Sunday, July 23, 2006

Neighbours 3

My mom did not give up. She went on another crusade. She persuaded the lady next door to allow her younger boy, who was about eleven, to stay with us. She persuaded another lady who lived a bit further away to allow her son, who was around nine to come too. The boys were happy at first. My mom taught they should be taught religion, so he made them pray five times a day. (They were not even Moslem!) As I said, my mother did not have any training in social work. After a couple of days, the boys started to get bored with home life and the routines, especially the younger boy. His name was Phai. Phai is small for his age. Not much bigger than my four-year-old niece. One day, they were playing together when my mom started to get suspicious. Phai was rubbing himself a lot and acting funny, and was trying to take my niece to a quiet corner. Mom approached and told Phai to stand up straight and sure enough, the little guy had an erection. She sent both boys home. I’ve just learned about child abuse and I realized now that Phai could have been a victim of child abuse. Things had been shown to him or even done to him that was not appropriate. Poor kid.

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