That night, she packed a few blouses, anti-malarial drugs and a thin medical reference book with a snapshot of her sister tucked in its pages. She left with the students at 4 in the morning, trudging quietly through the jungle at night and sleeping in muddy rice fields by day. It took a week to reach Thailand. I just came here accidentally. She expected to return to Burma in three months.
Most war doctors bandage wounds.
She works at developing communities, not just relieving pain. She worries her people have forgotten what it is like to not fight, what it means to build a society instead of destroy it. But for the Burmese military, Chogali was a strategic target, a chance to humiliate the Karen rebels, another patch of ground needed to secure the 1,000-mile border. For me, the village had been proof that good could survive in this world, despite all the bad. And it was home to the two little orchid girls.