Week One Day Seven: Our inquiries in Muang Khoua have us thinking that we’re likely to find work in one of three zones. At the district governor’s office staff tell us that they’ve received appeals for help with ordnance from villagers living along highway 2E, which connects Muang Khoua with the Vietnam border to...
Read more »
Week One Day Five: We arrive in the town of Oudomxai about 4:30 PM, too late to chance making it to our ultimate destination, Muang Khoua, before dark. In addition to wanting the safety of daylight driving, we are worried that arriving in Muang Khoua late may leave us without a place to spend...
Read more »
Week One Day Four Continued While we were in the Luang Prabang morning market, a police officer spotted our truck parked beside the road and immediately applied a “boot” to a front wheel, immobilizing it. (There went our early start to Oudomxai!) Yai had no trouble finding the officer who had applied the boot....
Read more »
Week One Day Four: We took advantage of having over-nighted in Luang Prabang to drop by the COPE (Cooperative Orthotics and Prosthetics Enterprise) rehabilitation center located on the grounds of the provincial hospital. The Luang Prabang center is a satellite of the COPE clinic in Vientiane, and is one of several branches located strategically...
Read more »
Week One Day Three: Our planned departure at the crack of dawn was, of course, delayed until 8:00 a.m., … then 8:30 a.m., … then 10:00 a.m., … then Yai asked for another hour, maybe an hour and a half. In the end, we left town in the early afternoon. We drove slowly uphill...
Read more »
Week One Day Two: We are packing for the trip north. Metal detectors, radios, bull horns, and a mile of firing cable. Everything we will need to search for ordnance and then destroy it. Well…everything except a sizable load of TNT. That will come up by special transport under the care of Vilasak, our...
Read more »
Week One Day One: As was the case last year, the starting date of our project hinged on our finding proper transport for our team and equipment. Our work in Laos occurs seasonally and never for more than three months at a crack. Given the fact that we don’t operate here year-round, it makes...
Read more »
Earlier this year we posted on this website a video that features a Lao toddler that we met while our UXO clearance team was working in Phongsali. The youngster, named Pome, was born with a birth defect called “congenital talipes equinovarus” (CTEV) a condition more commonly known as “club foot”. (See our posting for...
Read more »
British and American officials colluded in a plan to hoodwink parliament over a proposed ban on cluster bombs, the Guardian can disclose. According to leaked US embassy dispatches, David Miliband, who was Britain’s foreign secretary under Labour, approved the use of a loophole to manoeuvre around the ban and allow the US to keep...
Read more »
One-year old Pome faced a bleak future if he could not get treatment for his foot. He was born with a birth defect known as “club foot” (talipes equinovarus) but had never received medical care. People in his village knew him as the boy “with his foot on sideways”. His parents had no knowledge...
Read more »