but also has to provide for him. His grandma harvests a special type of leaf that people use to make rice dumplings. The problem is, to get perfect, untorn leaves, his grandma has to drive hours into the mountain to find them up on the steep hills. After harvesting the leaves, she has to process them by cleaning and wrapping them into bundles before a middle man comes each week to collect the harvests. It's a very tough and relatively dangerous job. Wibber therefore usually has to find ways to kill his own time.
Every time I hear Wibber talk about his family, it's always been "my aunt" and "my aunt's husband" and of course "my grandma". There's hardly "my mom" and never "my dad". Wibber is loved by his family unlike Yun, but there's still a difference between being loved by an aunt vs mom. His mom just seems to have given up the responsibility of her son, and no matter how much you shower the boy with love from else where, it's simply not the same.
Wibber has just graduated from elementary school and there's no plan for him to move in with his mom. Again, the cycle continues. I don't see "chance" coming any time soon.
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