April Paw, pt. 1

My name is Der Htoo and I was born in a refugee camp called Mae la located in the Tak province and Tha Song Yang district of northern Thailand on April 11, 1998. For some unknown reasons when I was born, I was awfully dark for an Asian baby, which was taboo. Some of the most memorable moments of my life come from growing up in the camp, even though I was really young at the time. I recall being the most handsome looking kid a mother and father could’ve ever raised or made. Well, that’s what I thought.

Growing up in the camp, mom and pop couldn’t afford a lot for us. They rarely made money since my pop was the chief of our zone, which often caused him to be super busy at most times, and mom had 6 children on her hands to look after. If they ever did make money, it went towards our family’s daily stomach fills. My grandma was the actual breadwinner of the family. Already at her prime, she worked non-stop at a hospital, where the money she made, was money she gave to us for church offerings and sometimes to buy ourselves some snacks here and there.

I spent most of my time in the camp playing, like every other kid. However, my way of killing time was a bit out of the ordinary for a kid. I had a thing for making gun powder. I learned the formula from a local hunter near by our hut; with a little potassium nitrate, a bit of sulfur and a whole lot of luck, I ended up burning one of my eyebrows off and blowing up half of my neighbors bathroom. Even afterward, I stole their jug of water to dip my whole head in for the rest of the day. Speaking of stealing, I was the number one thief in the town. I would steal stuff I couldn’t afford or stuff I didn’t already have such as shoes, watches, shirts from people swimming in the river, local Thai soldiers’ vegetables plants that caused me to get some good chasing by the soldiers and a lot more including getting shot at once. I got so good at stealing, I stole one of my dad’s friend’s money while he slept and I stole some eggs from the parents of my ex girlfriend while they were watching me. You’re probably wondering how’s that possible, well I have no idea. They probably just thought to themselves while watching me…”This kid believes he’s so slick, we’ll just let him be.”

Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years and years flew by as if they had wings, and the time to move to the U.S. had finally come. Honestly none of us wanted to come, but we needed the resources and opportunities that weren’t available for us in the camp such as education and Wi-Fi. Also the Thai government, during that time, threatened to send us refugees back to Burma and let us get shot to death while crossing the river that was well over our head. I think any sane person would say, “hell no” to that. So we packed up the little bit of belongings that we had and boarded a giant bus with tears on our face on the last day which was July 3, 2007. We got on the first plane at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Everything was awful. The airplane ride was awful, the food was extremely awful, and the bathroom was super extremely awful, because I accidentally locked myself in the bathroom and spent most of the ride sitting on the toilet waiting for someone to save me before the landing.

Finally, we made our first stop at Incheon international Airport in Seoul, South Korea and ohh my gosh those lady servants on the planes were so cute, I thought they’d all make good housewives.They were also very kind. I remembered us having to wait almost a whole day in Incheon airport because of some unknown reasons. Anyways, so we waited and waited, jet lagged and all, it felt like forever. Some Korean lady working there happened to sympathize with us skinny refugees and brought us some sandwiches. It’s hard to not notice a group of skinny people walking around with big colorful striped bags looking like one of those starving children in the commercials you always see on T.V, but most people could care less. I had lost my appetite at the time, we all did, but I was touched by her actions.

Post written by April Paw

Moo Ku Taw

My name is Moo Ku Taw. I was born in Thailand. When I was 2 months old, due to war, my family fled to a refugee camp in Thailand. I lived in a camp called Umphiem. The UN provided us with a little food every month, like rice, oil, and beans, but many people did not have enough food. I was raised in Umpiem and spent most of my life there until 2008 when I came to the United States.

Life in Umpiem was not as simple as it is here. The house I lived in was a stilt house made out of bamboo, with a roof made out of hay. We did not have running water, electricity, or transportation. To get water, we had to walk miles to the river. There, we would fill our big water bottles and bring them home to fill the water barrel. We had to do that several times until our water barrel was full. Our house had many windows to get as much light as we could to study during the daytime. At night, we used candles, but they didn’t shine through the whole house.

