The other wives slept through the night, but she was always awake by 3
a.m., ready to greet her husband as he arrived from his trek from a
chicken processing plant in Live Oak.
On this morning, he hadn’t come home at 3. At 4 a.m., there was still no word.
Say Ku Paw, panicked and in tears, awakened other women: What’s happened to our husbands? Where are they?
Two of the husbands would never make it home.
At 2:28 a.m. on Oct. 12, a car driving the wrong way on Interstate 10 in Baker County struck a minivan heading east.
Inside the minivan were 10 recent refugees to the United States, nine from Burma, one from Bhutan. All were on the way to their homes in Jacksonville, on the return leg of a 190-mile round-trip to jobs at the chicken processing plant.
Say Ku Paw’s husband, Kaw Lay, 37, had survived stepping on a land mine near a refugee camp in Thailand. But he was killed in the I-10 crash.
Ta Nu, 47, was a rice farmer who survived four days of torture by Burmese soldiers who beat and bound him. He too was killed in the crash.
Nu’s daughter, 20-year-old Nge Thay, was driving the minivan. She remembers seeing bright lights headed toward her, remembers the impact.
She tears up telling how she saw her father in the front seat next to her, once the crumpled van came to rest in the median. She thought — hoped — that he was unconscious.
Elaine Carson of World Relief, a refugee resettlement agency, said the city’s Burmese population crash is reeling from the crash.
This, she said, is what they’re saying: “We came here, left behind such a dangerous situation, our lives were at risk. We came here, worked hard, did everything we could, and this is what happened. There is no such thing as safety, total, absolute safety, no matter where we live.”
This week, Paw, 36, sat cross-legged on the floor of her apartment on St. Augustine Road, giving most short answers through interpreter Merry Wah.
She and her husband met in a refugee camp in Thailand and came to America two years ago. “To get a better life,” she said.
She has four children. The youngest is 5, the oldest are 8-year-old twins. She’s taking classes in English, but has stayed home with the children. Her husband supported them at the chicken processing plant: It was a good job, she said.
And her children? “They’re good,” was all she said.
When asked if she knows what she will do next, Paw simply shook her head: No.
At the Old Kings Road apartment where Ta Nu lived, his 8-year-old son, Gee Lay, returned home from school on Monday with two Burmese friends, one 7, one 9. They plopped down on the floor and began doing their homework, high-spirited but quiet. When they spoke, it was in perfect English.
Gee’s mother said her son had taught her some of the language, but she had a hard time remembering what she has learned.
In 2001, Htah Kon and her husband, Nu, fled their home in a riverfront village in Burma after soldiers killed and tortured some of the men. They ended up in a sprawling refugee camp in Thailand.
“Burma was not a safe place,” Kon, 45, said through interpreter Irene Emi. This Sunday will mark her family’s second anniversary in America.
Her husband liked to chew betel nuts and drink with his friends, but he didn’t do that much after the children — now 8 to 20 — came along.
At the chicken processing plant, he worked deboning chickens. His daughter, Thay, worked there too, in the packing department.
Thay was driving the minivan, as usual, the night of the crash. She had a seat-belt on and suffered just minor injuries. Her father, too, was wearing his seat belt, though that didn’t save him.
Seven other men in the van were injured. One, Hla Sein, is still hospitalized.
The driver of the car, a 47-year-old Ocala woman, was injured but survived. Capt. Keith Gaston of the Florida Highway Patrol said no charges have been filed as the investigation continues.
Nu liked America, his family said. He liked that he didn’t have all the rules here that he had in the refugee camp. His children could go to school. He could make money and buy things he liked or needed.
Emi, the interpreter, listen as Nu’s widow told how she wants to stay in America. She would like to go back to visit Burma, Emi said, but has plans before that: “She wants her children to grow up here.”
matt.soergel@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4082
On this morning, he hadn’t come home at 3. At 4 a.m., there was still no word.
Say Ku Paw, panicked and in tears, awakened other women: What’s happened to our husbands? Where are they?
Two of the husbands would never make it home.
At 2:28 a.m. on Oct. 12, a car driving the wrong way on Interstate 10 in Baker County struck a minivan heading east.
Inside the minivan were 10 recent refugees to the United States, nine from Burma, one from Bhutan. All were on the way to their homes in Jacksonville, on the return leg of a 190-mile round-trip to jobs at the chicken processing plant.
Say Ku Paw’s husband, Kaw Lay, 37, had survived stepping on a land mine near a refugee camp in Thailand. But he was killed in the I-10 crash.
Ta Nu, 47, was a rice farmer who survived four days of torture by Burmese soldiers who beat and bound him. He too was killed in the crash.
Nu’s daughter, 20-year-old Nge Thay, was driving the minivan. She remembers seeing bright lights headed toward her, remembers the impact.
She tears up telling how she saw her father in the front seat next to her, once the crumpled van came to rest in the median. She thought — hoped — that he was unconscious.
Elaine Carson of World Relief, a refugee resettlement agency, said the city’s Burmese population crash is reeling from the crash.
This, she said, is what they’re saying: “We came here, left behind such a dangerous situation, our lives were at risk. We came here, worked hard, did everything we could, and this is what happened. There is no such thing as safety, total, absolute safety, no matter where we live.”
This week, Paw, 36, sat cross-legged on the floor of her apartment on St. Augustine Road, giving most short answers through interpreter Merry Wah.
She and her husband met in a refugee camp in Thailand and came to America two years ago. “To get a better life,” she said.
She has four children. The youngest is 5, the oldest are 8-year-old twins. She’s taking classes in English, but has stayed home with the children. Her husband supported them at the chicken processing plant: It was a good job, she said.
And her children? “They’re good,” was all she said.
When asked if she knows what she will do next, Paw simply shook her head: No.
At the Old Kings Road apartment where Ta Nu lived, his 8-year-old son, Gee Lay, returned home from school on Monday with two Burmese friends, one 7, one 9. They plopped down on the floor and began doing their homework, high-spirited but quiet. When they spoke, it was in perfect English.
Gee’s mother said her son had taught her some of the language, but she had a hard time remembering what she has learned.
In 2001, Htah Kon and her husband, Nu, fled their home in a riverfront village in Burma after soldiers killed and tortured some of the men. They ended up in a sprawling refugee camp in Thailand.
“Burma was not a safe place,” Kon, 45, said through interpreter Irene Emi. This Sunday will mark her family’s second anniversary in America.
Her husband liked to chew betel nuts and drink with his friends, but he didn’t do that much after the children — now 8 to 20 — came along.
At the chicken processing plant, he worked deboning chickens. His daughter, Thay, worked there too, in the packing department.
Thay was driving the minivan, as usual, the night of the crash. She had a seat-belt on and suffered just minor injuries. Her father, too, was wearing his seat belt, though that didn’t save him.
Seven other men in the van were injured. One, Hla Sein, is still hospitalized.
The driver of the car, a 47-year-old Ocala woman, was injured but survived. Capt. Keith Gaston of the Florida Highway Patrol said no charges have been filed as the investigation continues.
Nu liked America, his family said. He liked that he didn’t have all the rules here that he had in the refugee camp. His children could go to school. He could make money and buy things he liked or needed.
Emi, the interpreter, listen as Nu’s widow told how she wants to stay in America. She would like to go back to visit Burma, Emi said, but has plans before that: “She wants her children to grow up here.”
matt.soergel@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4082
No comments:
Post a Comment