crdt to WAN
They say that home is “where the heart is,” but for one 27-year-old woman from Changzhi in northern China’s Shanxi Province named Mo Hongping, home for the last sixteen years has been a four-foot long and 1-and-one-half foot wide basket. She had been a sickly child, as according to her mother, Wang Xiuhua, she fell seriously ill with a fever when she was barely three weeks old. Inclement conditions and a mountain passage blocked with snow prevented an immediate trip to the nearest hospital. When they finally were able to take the child to the hospital, Mo was diagnosed with meningitis. Although she miraculously survived, she didn’t thrive, and her life thereafter was fraught with seizures, constant pain and other developmental problem. She was 11 years old when her “basket life” began. One day, during autumn harvest season, her mother placed her in a basket usually reserved for maize and noticed that the child seemed content just to remain. Her mother also discovered that the rims of the basket relieved some of her pain because they functioned as supports for her body, which slightly folded her frame. The basket was subsequently fitted with wheels to permit mobility, and it has been the core of her existence ever since. Is there more medical help for this poor woman, whose only crime appears to be that of poverty? Somehow, there must be, but for now life remains not a bowl of cherries, but rather a basket usually reserved for corn.
They say that home is “where the heart is,” but for one 27-year-old woman from Changzhi in northern China’s Shanxi Province named Mo Hongping, home for the last sixteen years has been a four-foot long and 1-and-one-half foot wide basket. She had been a sickly child, as according to her mother, Wang Xiuhua, she fell seriously ill with a fever when she was barely three weeks old. Inclement conditions and a mountain passage blocked with snow prevented an immediate trip to the nearest hospital. When they finally were able to take the child to the hospital, Mo was diagnosed with meningitis. Although she miraculously survived, she didn’t thrive, and her life thereafter was fraught with seizures, constant pain and other developmental problem. She was 11 years old when her “basket life” began. One day, during autumn harvest season, her mother placed her in a basket usually reserved for maize and noticed that the child seemed content just to remain. Her mother also discovered that the rims of the basket relieved some of her pain because they functioned as supports for her body, which slightly folded her frame. The basket was subsequently fitted with wheels to permit mobility, and it has been the core of her existence ever since. Is there more medical help for this poor woman, whose only crime appears to be that of poverty? Somehow, there must be, but for now life remains not a bowl of cherries, but rather a basket usually reserved for corn.
