Our first family is an elderly Burmese man and his family who fled Burma when the Burmese army made life increasingly difficult and dangerous.  He lived in a Thai refugee camp for ten years.  Two of his young grandchildren have been in his sole care for the past three years ever since their father drowned trying to get across a flooded river between Burma and Thailand.   The three of them have just been relocated to the United States. 

 

Our second family is a Burmese couple and their sons who had to flee Burma after the husband participated in protests against the government.  They spent 50 days in a Thai refugee camp before relocating to the United States.

 

Our third family is a Somali young man who fled the civil war three years ago and has been in a refugee camp in Kenya for the past three years.  He has now been relocated, alone, to the United States, but several family members, including his mother, will soon join him.  Life for all of them in the refugee camp was extremely difficult.  There was not enough water and security was bad.  Several of his nieces and nephews have serious health problems and one died in the refugee camp.   

 

Our fourth family is a young Iraqi man from Basra who was relocated after losing his family when a shell hit his house.  He was away at the time, but everyone in the house was killed.   Lack of security forced him to leave Basra for Jordan.  Now in the United States, he hopes to complete his education after learning English.

Our first family is from Somalia, a widowed single mother and her three adorable children (two boys ages 6 and 7, and a 5 year old girl). Also living with them is their grandmother. The mother and the children came to America in July and her mother followed 15 days later. They originally fled Somalia in 1991 due to the civil war. After going to different countries in Africa they ended up in Kenya. There she rejoined her mother and father in a refugee camp, but not until 1997, after going around the camp asking everyone around if they knew them. They finally found each other and were together in Kenya the whole time until they came to the US. Her father died in the camp in Kenya. 

They are happy to be in America. The boys like their school. Their younger sister is not old enough for school yet, and is not very happy about that. She keeps asking when she can go to school with her brothers.

The grandmother used to knit and crochet when she was in the camp, and she showed us some beautiful pieces that she had made. We will be bringing her some knitting supplies on our next delivery.

As for the mother, she worked as a housekeeper in Kenya. She hopes to find work here soon, and for her and her mom to learn English. She is hopeful for a bright future for her and her family. She said she wants for her children to grow up to be successful people. As for herself her dream is to become a nurse.

 

Our second family is also from Somalia – a mother of 3 children (two girls ages 15 and 8 and a 13-year-old boy) and her husband. Only the mom was home when we visited. Her husband was out looking for a job and the kids were in school. The family arrived in the US in August. After fleeing Somalia, they’ve lived in Kenya since 1993. She had separated from the father of the children due to domestic violence and re-married in 2006. Her current husband helped her find and get her children back after her ex-husband had abandoned them.

She met her current husband in the camp in Kenya, and they opened and ran a small restaurant together. She is a very good cook and hopes to open a restaurant in Phoenix. However, her dream is to one day own a big hotel. She said she hopes for her and her family to continue to lead a better life than they did before.

 

Our third family is from Burundi, a widower and his 5 children.  A very nice family, the children are all very well behaved and sweet. He also has another 19-year-old son living alone in a different apartment. The mother died in 2002 when their youngest child was only 7 months old. He re-married 7 years later. His wife came to America on a separate case and is now in Missouri. They are hoping to be together soon.

The father had left Burundi in 1972 when he was 7 years old. He and his family fled to the Congo and then to Tanzania where they lived for the last 15 years. There he worked as a counselor for Sexual Gender-Based Violence.

He has been in America for less than a month. He speaks English fairly well and hopes to find a good job soon. On the day we visited them he was on his way to enroll his 17-year-old daughter in school. She was very excited even though she did not speak any English.

Our first family arrived in June from Burma, by way of a refugee camp in Thailand. No one in the family of six speaks English but through our translator we were able to learn about their background.

Originally, the parents lived in the Kayah state, formerly known as Karenni.They enjoyed farming in this very mountainous area, raising rice. They were far from any city and without electricity or indoor plumbing. Though they were oblivious to the tumultuous political situation and conflict between rebels and government as they lived their simple lives, they were caught in the middle when rebel troops came through the village looking for food and then the government troops came through. The latter group bombed and burned the village in retaliation for the villagers having fed the rebels. This family, who at the time consisted of the parents and their oldest son, escaped and walked to Thailand where they lived in a refugee camp for more than ten years. They received only meager rations and often went to the forest to search for nuts or fruit to supplement their diet.   

The family now includes four children (sons, ages 14, 12, 8 and 6). They need a lot. The children don’t have any toys. The oldest son has a broken guitar which he would love to have replaced. The second oldest loves to play soccer. The oldest boy is uncomfortable going to school, feeling poor and different from his classmates in the way he looks and dresses. However, they are excited to be in America where they are safe. The airplane trip to get here was frightening; he commented on how little was familiar. The toilets on the plane were especially confusing! But despite their meager belongings and modest circumstances they were very hospitable, bringing us waters and Pepsi when we arrived.