To get an education, many people had to walk 30-40 minutes every day. Some people didn’t get to go to school because their family could not afford it and some had to support their family. I was lucky because I had the chance to go to school and learn. I went to school there for four years until I came to America. We had to wear uniforms every other day and a Karen shirt on the other days. Some people could not buy new uniforms, so they had to wash it as soon as possible to get it clean.

We had to study and do our homework every single night. If you did not do it, the teacher would hit you or make you run around school as everyone watched you.  Our school was poor. Our walls were made of bamboo and metal roofing. We had a small chalkboard in every class. Usually, there were six rows of long benches and tables that were made out of bamboo for us to sit. Boys sat on one side and girls on the other side. We did not have computers or light. Our roof had holes, but it wasn’t replaced because it was too expensive, so when there were storms, rain water leaked on us. Many times we had to run home because it had rained and there weren’t meteorologists there to tell us about the weather. Many people got soaked and became sick.

Coming to America, life was so much easier. School is better and life got better. We do not have to walk far to get water because we have running water. We have transportation here and it makes life much easier. My goal for this project is to share about the Karen life in a Thai refugee camp.

 

Written by Moo Ku Taw

EhSerNayBlutMoo

My name is EhSerNayBlutMoo but I shortened my name to EhSer. Most people called me Aye Li Yah. I am from Thailand, and lived in the Umphiem Refugee Camp. I moved to the United States when I was 9 years old and entered the fifth grade at Holmes Elementary in Lincoln, Ne. Things were difficult for me because I didn’t understand any English. By the time I understood English I was in middle school at Park Middle. Many teachers supported me over there because they wanted me to be a good student. Now, I am a freshman at Lincoln High School. Things are sometimes difficult for me, but I study hard anyways. To be successful in the future I have to work hard on my school work. In the future, I hope to attend college.

Post Written by EhSerNayBlutMoo

Wah Poe

My name is Wah and I was born in Thailand and thanks to my parents, I didn’t have to live in Myanmar where people were killed. Some Karen people had been running from Myanmar’s soldiers through their whole lives. My parents moved to Thailand hoping to start a new life and that is where I was born. When I was 8 years old, they decided to go live with my grandma in a Karen refugee camp, with the  money they had. My parents were going to rebuild her house and live together as a big family.

Before my family moved to live with my grandma, I went to Thai school for four years. After we moved, I went to Karen school in the refugee camp. In the Karen refugee camp there were no restrooms or things to eat in the afternoon. There are a lot of different things that Karen school doesn’t have like Thai school did. The school’s walls were made out of bamboo and the building was old. Each class is different, some don’t have floors so some students sit on the ground.It get worst when is raining season, water came down from ceiling like water fall. I wish someone would fix school up.

Even though I am Karen in blood, I didn’t know how to speak, read, or write in Karen. It is hard to learn your own language at first but it gets easier as I stay there. In school the teacher taught more than one language like Burmese and Karen. The words are almost the same but sound different. I learned more than three language at once but It was too hard for me so I just focused on Karen language. At home my parent only speak in Karen so I understand little of what they said. Sometimes if they didn’t want me to know what they said then they speak in Burmese which makes me curious.

In school I sometimes have hard time learning things so the teacher sometimes uses physical force to teach and it works. I got used to it quick and learned what happens if I didn’t get it in my head the first time. Sometimes I fear school so much that I cry at night worrying about undone work.

I lived in the Karen camp for 3 years and then moved to the US. But, moving from place to place,  I have to learn to adapt to new cultures, people and languages.

My goal for this project is to share what is like being in Karen school.

