Bumeh's story
Bumeh, 11, lives in a bamboo hut in a refugee camp on the Thai side of the border between Thailand and Burma. When she was six, soldiers burned down her family's home in Burma, and their barn, which was filled with rice. Her parents were very frightened and ran away to Thailand, taking Bumeh and her brothers and sisters with them.
Bumeh's mum died a year later, of a disease called malaria, and it's hard for her dad to bring up their five children on his own. An organisation that Christian Aid works with helps look after the refugees and gives them food, but life is difficult. Bumeh has to help with the cooking, collecting water, feeding the pig and doing the housework. She goes to school every day, but her family doesn't have electricity, so she has to use a gas lamp to do her schoolwork in the evenings.
'I like going to school. I'd like to be a nurse when I grow up, and help those who are sick,' says Bumeh, 'especially as my mum died of malaria.'
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'I don't remember very much about my homeland,' she adds, 'but I would like to go back someday, to see where I was born.'
Check out these Global Gangers' stories:
Zamira, 8, from Kosovo, in Eastern Europe
Dak, 8, from Sudan, in east Africa
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Christian Aid/Ramani Leathard
Bumeh does her schoolwork by gas light
Christian Aid/Ramani Leathard
Bumeh fetching beans and rice with her dad
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