Our second family turned out to be that of our translator for our first family. He was very kind, bright and outgoing. He shared many details of his life and was very talkative but his English is a bit hard to understand so we attempted to piece his story together. It was similar to that of our first family. He lived on a farm in the Karen area of Burma in a rural area where they walked for two days to get to a market. His village was also caught up in the conflict between the rebels and the government troops and was burned to the ground. At that time he and his two young sons walked for three days to a refugee camp in Thailand. They stayed there for only two weeks before they trekked to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. As illegal immigrants there they could not live in the city but on the outskirts near the jungle. The father had to move from place to place and job to job to avoid arrest. He worked construction, cut rubber in the jungle, served in restaurants and finally got a job picking and separating star fruit for $6 per day, working from 6AM to 6PM. He lived in Malaysia for sixteen years and married his wife there.

He and his wife and children arrived in the States in July and he is anxious to find a job. He now has five children here and his oldest son had to stay in Malaysia because he was older than eighteen. The father hopes to sponsor his son soon to come join the family. The children include three sons (18, 17, and 12) and two daughters (15 and 2). He is very bright, speaks Burmese, three dialects of Karen and Malay, and very gregarious. The children do not speak English and the two bedroom apartment is crowded.

Our third family came from a refugee camp in Nepal. Originally the father lived in Bhutan where his family had two farms; a cool weather farm in the country higher in the mountains and a hot weather farm nearer a city. They spent six months at each, growing crops that were well suited for each climate zone. The crops were never for market but for their own consumption. The travel time between each house was twenty four hours by foot. This family knew nothing about the government or even who the king was but because of civil unrest the king forced all ethnic Nepalese Bhutanese to leave the country so the father’s family went to a refugee camp in Nepal and lived there for eighteen years. The father of the family we met is illiterate but because of the education afforded his family in the camp his youngest brother has a college degree and will soon resettle in Phoenix. This mother and father met and married in the camp. The mother is deaf and has trouble speaking. Their only son is twelve years old. The father had numerous jobs while in the camp, everything from painting to landscaping to going into town to get the rations. They are very glad to be out of the camps where their grass roof often leaked and where the food rations were steadily decreasing in size. Their apartment was very bare. They arrived in this country in August and initially settled into a different complex where they were the only Bhutanese family. They recently moved to this apartment where they are part of a community and receive help and support from their neighbors.

Our first family is from Burma.  They have been married for 18 years and have 3 children. (He also has 7 children from a previous marriage but they are still in Burma.) The Burmese government is military and accuses most minority groups of being “underground” rebels. The army raided this family’s village, came into their home and took everything, including the rice and all their food.

The family lived in fear and kept moving from one village to another. Finally they fled to Thailand, crossing the river on bamboo rafts. Their kids were 2, 4 & 6 at the time. They spent 10 years in a refugee camp. They did not have jobs, but basically grew rice and lived like farmers. When asked about their life in the US, they said they’ve been happy, but at the same time it’s been difficult having no work and not speaking English. However, both the children and the parents have been attending ESL classes.

 

Our second family is from Burma – husband and wife and 2 children ages 5 and 6. When the husband was in the village, the army used him as a “porter”. The army would force the men to carry their equipment, treating them like slaves. Being a porter, he was unable to work and had no time to grow rice. He eventually fled the village, leaving behind his mother and sister, and has not seen them since.

He was in a refugee camp in Thailand for 15 years. He met his wife there. She had left her parents behind in Burma as well.

They are happy to be in the US and hope to find work soon and learn to speak the language. The wife was feeling lonely, being home all the time. However she has become friends with some of the neighbors. Their 6-year-old son says he likes his school.

 

Our third family is also from Burma. They fled from Burma to Malaysia. The husband went first, and his wife and daughter followed. They were in Malaysia, illegally, for 3 years. They rented a place and he worked in construction, but was eventually caught and put in jail for 5 months. His wife was pregnant at the time with their second daughter, who is now a year and a half old. A catholic agency helped her during that time. Their older daughter attended school only for 3 years in Burma but not while they were in Malaysia. The wife has a brother who is still in Malaysia and she keeps in touch with him by phone.

They are happy in the US but they said a job would help them feel more at home. Their 10-year-old daughter is happy in school. The English language is a bit difficult for her but she is getting better at it.

Our first family is a mother and her two children, ages 5 and 1, from Eritrea who came to the United States in August as Kunama refugees because they cannot settle permanently in Ethiopia. They have been living in Ethiopian refugee camps for three years since fleeing their home.  Prior to fleeing the mother was briefly imprisoned.  Her husband passed away while in the refugee camp.  They like America very much.  She has been in Phoenix since August and is taking English language classes.  ey like They

Our second family is a mother, age 44, and two children, ages 10 and 13, along with mom’s brother, age 19 from Eritrea. Her husband was a soldier, and after the war he was still alive but did not come home.  She went to the leaders to ask about her husband, but they said they did not know anything.  She was persistent and continued to ask them for answers.  They imprisoned her to stop the questioning.  Based on what she was able to learn they had killed him and did not want to tell her.  After being released from prison she fled and became a refugee and lived in Shimelba Refugee Camp near the Eritrean border for 2 years.  She arrived to Phoenix in August with her children and brother.  The United States is not what she expected but she is learning to like it and is taking English language classes.

Our third family is a mother, age 30, and her 3 sons ages 5, 7 and 10 from Congo. She had to flee her home country after her husband abandoned her and her children.  Because of the uncertainty in the Congo she lived for six years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia.  Prior to having to flee she worked as a waitress.  She is happy to have this new chance in America and thanks us.