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HIV/AIDS is the o­nly legacy Khun Song received from her parents. But the nine-year-old girl seems to be unaware of the deadly virus. She smiled as her guardians told me she was HIV-positive. Her parents died soon after she was born.

Fortunately, Khun Song, a cute, quiet girl, is doing well enough, although she has no parents or relatives to take care of her. Any sign of trauma doesn’t appear in her innocent face. For all that, she can thank a small safe house run by a Karen woman, Paw Lu Lu, who was among o­ne of the 1,000 women nominees for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

The safe house is in a small village in the district of Sangkhlaburi, in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province, which borders Burma southern states.   

Khun Song is o­ne of more than 80 residents of the safe house, which provides shelter mostly for Burmese refugees and migrants who fled their country to avoid political and economic crises. 

Paw Lu Lu, 58, founded the safe house in 1993 in response to the sufferings of her own people who were fleeing from Burma to Thailand, particularly those in need of medical care.

“When I saw those patients ignored, I couldn’t help but take care of them,” the 58-year-old nurse softly explained in her safe house. “Then I started it alone.”

Paw Lu Lu had o­nce known the difficulties experienced by the people she now admitted to her safe house. She left her home town, Taungoo, in Burma’s Pegu Division, in 1976 and joined the Karen National Union rebel group, which has been struggling for political rights for decades. She worked for the KNU for 10 years.   

Twenty two of the residents of Paw Lu Lu’s safe house are orphans. She and her staff of 18 (including 10 medics) are also caring for 48 patients and 14 elderly people. Half of the patients are women. The safe house receives food and financial support from a few NGOs. But it badly needs more space and staff.

Seven of the patients have HIV/AIDS. They include Khun Song and another child. More than 100 of the 1,500 patients cared for by the safe house in the past 14 years were HIV/AIDS sufferers.

Some of the safe house patients suffer from mental illness while some are disabled. The Christian Hospital near the safe house provides medical care and medicine if the patients need intensive treatment. 

Apart from Mon, Karen and other Burmese, the safe house shelters a few Cambodians, Malaysians and Chinese.

Though the safe house receives help from NGOs, it tries to be self-supporting. Training is given in weaving and sewing, and pigs are reared o­n the safe house’s farmland.

The safe house staff give the children instruction in Burmese, English and Mon. “Some of the children can speak three or four languages,” smiles Paw Lu Lu.

The children can now study in Thai schools. Khun Song attends an elementary school near the safe house. She has no idea for her future; no o­ne can predict how it will turn out. But she responds with a smile when she’s asked what she wants to be.  Her smile is sweet, but it’s not sure if her future will shine so brightly as that smile.