A few folks here who I happen to have photos of to hand. But I've just realised how many are missing...

Kids: Abounding with energy, intelligent, beautiful, unfearing and streetwise - yet also still innocent of many of the layers of life around them.

Hey

Teacher of science, champion lego builder, funniest creative user of the English language I've ever met, Aung Soe recently joined the school after leaving Rangoon this year to join his brother (who he hasn't seen for 15 years) on the border. He's a good friend, is meticulous and (unsurprisingly) scientific in his approach to everything, finds my strange ways very strange indeed, and tries so so hard in lessons. As it happens this is the only photo here that was actually half-staged... I had trouble getting the bamboo to sit still while filming.

The headmaster. Has been very kind to me - if there's a problem, he'll sort it. He's very proud of Yaung Ni Oo and spends every waking hour consumed by it and its students.

There are about 70 families on the mountain, most with representation from both young and older generations - many greet me with a shout or a laugh and a half as I pass. The girl in pink in the middle was at first terrified by my appearance on the slopes, but now my trotting past up the mountain brings the biggest grin and the sweetest hidden wave.

A pre-intermediate student (and a Yaung Ni Oo teacher), Htee Hla is an enigma. Caught between the ties of family responsibility (his parents what him to return home to help out so his sister can return to school, but he knows he'll be forcibly recruited into the KNU to fight) and forging an education for himself (he wants to find a scholarship somewhere), and also the familiar issues of a being a handsome single young man with many an admirer and the time constraints study can place on one's extra-curricular activities.

One of my two scholarship-bound students - Htwe Yee has lived inside refugee camps for all but one of her twenty years. She's quiet but confident, knows what she wants, and has extremely strong legs - her house sits atop the mountain of Section 7 and she does the walk at least twice a day (her best friend Oo Ni Kay refuses to visit her as she literally can't get up to her house).

Wonderfully enthusiastic upon my arrival, saya (teacher) Innocent cooled towards me fairly rapidly and stopped coming to classes early on. He's a former child soldier who ran away from the SPDC to join the KNU when he was 14.

One of the tenth standard students at Yaung Ni Oo, Nor Htu is very funny, expressive, and has a ponchant for attempting to wash my clothes - which I attempt to prevent if at all possible. She plays a mothering role to many of the boarding girls and is good fun to be around - but she likes to terrify me with big insects a little too much. She wants a copy of this photo, too.

Om Bo is one of the Mae Sariang office workers - and was recently rushed into hospital to have his appendix out after complaining that morning of stomach pains. That was the last in a recent spate of hospitalisation for the ABSDF non-front-line staff: one drunken motorcycle accident, one falling down the Section 13 mountain, one suspected malaria outbreak, and this. He speaks the least English, so alas I probably know least about him of all the office workers (though as it turns out I don't have a photo of any of the others right now).

Scholarship student number two. Perceptive and incredibly expressive, she's got a I'll-give-it-a-go attitude, always wears a smile, and brings a lot of light to the morning's teaching. She's best friends with Htwe Yee, and together they are facing the prospect of being split up (one UK-bound at some point, the other either following at a different time or headed to North America) with courage and excited apprehension. They really, really try in lessons but face a tough challenge ahead if they're to overcome years of what could be (a little harshly) described as a braindead method of education. They deserve the chance to experience another side of life.

The daughter of a Yaung Ni Oo teacher and the ABSDF chairperson (i.e. she's important), Thin Die Khin is a continuous presence around the boarding area - playing with her friend Naw Di Di, waving hellos and reciting rote-learned English words like a well-trained robot, befriending the older students who look after and care for her when her busy mum and pops are otherwise engaged. She loves highlighter pens.

Two miscallaneous kids have a lie down after a play-fight. The boys fight a lot, some have obviously caught glimpses of asian martial arts flicks and spend days immitating their flying kicking heroes... and my arrival brought a wonderful focus to their aggression (they ran up shouting 'In-geh-lan', they tried to punch, I growled, they sped away...).

U Mat Daw is the do-it-all member of Yaung Ni Oo school. Got a problem, no-one else can solve it? Then maybe you should hire, the U Mat Daw. Hugely scarey at first, behind his battle-hardened soldier appearance is a heart of gold and a lot of concern for the kids he's watching out for. He brings a laugh to classes, sleeps out in the open, and has just produced his first bit of homework - he's the man!

We only met for three days but we shared some memorable experiences (to be detailed at a later date when I can rescue the corrupted disk upon which those stories sit). Perceptive about the ABSDF's/Yaung Ni Oo's situation and holding the kids interest at heart, Walter's commitment is to get the students of the school to begin to take control of what they want to do, where they want to go, and to make their own decisions, as opposed to having these made for them. Hear Hear.

One of the men who have been busting a proverbial gut on a daily basis to help build the store. These soldiers are incredibly strong and at first pretty terrifying - yet are often extremely polite and gentle when you get to know them and begin seeing them as people not machines of testosterone, and find that you do have life in common. I was very happy to one day take the plunge and go help dig for a day - they found out too that this soft-handed teacher-boy could also work and sweat hard; I found out they many were the most welcoming folks I have met (just shied a little by the language barrier and cultural perceptions as to the importance of educational difference). No matter how strenuous the activity engaged in, they're always to be found with cheroot cigar dangling from the lips all James Bond-stylee.

A rare breed on the border: the 'bearded white man' is seen here crouching by his bucketed washing, caught on film for maybe the first time as he ventured out from camp to the cosmopolitan Mae Sot. This species works a bit too much, worries about silly little things a surprising amount, but appears to have made the transition to border hobo pretty well. Bless.

An ABSDF medic and soldier, Zaw Myo was a former student who's had to suspend lessons for sake of building the store. He's commonly known as 'Check Kyi' (pronounced Cheh Chee) because of the excessive size of his bellybutton, is a source of constant amusement on the site, and was the first one to come dig with me when I traded teacher for excavator one Sunday morning. The man is a rock - I witnessed him carry eight concrete pillars up to the new store when the next best man carried two. Right now his wife is dangerously ill in hospital and he's had to ask for a loan from friends to ensure she gets the right medicine as it's not free. When I go back he's asked me to write his life history for him; I'll be honoured to do so.

(Yes, you're right - he's drinking from a bamboo cup)