Post Written by Wah Poe

Khu Htoo

My name is Khu Htoo and I was born in a Karen refugee camp in Myanmar. Before I came to United States, I lived with my family for more than 12 years in the refugee camp. My family and my people had to escape Myanmar during the war because we would be killed if the Burmese soldiers saw us. The war is known as the invisible war because it is going on in Myanmar and not a lot of people or nations know about it. A lot of Karen villages were burned down, so we had to live in refugee camps in Thailand.

When I came to United States, I felt discouraged because people don’t know about the Karen people. They didn’t know where we came from and why we came to the United States. As more and more Karen people moved to the United States as refugees, we become a minority group but we are not recognized yet.

It was memorable during the first month of our arrival in Lincoln. I remember my first day at Park Middle School because it didn’t go well. I felt invisible, like a ghost, because when I talked, people didn’t understand what I was saying. It was like I was from another world and went to the unknown world. When I arrived, I didn’t know which entrance to take, so I just followed people inside the school. When I got into the school I was so confused because I didn’t know what to do and didn’t know how to ask for help. So, I just stood by the locker room until one of the teacher came up to me and assisted me. Later, that teacher became one of my favorite teachers and she had a powerful impact in my life.

We, the Karen students, wanted to create this blog to share with others about who we are. What does our culture look like? What are our stories? Lastly, how do Karen people live and work in Lincoln?

Paw Say

My name is Paw Say. I was born in Burma and my family came to the United States in 2008. Before we came to the U.S., we lived in Thailand. I go to Lincoln High School and I am now a junior. My goal for this project is to gain more knowledge and skills in writing and using computer. I want to show others about our Karen community in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Back in Burma, I used to live in a village called Tha Ya Kone. We lived a simple life with no electricity, no running water. We used fire to cook. We got food by hunting, farming, or finding it in the mountains. There was one school in our village. Children from my village and children from other villages also attended our school. It wasn’t a very big school, it was just a plain building with students of all grades tucked together in a section. There are only a couple of teachers in the school. Our school offers class until 5^th grade and usually after this most people move to a bigger town to continue with school or they just stop and work on a farm.

I moved from my village to live with my aunt just after I finished second grade to continue school. At the same time, one of my brothers moved to Thailand and a cousin whom I grew up with also went to live with her uncle. All of us lived in separate places and that was my first time living apart from my parents. This got complicated after a year, my whole family moved to a refugee camp in Thailand for a better life.

Living in a refugee camp was just as normal as living in my village. However, it was hard to adjust at first because the camp was crowded with many people and the place wasn’t as clean. Since the place wasn’t that clean, there were all kinds of diseases and people could get sick easily. There were also few hospitals in the camp, and instead of collecting our own food, the U.N. provided us with food rations.

After living there for a period of time, things seemed to be very normal. I got used to the place and met new friends. After 4 years of living in Thailand, my family moved again to the U.S. which is a completely different place and it took us a while to adapt. At the time when we first moved to Lincoln, our Karen community was small. Now, our Karen community is getting bigger so it is important to show others about our culture.

Paw Spai Moo

My name is Paw Spai Moo. I was born in Burma. In 1997, my parents had to run away for their hometown because of the civil war. I was one years old at that time. My parents and I lived in a Thai refugee camp for 14 years. We really wanted to go back to Burma but we didn’t have a chance. There was no freedom or democracy.

My family immigrated to the US in 2009. Our life was better than before. In this country everyone had equal rights. All kids can get free education. Everyone can participate in their own community. In Lincoln I can still celebrate Karen New Years and go to church.

Karen refugees worship at First Baptist Church on Christmas morning, 2013.

For this project, all the Karen students are sharing what their culture is like. I want to share about Karen clothing. Every culture has their own traditional clothing and most of the time it has a meaning to it.

Karen clothing had a special meaning of when people made it. Traditionally, girls who are not married wear long dresses. When a women gets married, they wear short shirt in a dark color. Everyone can identify if they are married or not. People know it immediately because of how they dressed.

It’s important for me to share about our Karen culture because a lot of people in Lincoln doesn’t know about Karen culture. I want everyone to know and learn about my culture.