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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Week Four Day Twenty-Seven Today we’re clearing the schoolyard in Kiew Ka Cham village. It’s slow, tedious work since searching for UXO in a heavily trafficked area, such as a school or marketplace, involves excavating a substantial quantity of non-lethal contamination: nails, washers, bolts, bottle tops and fragments of exploded bomb casings. As...
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