‘They say we go, we have to go.  They say we stay, we have to stay, whether here, in Loepohoe or in Mae La (refugee camp).’  This is what Nomaele told me last September.

Nomaele is a plump woman, aged beyond her years by hard work.  Every time we met I mistakenly called her ‘auntie’ although she is only 35.  Her family and 2 others, 12 people in all, were sent across the Moei River to her home in Loepohoe at 8 in the morning of 5 February.