Mae Srey Lek

We knew Mae Srey Lek from 2001, when her daughter, Srey Lek, was dying of AIDS at age 23.  Her family lived in the slum by the huge garbage dump in Stung Meanchey. Srey Lek was the daughter from her first marriage. Her second husband died of AIDS in 2003. From her second marriage Mae Srey Lek had three sons.  The older two took after their father, who drank and beat her. The second son also used drugs. The youngest son, Chanthorn, had a problem with drugs when he was about 12 years old and stayed out of the house because his brothers also mistreated him.

In the middle of all this Mae Srey Lek held everything together, getting up at 3 a.m. each day and taking a cart around the city to collect recyclables, earning about $2.50/day for 12 hours of work. Although she had AIDS she remained strong until well into 2006, when her health began to deteriorate.  She also gave up hope, especially when Chanthorn was having problems, and began drinking and gambling. By the beginning of 2007 she was seriously ill with tuberculosis (tb). Then, in March, she was diagnosed with inoperable cervical and vaginal cancer. Our experience with chemotherapy for Cambodian AIDS patients discouraged us from supporting it for her. Instead we tried to make her last months as good as they could be.  

Mae Srey Lek refused to stay in the hospital or hospice. Our director, Pheap, who lives not far from her, started going to her house practically every day to make sure she took her tb medicines. He also insisted that she begin antiretrovirals (arv) despite the cancer and made sure she took them. We saw her several times a week for Reiki and provided her with money for rent, food, intravenous fluids several times a week, and a caregiver when she couldn't manage on her own.  Because of the tb and arv medicines her strength came back and she found herself, on her own initiative, work sewing rice sacks together.

Chanthorn was also doing better at this time. He was not living at home but had stopped taking drugs and gone back to school.

In June Mae Srey Lek told us that she wanted to ordain.  We thought this was wonderful, shaved her head and ordained her at the Roussey hospital mortuary. She lived her last months at home as a Khmer nun.

Mae Srey Lek died peacefully September 16, 2007. Her whole community participated in her funeral.

The first photos in this collection were taken by Bennett Stevens in 2005. They show her at home and Chanthorn with his nephew. The rest of the photos were taken by Rayna Moss in 2007.

Roeum and Tai Meng

Free antiretroviral medicines (ARVs) began to be available in Cambodia in the middle of 2001 through Medicins sans Frontieres.  But it was several years before they became more generally available. During that period, until the beginning of 2005, most patients continued to die. And most of those lucky enough to become part of an ARV program had come very close to death, not once but several times. They had lost spouses and children. They had lost hope. Their bodies often had been permanently weakened and their capacity to envision a future gone. Turning towards life again was a complex and difficult process. Many did not make it. Some made it only part of the way. Having at least one very close relationship was often a key factor in whether someone survived or not.
Certainly for Roeum and her daughter, Tai Meng, each has been the key factor in the other’s survival.

We first met Roeum in 2001, when Tai Meng was a baby. Although the doctors said Tai Meng did not have AIDS she was very slow developing, with a huge belly and almost no hair. Tai Meng was also very hypersensitive and could not be more than a few meters away from Roeum; otherwise she could cry hysterically.  At some point it became clear that she was infected also.

Roeum had lost her husband and was alienated from much of her family because of AIDS. Maryknoll organization supported her and Tai Meng. But in addition to this Roeum worked constantly, making doormats and hammocks and splitting wood into tiny sticks for sate (meat chunks in sauce).  She saved the money from this for her funeral expenses and for Tai Meng after her death. 

Roeum continued to weaken and at the end of 2003 went back to her village to die there. She did not want Tai Meng to enter a group home for children and, we believe, was hoping that she could stay with relatives after Roeum died. That did not work out and Roeum and Tai Meng returned to Phnom Penh in spring of 2004,to the house where she used to live, where the landlady was kind. Tai Meng went into an (excellent) group home for children and Rouem prepared to die. In addition to AIDS she had uncontrolled tuberculosis. A fungus was eating away at her armpits and mouth and she weighed barely 30 kilos.

Roeum went into Roussey hospital’s tuberculosis ward where every day we prepared for her death. We brought Tai Meng to visit daily. Tai Meng’s overwhelming stoicism—she never, ever cried—broke our hearts.

One weekend midnight Roeum, who could barely stand, let alone walk,  decided she had to see Tai Meng at the group home, even though she did not know where the group home was and the hospital gates were locked for the night. Somehow she managed to get down the stairs and out of the building onto the lawn, where she collapsed. She had lost her sampot (skirt) along the way and was lying naked in the wet cold. We were called in the morning when nobody knew where she was. Pheap, our director, found her, found someone to dress her, got her back upstairs and got hold of me.

Rouem insisted on seeing Tai Meng and insisted on not seeing her in the hospital. The group home, realistically afraid Rouem would die in front of all the children, said she could not go there. We finally took Roeum to the house where she had been living and brought Tai Meng to her there. After the visit Roeum refused to leave and refused to have Tai Meng taken back to the group home. We expected Roeum to die momentarily and did not want Tai Meng there when it happened. The cry that broke from Roeum when we had to take Tai Meng back will haunt me until my own death.

After Tai Meng left Roeum became docile and returned to the hospital. But she didn’t die. Several days later she was moved to the Missionary Sisters hospice at Cham Chao outside the city. After the move she was so disoriented that she failed to recognize Tai Meng on a visit. But she didn’t die.

And she continued not to die and began to increase in strength. We brought Tai Meng to visit as often as we could, despite the huge stress of it. Returning from visits on the back of the motorcycle I would tie Tai Meng to me with a krama (Cambodian scarf). She would fall so deeply asleep that I would have to check her breathing to be sure she was alive. She still didn’t cry.

Roeum continued not to die. Eventually we got her registered in an ARV program 60 kilometers south of Phnom Penh. She began to stay at the Wat Opot Partners in Compassion project, half way along the road. At first that was temporary. But it became apparent that even recovered from her tuberculosis and with ARVs she would never have strength to live independently.

For two years we juggled the demands of Tai Meng living in Phnom Penh at the group home and doing well there and Roeum being hours away by bad road (the roads have improved since then).  It was always a catastrophe. Roeum would call, crying because she missed Tai Meng. The group home, worried because Tai Meng often got sick after visits, would hesitate to allow us to take her. Tai Meng still seldom cried (we thought her crying at all when we took her back was a vast improvement. She would protest at going but then settle down by the time we reached the road. But she became a champion vomiter, eating constantly at the project and digesting none of it, throwing it up on the trip back. After the first time it happened, when I had to buy new clothing so that the group home didn’t know and prohibit visits, we were always prepared for it. We also tried bringing Roeum to Phnom Penh but she wasn’t strong enough to manage. The trip exhausted her and she needed a caregiver. 

In 2006, finally, it all came to an end. Tai Meng, now in school and able to care for herself much better, went to live at Wat Opot with Roeum. 

It is not a perfect situation but it is more than workable. Roeum is able to hold a small job helping with cleaning at the project and receiving a small salary.  Tai Meng goes to school. They would like to visit Phnom Penh more and see family but it is hard to arrange and we wind up having to prioritize other things. But Reoum is alive and they are together and the supportive atmosphere of the Wat Opot project makes a genuine home for them.

The first five photos, all from 2005, show Tai Meng on a Wat Opot visit. The last three show us taking her from the group home to live with Roeum. All photos are by Bennett Stevens.