My name is Than Myint. I am 65 years old and I am Poe Karen. I was born in Burma (Aye Pyi Gi village). I lived there since I was young. My house was made of bamboo. I have seven siblings, and one passed away. I was 30 years old when one of my siblings passed away. As we got older, we separated our own ways. Four of my siblings lived with me and two lived somewhere else. We all got along, and we were nice to each others. We loved each other equally. My grandparents passed away when I was really young, so I do not remember what kind of work they did. My dad worked as a leader of the village and mom owned a little business selling foods in the house. After my mom passed away, my dad quit being the leader of the village. He later became a teacher and got married again. I used to lived with my dad and stepmom, but it was really hard living with them.

When I was young I went to Buddhism school to become a nun. I’ve trained three years in (Maw Lyang Myi) of becoming a nun, four years being vegetarian, and total of seven years. I was not usually at home. I was 8 years old when I started training. I was learning the religion of Buddhism and how to read, but I did not know or learn anything about math. I did not play any sports while I was at Buddhism school. We took an exam, because they were testing us on how good our memorization was. I was the only child who became a nun. I did want to go to a regular school, but I did not have the opportunity to do so, because I had to become a nun. In my village we only had kids school. If we wanted to go to school we had to go somewhere else far from home. That was why I decided to become a nun. My youngest siblings did get a chance to go to school in Burma. Right after my mom passed away, we did not have any money to sent my younger sibling to school. My brother did not get to finish school. When he just heard the news that my mom passed away, he dropped out of school to work at a paper company. Since we were apart for so long, I had no idea where he was , or what he was up to. My other younger brother worked at Blacksmith and passed away. My uncle killed him because he was jealous that my brother was making a lot of money. The rest of my siblings lived with my aunts and uncles. After my dad remarried our siblings been apart since then.

After mom passed away, I went to (Wi Ta Gue -Ya Goe). As I got older I did not do anything beside being a nun (8-15 years old.) At age 15 years old, I went to live with my aunt to do housework in (Wi Ta Gue). I knew how to cook while living with my aunt and she was the one who taught me. I helped her doing house chores, but I did not get paid. The Karen food we made would be fish paste, and all kinds of vegetables. While I was in (Wi Ta Gue) one of my teacher, who was a monk, passed away. Later I went back to (Maw Lyung Myi) my village to continue being a nun for a while. I decided to get married, so I left being a nun. They were not any heirloom passed down from generation to generation that I kept. I did not get to help my parents with money.

I’ve dated a few times, but it were not a serious relationship. My parents did not teach me anything about relationship. My husband was from (Wi Ta Gue). He liked me first, but I did not like him at the time. He liked me out of my two cousins. He also pitied me, because I did not have a mom. We only knew each other’s for a few months and got married later in September in my village (Toe Ah Na). I was 19 years old and my husband was 22 years old, when we got married. We lived with my dad for a while, but it did not last long. Later, we built our own house. We started our own lives, and worked daily on with whatever jobs got offered to us. I sell vegetables by carrying them on my head. My husband was a farmer worked in a rice fields and I did not owned any garden. I lived in a village where the land was flat ground not too close to the mountain or city. To go shopping for foods we had to go to another village. It was not that far and it only took us to get there for a little bit.

I got pregnant 13 times, but I miscarried two. Later 3 passed away and now 8 still alive. I have a big family. One of my oldest son passed away. One day he got home and went to bed, but did not wake up the next day. He was already an adult, married, and had 6 months old child. We believed that our son was the guardian of gold treasure in his past life. He had a duty to take care of that treasure and reincarnated in a new body. The rules for him were to become a monk first and then he can marry. The reason we knew and believed this is because a monk did fortune teller on him. My religion is Buddhism and all my family are. One of my son used to be Buddhism but he married a Christian lady and he later became Christian.

There were a lot of celebrations for the religion of Buddhism such as water festival, monk temples, and we did that every year. As a Buddhist we never celebrate birthdays and I did go to New Years celebration. When I was young, what I missed the most was Don dance with my friends. At that time there were no wars happening in my village, and I was really happy. It was a peaceful life for me. Six of my children came to America, one of them is still in Umphiem Refugee Camp.