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Extracted
from Malaysiakini
Fighting for life, a long way from home
Tama Mosi
Sep 22, 10 |
COMMENT Yoram is 16, from Long Napir, a small Penan settlement in rural
Yoram has an easy, charming smile, and is generous
with it. He is fairly tall for a Penan. He talks softly, as if he were still in
the forests surrounding his home village, three hours by rocky timber track
from the nearest town of
He has several scars on the front of his lower torso. Recently, he had a bag
fixed to the front of his trunk, to collect waste from a loop of bowel, drawn
out to the skin by a surgeon. The 
remainder of the bowel had
been blocked by scarring from a previous operation in 2008.
Yoram (left) has been through three long
operations, the one in 2008 and two this year. During the last operation, to
his delight, the plastic bag was removed, and he could once again evacuate his
bowels like any other boy.
Yoram suffers from a cancer of the blood. He was
treated with chemotherapy in the government hospital in Kuching in 2001, when
he was only seven. He did well, but could not keep up with the clinic
appointments in Kuching because his family lived at the other end of
The cancer returned in 2008. He had terrible pain in his gut from a growth he
could feel through his skin. His parents took him to Limbang and he was moved to
Miri, and then to Kuching.
He had chemotherapy again, and went bald again. The growth shrank. Then, last
April, he bravely travelled to
Uprooted from home
Yoram's three younger sisters, Rosita, Kristina and Erra, underwent a kind of transplant themselves, from rural
Limbang to Kuching. The family has been living in an annex to a house run by
the Sarawak Children's Cancer Society, for two long years.
Yoram could not resume his studies because of his
treatment, but his sisters were found places in schools with the support of
volunteers and the social welfare department.
“The three little girls have been doing well in school,” Yoram's
mother Limin said, smiling.
“The teachers like them, because they are good girls.”
Many Penan children do well in school, at least when they have the chance to
attend classes. The girls also won little gilded trophies at school sports days
as the fastest sprinters in the class, always running barefoot. The girls
showed off their trophies proudly, in their small room in the annex.
In this modest room, the size of a bathroom in some luxury hotel, they lived
with Yoram and their parents. Limin
planted vegetables in the garden. Limin and Reman had been born to a nomadic family in the rainforests.
Adapting to harsh alien life of the town
Reman was a resourceful and intelligent hunter, and
quickly adapted to the harsh alien life of the town. The children's cancer
society, run as a charity, provided some vegetables and cooking facilities for Yoram's family, as well as the many Malays and Dayaks from 'outstation', hoping for a cure at the nearby
general hospital.
“One of us parents always stayed in the house here,” Reman
explained, “while the other escorted Yoram to
hospital, on and off, for two years. Sometimes I walked with the girls to
school, sometimes Limin did.”
How did he make ends meet, far from the fruit and game of the forests?
“I work odd jobs, collecting leaves, cutting grass, cleaning durians for sale,”
Reman explained.
“Some kind people would ask me to work for them, for a week or two. Sometimes I
made twenty ringgit a day.”
When Yoram returned to Kuching from
The operations have been successful, so far. Yoram is
gaining weight. He has already gained hair, having had his last chemotherapy
over a year ago. His family keep hoping they will continue to be able to share
their simple meals together, as they have always done.
Going home
“We're going back to Limbang next Wednesday,” Reman
said with some excitement. “The doctors are arranging it.”
Yoram will have to live near a hospital for some time
yet. He has been away from school for more than two years. His sisters will
have to fit in at yet another new school in Limbang.
The family will not be able to return to Long Napir
for some time yet, though they yearn to escape the noise and heat of the towns,
for the cool forest canopy, rivers, and birdsong of their home.
They will live in the so-called Rumah Sakai
(literally, 'The House of the Unsophisticated'). This is a wooden shack built
by the local government, as a temporary shelter for Penan people from upriver,
seeking treatment at the small hospital in Limbang, or struggling to obtain
their MyKad and other identification documents.
“There are five small rooms in the Rumah Sakai,” Reman described. “Usually there are four families there,
with four or five children in each family. Sometimes there's enough space. But
sometimes there are Penan from the ulu
(upriver), then it gets very full and noisy, we can't even sleep at night.”
The shack has running water and electricity now, with two flush latrines. Many
facilities were added by creative volunteers from
“In the past, it was very bad,” Reman recalled. “The
water from the pipes was rusty, and the toilets were not working. But there
were a lot of complaints by visitors here from the Rotary Club, and from
Reman remains hopeful for his children's future.
“Many people helped us,” Reman smiled. “And we thank
them for everything they have done, and for their
prayers too.”
TAMA MOSI is a pseudonym for a local activist.