"I do like living in a refugee camp, but it just…sometimes like we just kinda have to live with fears I guess. Because you had to be afraid of the Burmese soldiers. They’ll kind of…will come your burn…will come and burn the…the refugee camp because they do that all the time."
EXHIBITS
This exhibit was created by a USU student. (learn more...)
ENGL 6750, Summer 2015: Voices: Karen Refugees in Cache Valley, Utah: Life in the Camps
Array
(
[0] => ENGL 6750 Summer 2015
[1] => student exhibit
)
Housing for refugees in Umphiem Camp, in Thailand. [1]
Kyaw Eh:
"The Thai authority, they don’t want the refugees go outside, spread anywhere. We have to stay at only in the camp: morning, go to school; after school, go home. We play: we have the playgrounds and play soccer, visit each other in the camps–just like kind of in a jail."
"We used to have like our Karen food and Karen New Year; yeah, we have just–we call– it’s almost the same Thanksgiving in America– it’s not turkey, but other food we ate."
Kyaw Eh audio
Eh Htoo:
"So my experience in the refugee camp was just like most people, you know: people were going to school – I wanted to go to school. But in my situation I didn’t get to know my dad – my dad died. My dad died and my family couldn’t support me; they couldn’t send me to school because I was only person living in the refugee camp. And like most students, they have free time after school, to go hang out; me, I didn’t have those time."
"Yes, they did provide (for example) rice, salt, oil – stuff like that, just for daily basics; but clothes and stuff, nobody is going to give us clothes or toothpaste, or any other things so I need to make money to buy those."
Eh Htoo audio
Tun Lay:
"So from there, working there for a few months – as I was crossing from Thailand to Burma, I saw a refugee camp (which I also heard about it), and that’s when I started going to the refugee camp asking people, maybe to see if there is anyone I know, and people were telling me that, 'It’s better here,' you know, 'we have food; we are stuffed. You should come and live over here.'”
Tun Lay audio
Aye Win:
"We do receive food and medical care in the refugee camp, but for a pregnant women when I was pregnant back then. We had like people what organization who are called AMI, IRC, they like come every week and give us…give the pregnant woman…some like five eggs…one bottle of oil and then one bag of beans. So, you know just to keep the pregnant ladies healthy."
Aye Win audio
Snay Tun:
"It was a refugee camp. As you see it's not like, not really free to go outside. We just stayed in the camp. But we do receive food and then medicaid. Yeah, like it's a hospital or children free to get medication for free."
"Well, because we're students, so we're supposed to read, but I was lazy to read. So, yeah. Sometimes, after we read, we just kinda go and just maybe watch movies. Except for when we had free time we just go out and shoot birds. Well, we never found, or when we never found them we just kind of go like that. When we have a friend we played soccer."
Snay Tun audio
Pyo Nwe:
"Yeah, there were hospitals in the refugee camps. If I were pregnant – if I were close to giving birth, I could go to hospital and give birth there. But what’s sad is that, like, my sister or people who lived in Burma, there was no way they could afford to go to the hospital in Burma, so it was kind of sad."
"I think, personally for me, I had a better life than my sisters had."
Pyo Nwe audio
---
[1] Umphiem Camp. Meneerke Bloem. 22 November 2009.