Olympic torch-bearer's long journey from mud hut

Davi Jea came to NZ when she was 9. Picture / Dean Purcell

Davi Jea came to New Zealand a penniless refugee unable to speak a word of English and not knowing how to use a toilet.

Fifteen years later, she is about to represent her adopted country overseas.

Ms Jea, 24, has been picked to be one of five New Zealanders to carry the Olympic torch in Italy in the relay leading up to the Winter Olympics in February.

"It is something I am going to remember for the rest of my life," Ms Jea said. "I wasn't a citizen of any place until I got citizenship here. I can finally represent a country, a country I am very proud of, a country that has given me basically everything."

Ms Jea and her two brothers were born in Vietnam's Songba Refugee Camp, near Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), after her parents fled Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.

She remembers sleeping on beds made of sticks in a mud hut, without enough food or medicine to go around.

"Because the Vietnamese officials were so corrupt, only about 5 per cent of [aid] got to us. I do remember having to share one egg between all five of us," Ms Jea said. "You spent an entire day basically doing nothing. You had nothing to play with.

"There's a road outside the refugee camp that we could basically go out to and for me, as a child, it went out forever. I knew that was the road that went out to the outside world because you see buses coming occasionally."

The first time she left the camp, aged 9, was to come to New Zealand.

"It was a shocking time for me, because everything was new. I saw Europeans for the first time."

Initially life in their North Shore house was "horrible".

"We didn't know how to use anything - the appliances in the house. We didn't know how to use the toilet. Even though the refugee camp wasn't much of a home, we felt homesick initially."

When she started school, she had to learn English. By the end of high school she had an A bursary and went on to gain bachelor of commerce and bachelor of science degrees.

Ms Jea now works with the Auckland District Health Board in information technology and helps other refugees. "I'm really pleased with where I am at the moment, and I know I have come a long way and I'm quite proud of that."

The other torch-carriers are professional ice-skater and coach Rosanna Blong of Auckland, curling coach Elizabeth Matthews of Auckland, retired microbiology professor Tim Brown of Palmerston North and Dunedin student and aspiring Olympic umpire Mijo Wilson.

The torch relay begins on December 8. The New Zealanders will run in Venice on January 18.

The five were selected by a panel of Olympians because they have the characteristics that reflect the Olympic spirit, such as being able to inspire and unite people.

Killing fields

* Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge ruled from 1975 to 1979, tried to create an agrarian utopia by forcing people to work on farms.
* The Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of up to two million people through execution, starvation and forced labour.