Fourteen months ago, he and his 17-year-old sister Nyae Soe lived in a Thai refugee camp. Their family sometimes sold food for extra money. They lost a baby brother after soldiers burned the area around their home, and they weren't allowed to leave the camp. "Like an animal," Nyae Soe said. "Like a zoo."
Now, the Burmese refugees are blue jeans-wearing American high school students living in a South Salt Lake apartment with their parents and three siblings. The transition has been both joyous and painful.
Nyae Soe was the only Karen-speaking student when she enrolled at Granite High School last year. She loved many of her teachers but had no classmates with whom to speak her language. This year, Nyae Soe has Karen friends at school, but the shy, focused girl still thumbs through an English-to-Karen dictionary during class to keep up.
Moe Zaw deals with the situation differently. He zipped through the school's hallways on a recent day flanked by a diverse group of friends. But he was unprepared for classes. His red Karen shoulder bag sat in a heap in his locker all day as he went from class to class empty handed.
He jokes that he is lazy, but he's not.
He recently arrived at school exhausted after spending all night translating for his parents at the hospital when his brother had stomach pains. When free immunizations were offered at his apartment complex, he volunteered to translate for the all Burmese refugees.
Moe Zaw and Nyae Soe know they face unusual difficulties and uncertain futures, but they don't complain.
"We have freedom here," Moe Zaw said.
