He’s gone for at least two months into a black area. Burma is made up of black, white, and brown areas. White areas are completely under SPDC control, so while that is wrong life can continue on in a pseudo-normal manner. Brown areas are cease-fire areas. Things aren’t great, but life continues. Black areas are the most dangerous, the most impoverished. They are the areas where no schools exist, no medical centers, no roads, no ability to work because at any time word may arrive that the SPDC is on its way, and people must flee into the jungles until it is deemed safe.

He is a student of mine. 23 years old. Quiet, intelligent, strong, and handsome. I was just informed and he is already gone, waiting at the camp we visited two weekends ago. They will walk through the jungles for days, which are riddled with landmines, SPDC soldiers, and other bands of armies. Shwe Aein just told me his story of running to Thailand, and it makes his return to Burma far more poignant and more dangerous.

A few years ago, he was somehow enlisted by the PNO, the Pa’o ceasefire group in control of many Pa’o areas. This is not necessarily a good thing, which I had first assumed when learning of their presence. The ceasefire groups are equally torturous and terrible as the SPDC, as they are linked to them. The SPDC is as clever and conniving as they are cruel, but to further explain that now would be far too long of a digression. From there, he was made to be an SPDC policeman. Horrified and completely opposed, he fled to Bangkok where he was a migrant worker for two years before coming here. He is banned from Burma; there is a warrant for him. He is surely in those books they. Oh, I haven’t told you of these books!

If you have been in trouble with the government, caught fleeing, or really anything as you can be arrested for anything, it’s very possible that your photo will be entered into a book that all borders and government allies are incredibly familiar with. Many of the women I live with are in these books. Sometimes their photos are entered after having a picture taken once they have completed a training in Chaing Mai. Even after being promised, in Thailand, that it is safe and only for remembering the group. Another example, I suppose of the fear than the book itself, is when we went across the border two weeks ago. Shwe Aein and three others arrived after us, by motorbike. She told me later that the Thai soldiers had taken their photos with and without the motorbikes, and she was not pleased and a bit anxious.

Everything has to be fear. I walk into town sometimes, when I’m feeling the need for exercise instead of the novelty of the motorbike. An observation: people in Thailand are not fans of walking! I have been picked up off the side of the road by many a motorbike, the driver pitying me for having to use my feet. Shwe Aein told me, when we were walking to the river last week for the festival, that people in Burma always walk, and she loves walking. Unfortunately, they can’t walk here. Why? Because it’s a clue they’re from Burma, and if a policeman comes by, they must fear arrest. Something as simple as taking a walk is made unavailable them.

Well, I still managed to sneak in a fairly lengthy digression.

So yes, he will be gone for at least two months. This means I won’t meet him again. And yes, I’ll admit this as well, I had a little crush on that sweet boy. His eyes contained the world.

These black areas, as I mentioned in the beginning, contain strife and poverty. As people are constantly fleeing, jobs are impossible, and to walk to town to buy rice it is a one-to-two day sojourn. And even if you make that trip, you cannot be sure you’ll make it back safely or with the food. The SPDC is constantly patrolling, and will nab your sack of rice that you’ve walked for days to purchase.

I met three girls from one of these very rural areas at the army camp. Between 13 and 15, I believe, they had never set foot in a school. They were brought to the camp because Shwe Aein and Yin Twe had traveled with the army months before, and saw that in such rural villages girls were married at 13. There is no education and no health care, so of course there is no sexual education and no contraception.

When word comes that the SPDC is near, two things may happen. The entire village may flee, or just the men, as they will otherwise be taken as porters. (This meaning forced to carry everything, act as human shields, and walk ahead to “check” for landmines.) The women and children then stay, are robbed, beaten, and often raped. It is too simple and ignorant to say the men are just being cowardly; these areas are rural, communication is very low. It seems they often believe the women will not be badly harmed. Unfortunately, these are also the areas where, when a woman is sexually assaulted, there is the risk of a woman being ostracized and deemed a “bad woman.” Which, of course, is preposterous, but also detrimental in areas where there is little likelihood of education and furthering oneself outside of creating a family base with which to work together to support one another.

When Shwe Aein went to Burma last, she met a 15 year old girl who had just been gang raped by 13 SPDC soldiers. She had to travel an incredibly long way to Taungyi to a hospital, which was very much needed, as she could not even walk.

In these areas, there are farmers. Of course. Burma is farming. However, a big crop is opium. People can’t eat opium. And they must pay off the SPDC, the ceasefire groups, and the local authorities. Long understood as a great money maker, in reality, the farmers are left with little else than a village wide addiction.

I sat with my students one night, and discovered that the delicate and sweet Po Ei (24) had spent a year in a black area, teaching.

Each one has a story of strength and bravery and sadness that we could never understand.

The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. -Daw Aung San Suu Kyi