a boy & his python (like tip's fine stencil!)

[click photo to see larger version]

Photo by Heng Sinith, Associated Press, (modified with a Photoshop filter for a painterly effect) with caption: "Seven-year-old Uorn Sambath, who lives in the Cambodian village of Setbo, spends time with the family pet. The reptile, named Chamroeun, slithered into the house as a younger — and much smaller — snake when Uorn was a baby."

[Editor's Note: Compare this image to the black drawing, like a stencil, by Srayla Tip, at the top of the left-hand side of this home page, Tip drew that quite some time ago.]

Boy has a "special bond" with huge pet python
by Ker Munthit, Associated Press

…."There is a special bond between them," Khuorn Sam Ol said. "My son played with the snake when he was still learning to crawl. They used to sleep together in a cradle." ….

"People sometimes call the boy and the snake husband and wife," said Cheng Raem, a 48-year-old neighbor. "Maybe they were a couple from a previous life."

Boy and snake grew up together, ever since the python slithered into
the family home when Uorn Sambath was 3 months old. His 39-year-old
mother, Kim Kannara, discovered the reptile, then about the size of a
thumb, coiled beneath a woven mat on their bed.

Khuorn Sam Ol took the snake away, releasing it into some bushes by a
river, but one morning two weeks later, he found it back inside the
house. He decided to keep it and named it Chamroeun — meaning
"progress," in English.

He came to believe the snake possesses a magical spirit that
understands what he says and protects the family from illness. The
snake has its own 7-by-10-foot room with a spirit house at which Khuorn
Sam Ol prays for the python to keep his family happy and healthy. The
snake is so familiar with his son — one of four children — that it
would never hurt him, he said.…

Chamroeun — whom it takes three adults to carry — eats about 22 pounds
of chicken meat every week, posing a heavy financial burden on the
family, said Khuorn Sam Ol.

His meals used to be a spiritual burden as well, when they fed him live
rats and chickens. Uneasy that they were breaking the Buddhist
injunction against killing living things, Khuorn Sam Ol said the snake
eventually answered his prayers for it to stop eating live animals.…

"I will not let anyone take her away from me, either. I love her very
much," declared his son, Uorn Sambath, kissing his pet on the head.