Aungmyintha "Model Village" in Myanmar's northern Kachin state didn't exist until three years ago, and its residents mostly wish it had never been built. It is one of two villages built to house some 2,700 people forced to leave their homes in 2010 to make way for one of Myanmar's biggest construction projects, the Myitsone Dam.
Seng Khun, 38, was relocated to Aungmyintha from her previous home in Tang Phre village, which was to be submerged by the dam's reservoir.
Her farm was also lost to the project, flattened by a bulldozer during land-clearing work at the site, about 900 kilometres north of Yangon.
"I don't want to get my farm back because it had already been destroyed and it might take at least five years to grow crops there again," Seng Khun said. "I only want compensation for my farm, which I've never received."
Tang Phre is now a "forbidden city," where no one is allowed to live and most houses have been demolished.
The Myitsone Dam project began in 2009, when Myanmar was still under the rule of a junta. It was initially scheduled to be completed in 2017.
China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), the contractor, had designed the dam to be the world's 15th largest hydroelectric power station, producing up to 6,000 megawatts of electricity.
Ninety per cent of that power was to be exported to neighbouring Yunnan province in south-west China.
The dam, sitting on the Irrawaddy, Myanmar's longest river, was fiercely opposed by the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), an armed insurgency that has been fighting for the partial autonomy of the Kachin state for the past five decades.
In 2011, KIO troops blocked the roads transporting construction materials to the dam and blew up bridges linking Kachin state to China.
Their acts of sabotage put an end to a 17-year cease-fire between the KIO and Myanmar government, said Colonel La Nan, a spokesman for the insurgents.
The KIO believe their opposition to the Myitsone project prompted the government, under pressure from Beijing, to launch an ongoing military offensive in their territory in June 2011, that over two years has claimed hundreds of lives and displaced more than 120,000 people.
The fighting continued despite an announcement by President Thein Sein on September 2011 that construction of the Myitsone Dam would "be suspended during the time of our government." The decree followed a groundswell of public opposition to the project.
La Nan insisted the president's decree did not go far enough. "We want a complete cancellation of the project," he said.
The KIO is the only major insurgency that has yet to sign a cease-fire with Myanmar's government.
Nowadays, the once-bustling dam construction site is deserted, although still manned by security guards. The project's Chinese engineers, three of whom were killed in 2011, have all left.
But it appears that China is determined to keep the project alive.
CPI recently circulated pamphlets in Kachin state assuring local people that they would benefit from higher living standards if the dam were completed.
Chinese authorities voiced their hopes of continuing the project to a visiting Myanmar delegation in June, said Mya Aye, a leader of the prominent 88 Generation Students Group.
"Officials from China National Petroleum Corp told us that they wanted to restart the Myitsone dam project right now," Mya Aye said. "We told them clearly that Myanmar people will never accept this project."
The government points out however that an extra 600 megawatts of power would help with Myanmar's severe shortage of electricity, and bring economic benefits. Foreign firms see unreliable electricity provision as one of the main obstacles to investing in the country.
"We can only provide 30 per cent of the population with 2,060 megawatts of electricity," said Khin Maung Soe, Myanmar's Minister of Electric Power.
Asked about the government's promise not to go ahead with the project under the current administration, Khin Maung Soe replied: "I don't know what will happen during the next government."
National elections in 2015 will be hotly contested by the ruling, pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party and the National League for Democracy party, headed by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Whichever party prevails, they will be under pressure to find ways of improving conditions for people in Myanmar, most of whom are literally living in the dark.
"This project looks like a bomb with a detonator for the next government," Mya Aye said.