The Children I Don't See

It’s the children that make the most impact. When you hear stories from people that have been in similar places, they all say the same thing. So it sounds like a cliché, but the children really are the ones that affect me the most. Their innocence is still, to some extent, intact; at least it is for the babies. They just have no idea that this world they have been born into is one that will force them into the same inescapable cycle of oppression and poverty that has plagued the generations before them. At this stage, they are still content to just sit there, sucking on a scrap of food given to them by their parents. They don’t know where Burma is, or that if they are lucky enough to grow up, they will probably watch a least one of their own children die. Or that, for some reason, I was born in a developed nation where my parents were able to provide me with healthcare, nurture my curiosities, and give me a good education. The babies are still truly innocent.

The older children affect me in a different way. The things that some of them have seen are horrific. The trials they have had to overcome in their short lives are impossible to relate to. And the children that I see are considered the lucky ones. Because they have gotten out. They are here getting medical treatment. Or an education. The ones I don’t see are the ones that are destined to follow their parents as they run through the jungle, fleeing their villages in fear of an army set on destroying their lives. The ones that are forced to go with only the smallest amounts of food, and the ones that are destined to die in the jungle, without any medical care, before their fifth birthday. 

The children I see are the ones that managed to get help after the landmine blew their legs off. Here they will receive appropriate amputations, and in time, artificial legs. The ones I don’t see are those that died of infections caused by their maimed, untreated stumps. The children I see are the ones whose parents managed to get them to the clinic in order to receive treatment for complications caused by chronic malnutrition. The ones I don’t see are those that suffer severely for want of a few nutritious meals. The meals that I complained about as a child, and refused to eat because I didn’t like one of the ingredients, or because we had it last week.

The children I see don’t live very nice lives. And they are the lucky ones. I can’t even articulate how I feel for the children I don’t see.