An old-hand rule-of-thumb has it that, if you haven't been in Asia at least 10 years, you don't know anything yet. All told, I've spent just over nine. But over the last half-year, I've gotten to know a hill-tribe family a bit, and therein found what seems an interesting tale. It starts with a young woman who seemed to me virginally innocent.

When I first got to know her, she didn't seem to have almost anything. No last name even, or known birth-date, no money or education. There was her wide, bright smile, though...

I first encountered her at a street stall, where I wanted to order some bamboo and wicker candle lanterns of which only a few were on display and immediately available. I'd been by often, but this was the first time there were young girls there, and they were giggling and goggling at me - they thought it great that I bumbled my way about in Thai.

One of them, Muay ("China Girl"), soon went to work at my regular watering-hole. There I noticed she had terrible breath (well, I didn't say she had nothing!). I suggested I take her to a dentist, but she didn't take me seriously.

Next day, she was at the e-mail shop by that crafts stand, with friends, and so was I. Taking advantage of ensuing embarrassment, I insisted she go with me to a dentist. She'd never been before, was scared, but complied. There, I discovered she didn't know how to write, had no ID card or even national identity... Despite an uncharitable nature, I soon found myself agreeing to help her get an immigrant ("Green") card.

That took several trips up winding mountain roads to near the Burmese border. I have a car (not fully paid for, or even in my name, but I have it), so that wasn't too difficult. And I have an active interest in the northern border areas, so it wasn't boring. She explained to me who lived where along the way, what nationality or tribe, what religion, who was rich from drugs... Her home, I found, was right where, 10 months earlier, there'd been fighting involving Burmese, Thai and "Burmese insurgent" troops, in the vicinity of the ill-defined ridge-top border-line. She'd point to one hill-top and tell me, "That's Red Wa." Another, "Tai Yai." Others, all seemingly within stone's throw of one another, were Thai and Burmese. Beyond the ridge-tops, she said, were great fields of poppies. I asked for some dried ones; she said sure. Later, she said it wasn't possible just now, "next year."

We got her Green Card, and got to be friends. She got a last name: Lahu-na (meaning Black Musur, a fairly specific hill-tribe nomenclature). She even came up with evidence that she might be 22. I'd thought she was little more than a child - turns out she'd had children herself! One daughter lives with her father and his wife in Isan (he worked for the border patrol), the other was adopted by a couple in Mae Jan, the nearest lowland town of any size. At first she had only 3 visible changes of clothes, including a loose country frock and a pair of polyester slacks. Later I learned she had 3 languages (Musur, Thai and Chinese)

One day she got an emergency call, and called me; her mother was about to give pre-mature birth. She'd worked too hard, now was in danger of losing the child she was carrying, perhaps her own life too. Muay called me: would I drive up to fetch her mother to a hospital?

OK. We decided the hospital by the old drug town of Hin Taek (and now Thoed Thai) might not have the necessary equipment &/or skills, and got her to Mae Jan, where I'd once known a young Farang intern to work. There they decided she needed even better equipment and expertise, and put her in an ambulance to Chiangrai General, right by where I live. Muay hadn't had a chance to eat all day, so I went into town for food. Eating khao-man-gai and khao-ka-moo (meat and rice dishes accompanied by spicy sauce with prick khi nu, very hot little peppers named after mouse droppings) with pieces of Styrofoam broken from carry-out dish lids, we discussed the situation. The child, after all, might need to stay in an incubator many weeks, and that would cost money. Which would, naturally (somehow) have to come from me.

I hadn't been allowed in the family house, where hardly a thing but a calendar picture of the king in uniform, and another of Jao Mae Kuan Im, Goddess of Mercy, the sole decorations, didn't come from nature, after the mother realized she was pregnant. Naturally I went to visit in hospital, but never did Muay's mother address a word to me (not that she speaks anything but Lahu/Musur, of which I've not a word!). But at the nurse station, I found out this was her 12th pregnancy. So far she'd had all girls. Only one lived at home, a very demure 14-year-old. I hadn't had a clue, only noticed that she looked a bit old for pregnancy (indeed, looks older than me, though I'm sure I've several years on her). The father, as many fathers do, wanted a son.

Well, what was this one going to be? My bet was on it being a 50/50 chance, but who knows what might have changed? The trip to Chiangrai General had saved the day, though, and the baby stayed in the belly. No-one wanted to pay for a check, so we didn't find out the sex. After a few days recuperation, I drove mother and daughter home again, again without a word said by the mother, despite how, during her 10 or so minutes in my house, she'd found my cheroots (Burmese cigars) and lighter, lighting one and taking the others into custody. What she thinks of me, this woman from a grass-roof shack with dirt floor and nary a hint that anything electric had ever been there before I came in with my hand-phone, I can only wonder. An example of how differently she sees things came when Muay explained that they were thinking of moving back to Burma.

"Whyever would you do that?" I asked, in shock.
"Because there's freedom there!" was her even more shocking reply.

It wasn't long before I found out what she meant. Her father works as a 'dek quai' (literally, 'cowboy') tending buffalo for 700 baht a month. They've no land to farm; the shack with its bamboo lean-to, over a big hole, outhouse, they rent! In Burma, one can still clear some jungle, build a shack and grow food, free - a land of opportunity! Or so they believe...

Two days later I got another call. She'd had the baby.
"What was it?"
"I don't know."
"How big?"
"I don't know."
"Didn't you ask anything?"
"They just asked that I come up immediately, and bring money."

By now I was involved enough to get some money and go on up. The baby had been born at home (like all the others), just under 2.5 pounds, and was now in an incubator at Thoed Thai. There, I asked a nurse what the incubator would cost.

"About 100 baht a day," she answered, after complimenting me enthusiastically on my Thai. We went to look into the incubator, and there, asleep, was a healthy looking, tiny little boy, all parts intact.

On the way out I stopped at the main counter to inquire about paying.
"Can you translate for me," the man there asked Muay, "I haven't any idea at all what he's saying!" He refused to accept any advance payment.

Turns out the nurse had quoted the price wrong, anyway. Stopping by the hospital after the Lahu New Year's festival, we found the baby gone, with an unpaid bill for B1418, total cost (the incubator was B50 a day!). When we expressed concern at the rapid departure home, the nurse told us the baby would be fine, that he was very little, but also very tough, like prick khi nu (strong little...)!