Cambodia Calling

&quote;What s the matter? A mine? Some kid step on a mine? A blessure?&quote; &quote;No. Not a mine.&quote; We walk in and there s a mother standing by her child. It s a little girl. She s a very beautiful girl with straight black hair, maybe six or eight, big eyes, a bit younger than Smiles and just as lovely. But she s lying too still under a white sheet on the bamboo bed and her mother is talking in a monotone, staring off to the corner asking for help from Buddha. The little girl is staring at me, tracking every move I make. She s so weak, all she can do is move her eyes. Sok Samuth approaches the bed and takes down the sheets. It s very sad what we see. The girl is inhumanly thin and her skin is peeling off. He pulls the sheet up over the girl s body again and the mother keeps up her monotone plea for Buddha while the little girl follows me, eye to eye. She wants me to make her feel better. I m thinking, no, not this one. The whole thing was about this one. It was always about this one. &quote;What is it?&quote; he asks me. &quote;I don t know. Is there a fever?&quote; &quote;No, pas de fi vre.&quote; She is cool to the tough and there isn t any shivering, no chills. All my ream could tell me was that she d been sick for a few weeks and that her appetite was poor for a week and that she became worse I checked the two pediatric textbooks we had at the Blue House. Nothing. It could be kwashiorhor protein malnutrition all by itself, but we weren t hearing about that out in the countryside. It was still lush and the harvests had been so good. Why would she be starving now? So maybe it is cancer. I think, What would Professor Jim Anderson do? How would my great mentor go after the diagnosis?