I am a Karen person from Burma. The Karen, are indigenous people to the Southeast Asian countries of Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. They have been the victims of ethnic cleansing and displacement for more than 50 years. I was 16 years old when we left the Thailand Refugee Camp, which is on the border of Thailand and Burma. I am one of 3.5 million displaced people in Burma. I was born on the border between Thailand and Burma and lived there with my mom, sisters and brother until I was 7 or 8 years old. When I think about my past I’m reminded all the hardship that i have experienced but i wan to share this story with you that you can began to understand what is like being in a refugee camp and what is like grow up the way i did.
We lived in a hut made out of bamboo, we had no furniture, and we cooked on a fire inside the house and slept on the floor. My mom had to leave us alone a lot because she had to try to make money by selling the traditional vibrant Karen clothing. Sometimes my mom was gone for a week and because my dad passed away, we had to look after ourselves. I was about six, my brother was 10 and my sisters were 15and 16. We had to go to bed alone and it was very scary for all of us. There was no electricity, but sometimes we used an oil lamp and left it on all night. Sometimes we had no oil. We also ran out of food and it was hard to get some because no one had much to share. This was a very unsafe way to live. Another concern for my mom was that we lived right on the Salween River. This river is guarded on one side by Thai soldiers and on the other by Burmese soldiers. We had to get water from the river to bathe, wash and use for drinking. Sometimes children drowned. We had a small canoe from which my 10 year old brother fished without any life jackets. Sometimes the Burmese soldiers shot at the boats.
My mom has family in south eastern Burma, they are still there hiding and waiting for things to change. They knew we were having a hard time surviving on the border and wanted us to come and stay with them even though they were not safe either. So we went to live with them. My mom believed that if we should die, we would die with family.
It was very scary going back to Burma. Karen ethnic soldiers helped us get back to my mom’s homeland. We had to travel at night and be very quiet. We walked the whole way. Land mines are a big danger. They are everywhere but in some areas there are a lot, especially around villages. Soldiers helped us get through them. You have to follow exactly in the footsteps of the person in front of you.
When we were in Burma we didn’t live in one place very long. We would camp in one place until we heard that the Burmese soldiers were coming. Then we would move and hide again. One time the soldiers raided the village we were in. They shot many people and burned down our houses. They tortured people too. It was noisy and scary and all I remember was my mom grabbing my hand and told me to run. She grabbed some of our belongings and we ran away. I was only seven or eight. The parents of some of the kids who lived near us were killed, and we hid from the Burma military and children were told to be quiet or we would be found. It was then my mother decided to go directly to the Thai refugee camp.
My mother’s family didn’t want to come because they didn’t want to leave their homeland. They said we will hide in the jungle until the Burmese solder are gone and we will go back and rebuild everything that the soldiers had destroyed. My mother told the Karen solider to send her back to the Thai border and by the river and we took a boat to get to the camp.
Finally my family ended up in a Thai refugee camp. It was a better place but it wasn’t very nice. The Thai soldiers were now guarding you instead of shooting you. Refugees are legally confined to these camps and not permitted to find work or travel outside its perimeters. We were now refugees in need of resettlement due to the trauma we have suffered, the poor living conditions which include overcrowding, landslides due to their location on steep hillsides, poor sanitation and unclean water.
I remember being a child in the refugee camp and having to wake up six in the morning to go around and sell food that my mother made. School started at 8 and I had to go back to the hut and carry back water before I could go. Hoping to give me a better life my mother sent me to live with a richer family in a different refugee camp, but I cried myself to sleep at night. I wanted MY family. When we were re-united. We believed this would be the last place to live, in this camp, but by the grace of God the opportunity open for us to come to Canada.
When my mother decided to come I asked her why she said “Children I want you to know about freedom and touch freedom, because in my life I never known it. Always I have had to live in the jungle and hide from the soldiers. I don’t want you to feel the same way. So that is why I chose to come to Canada.”
Lastly I want people to know that every displaced child suffers inside and feels so much pain. No children should feel like that. Even when I was small I started to know the pain and suffering of the people around me. These feelings are stuck in the minds of so many children and adults.
I’ m here in Canada now which sometimes feels like a foreign planet, and although I am safe some nights I still cannot sleep. I am thinking of my people who are still now in the jungle and still faced with severe persecution in Burma. “Without your help I’m afraid my people will pay for their freedom by their blood”.
