Week Three Day Seventeen: In the year 2000 the United States government provided Laos with maps that communicate most of what is known about the 580,000 bomb runs that America flew over Laos between 1964 and 1973. During those missions the US dropped over four million general purpose bombs, and 285 million cluster submunitions....
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Week Three Day Sixteen: Vilasak and four deminers left Vientiane two days ago and traveled up Route 13 to Luang Prabang and then on to Muang Khoua, by way of Oudomxai, retracing the route that Yai and I took two weeks ago. For them, the journey was far less comfortable than our trip. They...
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Week Three Day Fifteen: For two weeks, Yai and I have tramped around the southern-most districts of Phongsali province, interviewing people and inspecting problem ordnance to determine which locales are most in need of help. Now that we have a clear vision of where we’ll work, it’s time to find a place to call...
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Week Two Day Fourteen: Four village girls, each about eight years old, happened upon a rusty hunk of suspicious-looking metal. Having seen us at their school earlier in the day they knew that we’d returned to Sop Houn and were back to deal with unexploded ordnance. Wisely, the girls obeyed a fundamental tenet of...
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Week Two Day Thirteen: Mrs. Khangbao, a genial, peaceable soul, somehow ended up married to one of the most daring village bomb experts that I’ve ever met. She jokes that long ago she conceded defeat, and no longer struggles to drag him with her into old age. Now, both physically and emotionally, she distances...
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Week Two Day Twelve: Today we trucked back to Sop Houn to discuss with the village teachers their use of two “Book Box Libraries” that our project donated last year. This is the first school year that students have had literature books to read. In the past, as is the case in over...
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Week Two Day Eleven: When we passed through Luang Prabang on our way north I stopped by the COPE clinic (Cooperative Orthotics and Prosthetics Enterprise) to check the treatment records for six villagers we delivered to the center last year. They were a mixed group of villagers; some were amputees who had never been...
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Week Two Day Ten: When we were in Sop Houn yesterday several villagers told us that they had indeed found new ordnance during the months we were gone. So…we asked the village naiban to spread word that next week, when our full team is in place, we will again remove or destroy any dangerous...
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Week Two Day Nine: Having chosen to work along highway 2-E this season, we decided that we should begin with a visit to Sop Houn, the town where we lived and worked last year. It’s a place best described as a village of 500 people, 96 houses and 58 bomb craters. Given the level...
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Week Two Day Eight Today we headed out of Muang Khoua to investigate conditions in villages along the main east-west highway through the southern districts of Phongsali. For years this road has been not much more than an unpaved, single-lane trail winding alongside the Nam Ou River and its tributaries. The road, now designated...
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