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Project Phongsali 2011: Among children killed or injured by ordnance, far more victims are boys. What is it about boys?

March 10, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Among children killed or injured by ordnance, far more victims are boys.  What is it about boys?

Week Five Day Thirty-Four: To say that I acted on intuition would suggest a premonition. To be honest, I had no inkling, no gut instinct, no hunch. I was bored, becalmed in the doldrums, and simply hoped to provoke something, anything, interesting to happen. We were returning to our camp after a long, hot...
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Project Phongsali 2011: Our student correspondent triggered the demolition that destroyed four bomblets, but a fifth appeared.

March 9, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Our student correspondent triggered the demolition that destroyed four bomblets, but a fifth appeared.

Week Five Day Thirty-Three Usually, when we head out in the morning to demolish ordnance, we either have to search for the reported item or make a return hike to the location where we saw it days earlier.  By the time we get to the item, post sentries, clear the area of people and...
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Vientiane Times: “UXO a daily threat to rural families”

March 9, 2011
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Vientiane Times: “UXO a daily threat to rural families”

A mother in Nondaengneua village, Soukhouma district, Champasak province, in southern Laos, is still mourning her daughter’s death after she was killed by UXO in February last year. She was 13 years old, she should not have died and been taken from her family, the girl’s mother, Ms Jone lamented. Her son survived the...
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From the KPL Lao News Agency: In spite of tragedy at home, Japan continues to support UXO removal in Laos.

March 9, 2011
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From the KPL Lao News Agency: In spite of tragedy at home, Japan continues to support UXO removal in Laos.

KPL Laos News Agency Government of Japan has agreed to provide a grant total US$744,680 in support of UXO Lao operations in southern provinces of Saravane and Sekong, for 2011. The grant contract was signed in Vientiane Capital, on 25 March between the Director of Lao National UXO, Mr. Bounpone Sayasenh and Ambassador of...
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Project Phongsali 2011: Sometimes we interrupt our glamorous lifestyle to do mundane tasks.

March 8, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Sometimes we interrupt our glamorous lifestyle to do mundane tasks.

Week Five Day Thirty-Two: Laundry Day: somewhat overdue. It’s griddle-hot here but the humidity is low and we haven’t had even the faintest hint of rain. As we travel and work along Highway 2E, a narrow, unpaved road being completely rebuilt into a wider unpaved road, we’re constantly enveloped in a cloud of dust....
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Project Phongsali 2011: Man tries to open rocket, then wisely decides it’s not such a good idea after all.

March 7, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Man tries to open rocket, then wisely decides it’s not such a good idea after all.

Week Five Day Thirty-One: Yesterday a Khamu villager showed us several pieces of ordnance that he found in his rice field, carried home, and showed around the village, asking family, friends and neighbors if they thought the items could be safely opened. (They were an assortment of rockets and mortars). His hope was that...
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Project Phongsali 2011: Our student correspondent reports on his school’s support for our work in Laos.

March 6, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Our student correspondent reports on his school’s support for our work in Laos.

At my school, our Leadership Institute has an ongoing lollipop sale that helps Mr. Harris’ projects in Laos. We call it “Lollies for Laos.” Last year, we sold many, many suckers — enough to make four thousand dollars. Our goal for this year is five thousand dollars. People in Laos live with the everyday...
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Project Phongsali 2011: Correspondents from D.C. Everest Middle School will help us connect with students and staff.

March 5, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Correspondents from D.C. Everest Middle School will help us connect with students and staff.

Week Five Day Thirty: We Help War Victims has ardent supporters among students in the D.C. Everest Area School District, Schofield Wisconsin. The Everest district, like many others in central Wisconsin, has a diverse enrollment that includes ethnic Hmong and Lao families that arrived as refugees from the Indochina War. While many refugee families...
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Project Phongsali 2011: Illness hits children especially hard. With no medicine villagers rely on spirit ceremony alone.

March 4, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: Illness hits children especially hard.  With no medicine villagers rely on spirit ceremony alone.

Week Five Day Twenty-Nine: Nobody seems to have a handle on what illness has claimed the lives of four children in Kiew Ka Cham village, and sickened many others.  (Symptoms suggest one of three likely viruses: whooping cough, diphtheria, and influenza).  Thus far, the deceased have all been young children between six weeks and...
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Project Phongsali 2011: In one small village four children have recently died. Not bombs… illness. But what illness?

March 3, 2011
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Project Phongsali 2011: In one small village four children have recently died. Not bombs… illness.  But what illness?

Week Four Day Twenty-Eight: As our deminers continued clearing the schoolyard in Kiew Ka Cham village I observed four men working in a stand of trees not far away. When I first spotted them, they were taking turns with a shovel, either digging a hole or leveling a mound; I didn’t have a clear...
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