My name is Mohammad Shafiq and I was born Yongoon in Thingunkyun city. In Thingunkyun city the environment was nice and most of the people were middle class. The house basement was made by cement, but the upper parts was built by wood and the roof was made of zinc panels.  I have ten siblings and I am the third in the line. If I have to express my feelings about my siblings all of them were a hard worker since they were young, because our parents were poor and we all had to work. When we lived together with our parents we worked together to help them out. After we got married, we lived separate with our parents but two or three of my sibling were still supporting my parents. My others siblings could not help much, because they could barely survive on their own (Living hand to mouth). The one who I loved the most was my youngest brother. Honestly I loved him and I like his behaviors and his lifestyle.

My parents made a living by making net to catch fishes. They started work early in the morning around 6:00 Am and took a rest in the afternoon around 12:00 pm. Since our houses were close to the farm, we would go home to eat lunch their. We started to work again at 1:30 or 2:00 pm until it got dark, then we went home and got some rest. I worked together with my parents as making catching fish net.

After my eldest sister got married and later other sisters were married too. I helped my mom and she taught me what to do and how to cook. At that time I was not able to cook well. When I got married and we went to do a missionary work, since there was no one cooking so we had to cook for ourselves and that was how I knew how to cook well. I like the most food was beef with a lot of oil. My house was close to the market and we could go buy several things such as fishes, meats, fruits and vegetables.

I attended school from kindergarten through seventh grade. I did not have enough opportunities to study as much as I wanted, but I passed every year when I was in school. I did not have a lot of time to study when it was time to take a test. What I did was I would not talk to anyone in the morning, so I would just study and study. I did not have any taken notes, so I had to read the whole book until I had to be inside the classroom. After the teacher handed out the test, I started to answer the questions and I was always the first person who left the classroom.

When the grade results came out I got 1st to 3rd place. There were a lot of things I wanted be, but the one thing I wanted to be most was a doctor. I had this dream when I was young, but my family’s situation and difficulties prohibited me from reaching my goal, so it was just a dream. I liked to swim and play soccer. We had a lake near my house so we went there to swim. We had nothing else near us beside a park and a lake. At that time we could swim for free, but now I heard that they have a new policy and made new rules.

I remember maybe around 9 years old they just taught us how to worship God. I started to date when I was 19 years old. When I was 20 years old, they prohibited dating. At the time my crush (which is my wife now) and I, we lived in the same neighborhood so we met up all the time. I don’t remember when I met my wife. I loved her and I could not really explain it to others. We talked to each other and we decided to live together. I have 4 children and I’m not in good health. I had heart surgeries two times and when I stayed at the hospital my wife had a baby, so I think at that time was my most difficult time. I am unable to think. My eldest son is 32 years old, then my daughter is 25, I have another son who is 19 and another one that is 14 years old. I call them and talk to them when they did do something wrong. I do not disciplines them by physically (like hitting or slapping them). Once a year they celebrated Independence’s Day. Before, on that day they would collect some money and planned out some sports and games, such as hit the pillow, racing, and climbing bamboos. It was just for fun.

I had no expectations when I came to U.S.A, but when I lived in Yangon I faced many difficulties and also my health problems was not good. I decided to go to Malaysia and I stayed there for a while. After eight months, I made up my mind to bring my family as well. For my health problems, I went to the UN office to appealed for help, so I could stayed in the hospital. Later on they helped me get the medical assistance like the (UN) provided me health insurance. One day when I stayed in the hospital, I got a phone call from the UN and they asked me if I wanted to go aboard, so I told them I would discuss with my family first. After I discussed with my family, we all agreed that we should go abroad. I talked to the UN that we will go and after eight months, they sent us to America. We did not really have any difficulties and everything went well. Everybody helped us, but one difficulty thing we did have to face was when we went shopping. Because we did not understand the language and we had no car, so we walked everywhere. I helped one family move to their new home. I helped them carried their belongings, doing this I fell off into the drain and I got an injury on my leg, this was my unforgotten memories.

The happiest time for me was when I got marry. We lived in Yangon and my parents sent us to school. At that time everything was normal like as other kids. But when I was in 4th grade my parent’s business went down and we got economic problems, so they could not afford to send us to school. We had to attend morning and evening classes. When my parents were facing financial difficulty, we all had to work. Sometimes we would go to school just in the morning and worked in the afternoon or did the opposite of that. I had to struggle all those things, I did not really have much of happy time when I was young. But when we have an eit ( it was a festival in our religion ), the most happiest day in my life and still remember until now. That day was special for us and the happiest day since we were a young age. We fasted a whole month. Started in the morning at 4:00 AM until 5 or 6 in the evening. Even we could not swallow our saliva. At that time our mind was peaceful and happy. After that one month we had Eit festival . Buddhist festival called Thedin Gyit. In that month we were so happy, we went to visit and greeted every relative’s houses even though we had an argument before. Every houses made cookies or food. We could not eat at all on that day. Another Eit call Kutmani, we killed animals and after seventy days we bought cows and cut it throats and we all shared the meat together. That day was also my happiest time too.