8 Social Change and the Family in the Rural Mekong Delta

One day Aunt Tam came home with a worried expression on her face. Her right eye hurt, and she had gone to see a doctor at a hospital in the nearby town of Binh Thuy, where she was told she had an eye disease and would have to undergo an operation the following week. The news spread quickly to her children, and that evening, members of the family, Fourth Sister and her husband, Fifth Sister and her husband, Eighth Brother and his wife, and Second Brother, came to the house to see her. Fourth Sister, Fifth Sister, and Second Brother lived in the same hamlet not too far from their mother's house and frequently visited her, but Eighth Brother lived near the town and came to visit the parents only once in a while, so his arrival that evening meant something important was happening. It was rare for so many members to assemble in the house, also signalling the significance of the mother's illness for the whole family. As Aunt Tam lay down on her wooden bed, the children asked how she felt and consoled her. A great concern for all the family members was not only Aunt Tam's condition, but also how to finance the operation, which would cost the family a lot. The children, while they discussed the matter, seemed unsure about what they could do. Next morning, Aunt Tam, who usually got up earliest of all to work in the kitchen and greet other family members with a smile, stayed in bed. She was still discussing with Youngest Brother how they could collect the necessary money. When she got up a couple of hours later than usual, she started to gather and count the money they had in the house, including what they had made from the small tobacco shop they ran at home. Most of the bills she was counting were 200 dong (about 2 cents), 500 dong (5 cents) and 1,000 dong (10 cents) bills that obviously did not add up to a lot. At that time, I did not know how much the operation would cost, but I could easily see that the money she was counting would not be sufficient. Several weeks later, Aunt Tam had not yet undergone the operation, but she went to see the doctor regularly, and was getting medicine.