Tuesday, February 16
I am surrounding with cheerful children (6 to 15 years old) on each side watching the screen of what I am typing. My 6 years old cousin watches my fingers as I quickly typing away. To them is magic that I am able to type so quick on this funny looking like TV but it is very small and you can carry it with you. My 10 years old cousin don’t know what laptop is but she know is for school. She said, “Is like all of my homework can fit in this small thing.” All eyes on it as the blinking on the white screen stop where I last type.
Children here don’t wear their sandal. I didn’t say shoes because most people here can’t afford one. The children let their feet free and seem to enjoy the feeling of dirt under their feet. I am not sure if the reason is that they are too poor to afford one but I think they are just being normal children playing in the dirt, “When I am playing and running in front of grandma house, I don’t like wearing my sandal, I like that it is cold feeling” said my 6 years old cousin.
It is 5:00pm the sun is hiding behind the banana and leeches trees. We are waiting until it is cool so we can go for a run to my great uncle house which is about half a km. They have on their sandal now as I am asking how far my great uncle house is so they could go with me. The youngest cousin who like to have her feet free just got her sandal and setting on my right side staring at the computer screen as I am typing. She just asked, “When is the computer stop working?” I told her when I am done, it will stop working.
I asked them what they like to play or do for fun. The little one told me she likes to play with rocks. They just brought their rocks over and demonstrating it to me. The 7 years old just throw one rock up while trying to catch the other one on the floor with one hand. The other rock is up in the air. She seems to enjoy it. Her other two cousins watch carefully to make sure she doesn’t make any mistakes or cheated. Another thing they like to play is jumping on robber ban. I asked that I haven’t seen them playing with it. They told me it is at home.
Yesterday we went for a jogged and some of them don’t have sandals on. They ran on rocks and dirt. One of them asked if my Nike shoes hurt me and if so that I can just run without it. How cute and innocent these children are with such curious questions about the different worlds were from.
The T.V my grandmother has only come with three channels. I think two of them are the same channel. I think not having too many channel helps me to have time to do other stuff just like my grandmother and aunts has all day. This morning I asked to watch Khmer shows. They said it only show after 11am to 2:00pm and again from 6:00pm to 10pm. Although the Vietnamese government control what is on the television, it is great that they allow ethnic Khmer to have their own shows. The station in South Vietnam, therefore, the show is produce by Khmer Krom people like my grandmother and the rest of the relatives here.
Children recycle cans, plastics and leaves anything that they can play with. They are very poor children but the littlest thing in life makes them so happy. For flying or making a kite, they use dry coconut leave and tired it with a stick so they could fly it. Even though it didn’t end up flying, the process of finding the dry coconuts and putting it together with their friends was enough to stratify them. Their parents can’t afford to buy them one. I think is great that these kids are using their imagination and being outdoors instead of inside watching TV and playing games all day. Mentally and physically is healthy for their growth development.
People here are so poor those outsiders give them books, notebooks and bikes for their children to go to school. These people are my relatives. I am embarrassed that I can’t help them at the moment. This only makes me want to work even harder so I can financially help them at least with education.
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Sunday, February 21, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Child Refugees; A Success Story:
Saturday: January 30th, 2010
If you were to ask me how life was like growing up in a refugee camp, I wouldn’t be able to explain it in one sentence to truly get the real meaning of it or have you understand that a childhood was taken away. To be honest, I couldn’t even express it in a way that allows you to truly understand what life was like, unless you were there. Besides, I was too naive and innocent to understand what a refugee camp was or violence meant back in those days.
Today, I met with two former child refugees through my tutor. They are in their last year of undergraduate. On this Saturday morning, they planned to go to the library after the interviews to study. I can see how hard they have work to get where they are today. Although I asked most of the similar questions from the previous interviews, this one was more informal.
It was not easy to break the ice of silent to talk about what was like growing up in a refugee camp with former child refugees. Once, I added my experience here and there between questions, little by little, they started to be more at ease with me. I found out that all three of us have lived in Site II camp along the Thai-Cambodian border. Since we were too young to remember how we looked than with especially moving around from camp to camp in different times, we don’t know if we have met before today. However, we remember the structure of the camp and situation in the camp.
The first young lady shared with me what she remembers of her childhood in the camp. “Do you remember with all those bombing and houses burning down? I remember it very well that I still have nightmares from it." We started to exchange stories of what we remember good and bad all came out.
