We had three tamarind trees. One was in front of the house and the other two were in the back yard.

Mother would carry the tamarind fruit into the village and exchange it for rice.

Or sometimes we would find things such as small crabs, or vegetables and bananas from the rice field to sell at the Khmer border.

When I went to school, I had only rice with chili for lunch. Or sometimes if I was lucky, I would have an egg.

My mother told me to be strong, because she knew I didn’t have as many things as my friends.

In the winter, we had to build a fire to sleep outside because we don’t have blankets or thick clothes to wear.

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