Understandably, people who make charitable donations want their money to go to individuals and causes that are truly needy. Here in Laos most of the population is poor; eighty percent of the population lives at a subsistence level. Most people consume all the food that they grow in their fields or find in the...
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Blog
How to identify the neediest of the many poor.
Partnering with COPE to help amputees.
Last spring, students at D.C. Everest Middle School in Weston, Wisconsin sent me off to Laos with several hundred dollars of “good deed” money to share with victims of accidents with landmines and bombs. They asked that some of their funds also be used to remove unexploded ordnance and thereby prevent future pain and...
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Sometimes bombs end up in very odd places.
Sometimes looking for bombs is pure science. We look out over the surface of a landscape and haven’t a clue where the suspected ordnance lurks. All we can do is crank up our metal detectors (devices that are both sophisticated and expensive — a far cry from what you would use to find coins...
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Martin the Elephant Man answers questions.
A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit with Martin Tyson, a British environmentalist who was here on the Nakai Plateau studying Asian elephants. I didn’t learn Martin’s last name until he was about ready to leave town. Everyone here simply referred to him as “Martin the elephant man.” (An earlier entry...
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WHWV provides schools with their first books.
When school was out here for the summer, I can’t say that I was aware of more children running around during the day than before summer vacation. During the school year there always seem to be swarms of children around, regardless of schools being in session. At first I thought their presence was a...
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Wisconsin students sponsor surgery for a child with a birth defect.
n Laos, a lot of babies die before anyone gets to know them well. Statistics compiled by the United Nations indicate that nearly one out of every ten infants born here will die within the first year of life; eighteen percent of babies born in a given year will die before their fifth birthday....
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It’s the rainy season. It’s hot, humid, and the road is a river of mud.
Word from Wisconsin this summer is that the land is dry, and the heat’s oppressive. My wife, an art educator, employs a rich vocabulary to depict the deteriorating condition of our yard (even though she is limited to shades of brown). I reassure her about the lawn, telling her that the grass has gone...
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Caution! We brake for snakes!
The Lao believe that a deer crossing their path is a sign of bad luck. Having clipped a few Wisconsin whitetail deer during my forty-five years of driving, I have independently arrived at the same conclusion. In contrast, the Lao believe that a snake crossing their path is a sign of good luck. Of...
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Food from the sky.
Once, when my grandmother was feeling sorry for herself, she summed up her run of bad luck by declaring, “If it rained soup the storm would catch me carrying nothing but a fork.” From boyhood on, the image of a soup storm has stuck vividly in my mind. Tomato would be a treat; cream...
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Villagers risk their lives harvesting scrap.
Eight out of every ten people in Laos survive day to day consuming the products of their most recent harvest. Villagers grow enough for this year’s needs, but have nothing to store in anticipation of future problems. Their labor produces just enough food for survival, but little surplus to sell to others. Because they...
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