OYADAW, Cambodia – Nine years after Rochom Pnhieng was discovered in a jungle in Cambodia and branded the “jungle woman” by media worldwide, her past continues to be shrouded in mystery and her present in captivity.

Her eyes show no sign of emotion as her mother and sister explain the life of the seven-year-old girl, who disappeared in the forest only to return as a 25-year-old woman.

“The woodcutters brought her back,” recalls Pnhieng’s mother, Rochom Soy.

Pnhieng’s sister Rochom Sony lets her out twice a day from the small hut, in which she is confined, only when the family is around.

“We have to be very careful, we can no longer let her leave the house because we are worried about her, when she steps out she could break something and then people will get angry with us,” Sony argues.

Pnhieng, who is 34 years old now, cannot talk and the lack of a DNA test only adds to the mystery surrounding her survival and the origin of the scars on her wrists with which she was found in Oun village in the northern Ratanakiri province, where half the population is indigenous.

Only some drawings reveal Pnhieng’s thoughts as she likes to draw figures from everyday life, women with baskets, and sometimes lines on people’s wrists, resembling her scars.

Traditions, poverty and geographical isolation have determined the way she adapted to her new life, which has been positive during the first few years, according to the Spanish nonprofit Psicologos Sin Fronteras.

“There were long periods of time during which she was contented and adapted to her new environment,” explains the Spanish Hector Rifa, who treated Pnhieng between 2008 and 2012, when the economic crisis affected international cooperation programs.

In the remote village of Ratanakiri, Pnhieng’s mother justifies the need to confine her daughter.

“Earlier, she looked fine and was doing better, I took her with me so she could take a bath or work with me, she understood how to work, dress, carry water, but after the incident of the toilet..,” Soy’s voice trails off.

The family believes the toilet incident, when Pnhieng went missing for 10 days in 2010 and was found at the bottom of a ten-meter (33 feet) deep pit latrine, halted her progress.

Although Rifa agrees the incident could have affected her, he believes what plays a bigger role is the lack of a stimulating family environment with continuous therapeutic care.

According to the social worker, part of the reason Pnhieng cannot talk is because she suffers from a hearing impairment, which was confirmed by experts in 2007.

However, her family doesn’t understand these limitations as Pnhieng is able to sing and vocalize syllables, which suggests her hearing loss is not congenital.

This assessment of Pnhieng’s needs, however, is very different from the myth created by the local community and the media.

The district’s chief of police, Mao Sun, who in 2007, attributed her appearance to the will of the spirits of the forest, now repeats a popular explanation, widespread in the community, that “the wild creatures raised her,” although he admits Pnhieng is very calm and has not displayed any destructive streak whenever she has managed to escape her confinement.

Meanwhile, Seang Leap of the non-profit Transcultural Psychosocial Organization says hundreds of people, mostly in rural areas, chain or confine family members, who are suffering from mental illnesses and social problems in Cambodia.

“The family members are far away (from medical care), they have no one who can look after them and they don’t understand the situation,” explains Seang Leap, whose project is helping forty-one such cases but a lack of budget has not allowed it to reach Ratanakiri yet.

source http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=12395&ArticleId=2409334

Special blessings to those who work with Cambodia's special needs people...and their families...

The scars on her wrists...are likely less damaging than those on her heart...

The only people missing here are.

Dopey,Bashful,Sneezy,Sleepy,Doc.Happy and Grumpy.

sorry,i just couldn't resist it.