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The
sky above her was dark and the strong tropical wind
was brushing through the forest, yet Lamin, a girl
of fifteen year old, paid no attention to them. She
kept digging the ground by herself in the Indo-Burma
tropical rain forest without showing any fear of
rain or any wild animals. She was not digging gold
or diamond but a yam. A yam was more important than
gold or anything in her life at that moment, because
she did not want her aged parents to starve to death
without any food.
Lamin, 15 year old girl fled her home at Kyoun daung
with her aged parents to Hmawngbuchhuah, a small
village in Mizoram in India in 2005. Her and her
family crime of being fugitive in Burma was that her
aged father had no strength to carry heavy supply
for army. As a result, the army would levy a heavy
fine on the family for not being able to call for
forced labor. As the heavy fine drained their little
income, they had no options other than fleeing their
home.
When she reached the Hmawngbuchhuah, she felt for
the first time that her life would never be the same
again. She was in strange land. Though the village
is on the bay of Kalak Chaung, it is
surrounded by mountains. It was very cold in winter
and hot and humid in summer. For sometimes, she had
to stay in the house of Maung Ni, her parents’
friend. The house was built with bamboos and its
leaves. It was somewhat like a camping hut where
people would stay for fun. When she glanced around
the house, she saw no valuable objects. Everything
was visible to her naked eyes. There was some
utensil used for cooking, some local made blanket,
and two bags of paddy that would weight around forty
kilograms. She was later told that Maung Ni and her
family also fled to Hmawngbuchhuah from Ngwe Lak Wa
for some reason.
Lamin has been in Hmangbuchhuah for almost a year.
But she missed her village where she left behind her
friends and relatives. She hadn’t had a single day
which she could call it as a ‘beautiful day’. She
still remembered how she almost got sick and got
cold in the first night in Hmawngbuchhuah. She was
sleeping on bamboo’s floor under a thin blanket. In
the middle of the night, she felt too cold, and she
was shivering. She asked her mother to hold her
tightly to feel warmer. As all of them were sleeping
on the single room house, everyone was woken up by
her loud groaning and shivering. Mrs. Maung Ni made
fire for her. At last, all of them ended up sitting
around the fireplace to keep them warm. Since then,
she would keep awake herself by sitting near
fireplace for many nights.
Lamin was an eight standard student at Paletwa town
where she stayed with her aunt. She later narrated,
“one day when I got home from school, I got a
message from dad that he wanted me to return home
immediately.” With confusion, she reached home that
changed her life forever. Her parents told her to
pack small things that she would want it later.
After dinner, her mother told her to go to the bed
early that confused her. The more confusion came at
midnight. She was woken up by her parents and told
her to follow them quietly. It was only on their way
that she realized they were fleeing to India. They
abandoned their house that was built with teaks and
other good quality timbers. They later learnt that
the army turned their house into Officer’s Quarters.
Without no proper housing and healthcare, her father
got malaria that caused him to be jailed himself
inside his own house. The tropical raining season
visited them soon. The rain would not give poor girl
like Lamin and her parents to go out a day without
getting being wet. The sun had no chance to set its
rays in this small village. Within no times, poor
health and bad weathers drained little money they
brought with them from Burma.
Without fearing any wild animals and tropical
storms, she would go out almost everyday in search
for yams and bamboo shoots. She would climb up and
down one hill after another, and if luck was on her
side, she would get good and big yams within an hour
or so. However, she sometimes would return home with
little or no yam at all. When she was asked of any
fear in going out by herself, she said, “In the
beginning, I was afraid. So, I would go with other
girls and women because more than sixty percent of
villagers would be starving in raining season.
Later, I would go out myself because I could find
yams without any hurry”.
The reason people were starving in this small
village was that jhum (shifting cultivation)
would not yield up to their expectation. The paddy
and vegetables they got from jhum would not last for
year long. As a result, the villagers have to find
an alternative method for survivals such as finding
yams, roots and others.
Lamin sometimes would pray for the military
government in Burma to reform its economy and
governance systems in which everyone could have
his/her own life. Moreover, she would be able to
return home and enjoy her life again if the military
regime makes the country into a democratic country.
She wanted to have a life which she lost it for two
years. |
