Leah

AGE 17

Hello. My name is La Hgey but when I came to Australia my teachers gave me a nickname, Leah, because it was hard for them to say my proper name. I am seventeen years old and was born in a Thai refugee camp. I lived in the camp for twelve years. I had three brothers and one sister when I was in the refugee camp.

My family went through a lot of struggles there because of lack of money and the pressure of buying school uniforms and other stuff for us. I had to wear my uniform for a week at a time because I only had one pair of pants and two shirts. It was really tough for me because I had to be careful not to dirty my uniform. My sister and brothers all studied, so you can imagine how hard my family had to work to pro-vide for us. My mother had to look after us and in the holidays she went to other villages to sell vegetables to earn money. On our holi-days, all of my family had to work, collecting rocks and picking vegeta-bles on sunny days to get just $5 or $20 for working all of the holi-days. I had to work less than my sister and brothers because I was the youngest and was only seven at the time. My father had to work hard to feed the family and my mother raised animals so that when they got big enough we could sell them to earn money for food. I was depressed sometimes because my parents had to work so hard.

Once my parents told me the story of when they lived in Burma. They ran away and came to the refugee camp in Thailand because if they’d stayed there they would have died because of lack of food, war and ill health. They struggled for many years in Burma and even still in the Thai refugee camp. I had never heard about any relatives outside my immediate family when I was in the camp. I’ve never seen my dad’s parents, only my mum’s father, my grandpa. It’s just because of war.

My past life in the camp was really hard but my people who still lived in Burma had a harder life because they had to work for the government without pay and lots of women were raped by the Burmese army and then killed along with their children.

Living in a refugee camp there is no hope or future because when you’re in that situation you can only think of what is going to happen tomorrow and what you’re going to eat and where you’re going to get it. We had to take a bucket to the river every day to get water. When I was young, about four years old, my fifteen-year-old sister had to look after us because Mum and Dad went to work in another village and it was too far to get back, so we had to sleep on our own and trust our-selves.

Sometimes in the camp I really wanted to eat some of the food that I saw people selling but because I had no money I just had to look at it. Every month we only got to eat chicken that Mum cooked, and if I ever got $5 I thought I was so rich and felt so proud of myself. I never thought we’d be able to go anywhere outside the refugee camp. But my parents heard about the possibility of going to Australia and my community helped us do that, so now I live in Australia.

Life got better when we arrived in Australia. My mum has had another kid here. Everything was a change and you can’t imagine how it felt. I’m so happy that I got to live in Australia and I love it because I’ve got the chance to study, have a good education, have food and clothing and everything that seemed so impossible before. The community has been friendly. They helped us settle in Australia and helped us with the language. It was really hard to learn English at first but now it is get-ting better.

In the future I hope that I can get into university and study so that I can be a helpful person in Australia, and if I get a chance to visit my country or help my people I will do so. I love to study hard to get good results in my exams so that I can get a good job in the future and help people who are poor or help countries experiencing wars.

I’m so happy to live in Australia because Australians have helped me and now I have a brighter future, an easier life, my parents are safe, and we have freedom, which gives me a lot of hope. I like Australia so much and hope to live here forever.