your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“My son got very sick. We were on our knees. Then my daughter lost her mind.”
Chandrawathi lives in North Central Sri Lanka, with her husband, her daughter, and her daughter’s one-and-a-half-year-old child. She’s the one keeping the household going, because her husband is ill and her daughter can’t care for herself or her child.
It hasn’t always been this hard. A few years ago, her 13-year-old son got sick with a lung condition. He was treated in Mahiyangana, then Kandy, then Colombo, over about six months. The family was stretched thin. When he finally recovered, Chandrawathi’s daughter started showing signs of a cognitive condition. That was around two and a half years ago, and she still isn’t well. She doesn’t recognise her child. She shouts at the family. She can’t manage daily life on her own. Her husband gives no financial support, so everything falls to Chandrawathi.
She’s been raising the younger grandchild since the child was seven months old, covering milk, food, and medicine from her own earnings. She also raised an older grandchild who, at around age seven, chose to go to a temple and was ordained as a monk. Chandrawathi’s husband has diabetes and high blood pressure, so he can’t do regular work. He makes hoe handles when he’s able, but sales are irregular.
Chandrawathi sells goods at the market four days a week and takes daily wage work on other days when it’s available. She’s joined a self-help group, which she says helps things keep moving along. She doesn’t take food on credit from shops because she doesn’t want debt she can’t repay. The family eats simply. They don’t buy meat, fish, or eggs often. Some days they manage only two meals.
When money runs short, there’s no backup. Medicine for her daughter costs money every month. Her husband’s conditions need managing too. She cooks in the morning and stretches that same food through to lunch.
Chandrawathi’s hope is to educate her younger grandchild and see him reach a good place in life, whether that’s becoming a doctor, a teacher, or following his older brother to a temple, she says.