Everyone knows that some kids will die collecting scrap. Everyone hopes it won’t be their child.

Armed with cheap detectors, these kids spend hours every day searching for scrap. Shortly after this photo was taken two teens from this village were killed while collecting.

Mai Village - Boualapha District - Khammouan Province - Lao Peoples Democratic Republic

During my recent trip to Boualapha District to observe scrap collectors and interview villagers associated with the trade, I heard bold comments from the children and teenagers that I found searching for scrap.  All described ordnance that I knew to be deadly; all were cock-sure that they knew how to remain safe.

The scrap dealers were equally confident of the collectors’ prowess (or luck). They were so assertive, that I suspected them of either trying to sell me a bill of goods or rationalizing their exploitation of impoverished children and adults.

I was skeptical over all the bravado. The reality is that there is no way to work on uncleared land and remain safe.  “Working safely on uncleared land” is a contradiction in terms that cannot be reconciled.  You might spend time on uncleared land and not have an accident, but that doesn’t mean that you were “safe” while you were there.

This week Yai and I returned to Boualapha District to continue surveying villages for future clearance work.  While there, I wanted to meet again with collectors and dealers to discuss an event that occurred a few days after our previous visit; two teenagers died while excavating a bomb casing.  They bargained their lives for less than thirty dollars worth of scrap.

In particular, I wanted to confront the scrap yard owner in Lan Kang Village and make him answer for his claim that villagers he buys from, children and adults alike, were skilled in excavating ordnance and safe from accidents.

The Lao always greet strangers with good cheer.  And this time, Yai and I were not strangers.  The dealer had enjoyed our company a week earlier and now greeted us as returning friends.  He didn’t bat an eye when I cut right to the chase and asked him about the recent accident that had occurred among the very villagers that he transports from site to site.

In a contradiction of his earlier confident words about the villagers working safely, his attitude this visit was practically dismissive of the accident.  “Oh, these accidents happen all the time.  Everybody in this area knows families that have had people killed.”

I probably need to interrupt my narrative to explain to readers who have not lived here, how it can happen that a Lao person might knowingly espouse conflicting information in separate conversations and not be “lying” in the sense that Americans understand the word.

The Lao are eager to please.  More aptly stated, they are eager to spare others displeasure.  It is not “Lao” to be argumentative, or confrontational, or even to be the bearer of bad news.  Better to go along and get along.

My hunch is that a week ago, when I inquired about the villagers’ safety, the dealer perceived that I was concerned that people be safe.  Therefore, he gave me answers that he assumed I would be pleased to hear.  Now, this week, he understood correctly that what I wanted to hear were facts about the downside of the trade.  And so, as was the case last week, he told me what he assumed I wanted to hear.  Concepts like  “truth”, “honesty”, “lie” and “deceit” were probably irrelevant to the situation I placed him in.

I asked the dealer to describe the accident and to tell us what he knew about the people involved. Yai and I already knew the story but to check his credibility we acted surprised by the details.  To his credit, the dealer related the same facts that we had already confirmed through other sources.

Several boys and young men from Ban Mai found a casing from a bomb dropped nearly forty years ago.  The casing was largely intact but it was split open and the explosive charge had burnt away.  Depending on how much of the casing remained and how many fragments could be found in the vicinity, the discovery might provide the team of five children and teenagers with twenty-five dollars, or slightly more, to split among themselves.  The youths deeply discounted the danger and decided that five bucks apiece made a day’s work in the hot sun, digging a hole nine feet deep, a worthwhile endeavor.

(A five hundred pound bomb is about half explosive and half steel, so the casing that the boys were excavating could yield over 200 pounds of recyclable metal; the going rate at the local scrap yard is about 12 cents per pound.  Paid not in American currency, of course, but in Lao kip.)

The hole was narrow at the bottom, permitting only two people at a time to descend.  Others in the sweaty group remained above ground to receive shards and fragments that the diggers handed up.

The youths on this team were not naïve beginners in the trade. In Ban Mai, by the time you reach your mid-teens, you’ve logged years of scrap collecting and have seen a fair number of accidents or close calls.  One of the diggers had been injured in the past by exploding ordinance.  Every one of the others knew village residents, which is to say family and friends, who had been killed or injured while collecting.

Everything went as expected until something unexpected happened.

The guys in the hole unearthed a rusty cylinder about the size of a wine bottle.  It had heft that would add value to the growing pile of rusty steel on the surface, but the boys thought it might be special.  It had the look of something that might contain electronic components. Maybe components made of precious metals more valuable than ordinary scrap.

One of the diggers called to the group above and shared his speculation that he might have in hand a device that could, alone, be worth three dollars or more.  He handed it to one of the boys poised at the lip of the pit.  That youth gave the device a tap with a trowel, hoping to crack it open and expose whatever treasures might be inside.  His last words were, “It might be radar.”

What they were holding was, likely, the bomb’s booster.  This device is part of the “explosive train” that runs from the detonator in the fuse to the large load of explosive packed inside the casing. As its name implies, its function is to insure that the ignition of material within the bomb reaches a temperature sufficient to assure that chemical changes result in an explosion. Somehow the booster had survived the bomb’s destruction four decades ago, and had spent the intervening years rusting away in the moist soil. It was old but deadly.  It was not a device that an experienced explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technician would attempt to open.

When the booster exploded two boys standing at the edge of the hole were killed outright and tumbled into the hole on top of the diggers, one of who was knocked unconscious by the force of the blast.  The remaining boy on the surface suffered burns and shrapnel wounds.  Confusion ensued.  All four boys in the hole were covered with gore, only one was conscious, and he couldn’t position himself to lift one victim from the hole without tramping on the other two.

Ultimately, the uninjured boy succeeded in getting his unconscious friend out of the hole and carried him up the valley to a roadside where he summoned help.  The third survivor of the blast, injured but able to stand, struggled up the hill by himself and eventually also made it to the road.  Villagers dispatched him to the provincial hospital in Thakek as soon as they could find transport.  (No ambulance service or 911 to call in Ban Mai).

The bodies of the two dead boys remained in the hole until their family members were summoned to lift them out and carry them home.  Ironically, the brother of one of those killed is a deminer with the largest humanitarian clearance organizations in Laos, and has received extensive training in working with UXO.  Sadly, he also digs scrap in his spare time.

After chatting with the scrap dealer, as well as some witnesses to the rescue, Yai and I reluctantly made our way to the home of one of the victims.  The father of the household was said to be down with a fever that struck him immediately after he learned of his son’s death, but he joined his wife and surviving children to discuss the incident.

The conversation with that family, as well as a subsequent conversation with the other victim’s father raised some issues I had not yet considered.  I’ve mulled those conversations over in my mind frequently since, but have yet to resolve several issues that I found disturbing.

Rather than wrestle with those complexities at this juncture, I will post this journal entry now and return to the topic in the very near future.  In the week ahead I plan to review the transcript of my interview with the dead boys’ parents and ponder again the critical issues.  “Part 3” of this series will follow soon.