bunna's nephew update

saw leann last night- -she just got back from the village. apparently they went to the free public hospital and they said they were full. lines outside the door. so they went to a private one and the guard looked at the baby and said he wasn't sick enough.

not f*ing sick enough.

they don't embalm here so as soon as the little guy died they had to get him back to the village for burial. people here are very superstitious, so the family had to cover up the dead body and act like he was just sleeping. otherwise nobody would agree to have them in their car or on the ferry. bad luck.

imagine that? new parents, their only child, dead. and they have to hold him, pat him, and pretend that their worst nightmare isn't true. since bunna took the child on his motobike, the village elders are making him sell it. it is cursed now. that bike is his only source of income. since his wife is 5 months pregnant and she was exposed to her dead nephew-- they say that her unborn child will cry for the first five months of his life because that is how many months old he was in the womb when he was cursed by the spirit of his dead cousin.

i wonder-- is the rampant belief in these sort of things a result of Pol Pot killing off all of the educated people during the Khmer Rouge era? people are so terrified of bad luck that they wouldn't stop to help parents who's only child has died.

i also can't help but wonder if some of these traditions are a throw back of contagious disease wiping out a village? i know in vietnam when a baby dies the parents have to burn everything that belonged to it. maybe not touching or having anything to do with the dead body is a protection against transmission?

i try so hard to understand, but its far beyond the realm of anything i can relate to.