I told them a time when I respond to one of my soccer coaches’ questions of why I was so fast on the field. “You played soccer?” They were amazed and curious that girls play sports. “I told my coach that I am used to running and I eat a lot of rice is why I am so fast.” We all laughed as if the funniest thing we ever heard. One of them added, “We are used to running from usual bombings, shootings and even land mines. So we gotta be fast in order to survive.” We understood each other. We can all added similar experiences or finish each other sentences from the story. I felt a strong connection of new friendship being bond and form with these girls through their experiences.
We laugh through the stories that we shared. We cried but with tears of joy. Although most people would agree that growing up in a violence situation is not safe or high-quality for a child development, to us, it was the most memorable years of our lives. Ironically, at times seem so peaceful in the camp. However, we couldn’t explain of why many years of nightmares continue to haunt us from the camp. The three of us was born and grew up in the camp until we were 6 to 8 years old. At those ages, we didn’t worry much about life. We were happy to get some food in our stomach and free to run around. It doesn’t matter if the field is the size of a football field or 6 metros of land to run around, we just wanted to play just like any child would.
Of course if you asked our parents, the story is different. They remember everything especially those bad experiences. Now as well-educated college students, we looked at the situation differently, at most is close to our parents’ perspectives. We couldn’t believe that we lived through all those frequently fighting, bombing, shooting and screaming at nights. We lived in a place where almost all violation of human right existed. The society refugees created were socially constructed to behavior towards violence and accepted as part of our daily routines.
My two new friends are planning to graduate from college this June as I am as well obtaining my Master degree. Not too many former refugees who were born and spent most of their childhood in a camp end up with a success story. I am very pleased with these two young ladies choices in life. No one could take away our experiences and memories of those years. We will always look back and thank god that we have made it this far and continue to live life as if is our last day because that what we learned in the camp.
If you were to ask me how life was like growing up in a refugee camp, I wouldn’t be able to explain it in one sentence to truly get the real meaning of it or have you understand that a childhood was taken away. To be honest, I couldn’t even express it in a way that allows you to truly understand what life was like, unless you were there. Besides, I was too naive and innocent to understand what a refugee camp was or violence meant back in those days.
Today, I met with two former child refugees through my tutor. They are in their last year of undergraduate. On this Saturday morning, they planned to go to the library after the interviews to study. I can see how hard they have work to get where they are today. Although I asked most of the similar questions from the previous interviews, this one was more informal.
It was not easy to break the ice of silent to talk about what was like growing up in a refugee camp with former child refugees. Once, I added my experience here and there between questions, little by little, they started to be more at ease with me. I found out that all three of us have lived in Site II camp along the Thai-Cambodian border. Since we were too young to remember how we looked than with especially moving around from camp to camp in different times, we don’t know if we have met before today. However, we remember the structure of the camp and situation in the camp.
The first young lady shared with me what she remembers of her childhood in the camp. “Do you remember with all those bombing and houses burning down? I remember it very well that I still have nightmares from it." We started to exchange stories of what we remember good and bad all came out.
I told them a time when I respond to one of my soccer coaches’ questions of why I was so fast on the field. “You played soccer?” They were amazed and curious that girls play sports. “I told my coach that I am used to running and I eat a lot of rice is why I am so fast.” We all laughed as if the funniest thing we ever heard. One of them added, “We are used to running from usual bombings, shootings and even land mines. So we gotta be fast in order to survive.” We understood each other. We can all added similar experiences or finish each other sentences from the story. I felt a strong connection of new friendship being bond and form with these girls through their experiences.
We laugh through the stories that we shared. We cried but with tears of joy. Although most people would agree that growing up in a violence situation is not safe or high-quality for a child development, to us, it was the most memorable years of our lives. Ironically, at times seem so peaceful in the camp. However, we couldn’t explain of why many years of nightmares continue to haunt us from the camp. The three of us was born and grew up in the camp until we were 6 to 8 years old. At those ages, we didn’t worry much about life. We were happy to get some food in our stomach and free to run around. It doesn’t matter if the field is the size of a football field or 6 metros of land to run around, we just wanted to play just like any child would.
Of course if you asked our parents, the story is different. They remember everything especially those bad experiences. Now as well-educated college students, we looked at the situation differently, at most is close to our parents’ perspectives. We couldn’t believe that we lived through all those frequently fighting, bombing, shooting and screaming at nights. We lived in a place where almost all violation of human right existed. The society refugees created were socially constructed to behavior towards violence and accepted as part of our daily routines.
My two new friends are planning to graduate from college this June as I am as well obtaining my Master degree. Not too many former refugees who were born and spent most of their childhood in a camp end up with a success story. I am very pleased with these two young ladies choices in life. No one could take away our experiences and memories of those years. We will always look back and thank god that we have made it this far and continue to live life as if is our last day because that what we learned in the camp.
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