Tharaway

AGE 17

My name is Tharaway and I was born in Burma on 22nd of August . My nationality is Karen. I’ve never known what Burma looks like even though I was born there because I was only a one-year-old when my family had to move to Thailand to a refugee camp. I lived in the camp for twelve years.

I’ve asked my mother why we had to move and how the trip was when we had to flee to Thailand. She said we had to go because of the war in Burma, and that the trip was very difficult. Other families and our relatives also had to travel to Thailand during the war. They travelled by foot with kids, pregnant women and old people. They had to carry so many things for their kids to wear and eat, and it was very heavy for them. On the way the weather was sometimes cold at night and most of the time it was raining. They had to be quiet and careful so the enemy wouldn’t hear or see them. Also they had to be careful not to step on landmines. Sometimes they had to run because the enemy was close to them. When the kids cried everyone was scared the enemy would be able to hear them. Sometimes they heard the noise of bullets behind them. Some of the people couldn’t make it to Thailand because they got sick and passed away. They couldn’t even be given graves. Some of them gave birth on the way when it was raining and their kids got sick.

My mother has told me I was getting really sick on the journey and they thought they would lose me for sure. I think it was because God wanted to keep me that somehow they all got to the refugee camp in Thailand in time and I was safe. It had taken them about one and a half months to get there.

Since the time I knew my left hand from my right, I was in the refugee camp and enjoying living with my childhood friends, even though there was less education, less support and less food than here in Australia. We’d been living in the camp for about five years when we heard about American, Canadian, Australian and other governments calling for refugees to migrate to their countries. So many people were applying, including my relatives. I never heard my parents talk about migrating to another country but for the next five years they applied to Australia because my uncle and aunty were already living here. Also they wanted the best for my brother and sister and me. To get here to Australia, we had to apply, then we had to go through medical checks, then had to wait a year to get the results telling us whether we had permission from the government to come.

I never thought I would get the chance to migrate to a big country with higher education, good food and good support like Australia. I was sad and happy at the same time when I heard we were migrating to Australia: sad because I didn’t want to leave my friends and cousins in the refugee camp, and happy that I was going to be with my relatives in Australia and live in a good house in a beautiful place and get a great education. I was also happy because I had never been in a city before and now I was going to live in one.

The first day I arrived in Australia, I found everything was so different from the refugee camp in Thailand. The houses, food and roads were way better. When I went to school I didn’t know how to speak English and I didn’t have friends so I wasn’t really happy there. But as time went by I started to learn and make friends, so then I started liking school. I like Australia but I also miss my friends in Thailand. For the future my wish is that all my family, relatives and childhood friends can live together.