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.