From Barbara Shimoda: As part of our ongoing Give Children a Choice

From Barbara Shimoda: As part of our ongoing Give Children a Choice preschool project, Dori, Dr. Debra,Dr. David and I went to visit Xieng Khouang, one of the most heavily bombed provinces in Laos. The purpose of our visit was to tour the preschool sites of Lathgnorn and Lathesene villages. The Legacies of War (LOW) project organization joined us for part of the trip. They were following up with their “Schools Not Bombs Campaign” to help these poor villages heal and move on towards a future that will be positive through the efforts of education. Channapa Khamvongsa, the Executive Director of the organization led a fact finding tour with her group of 12 to investigate the past issues that have continues to plague the country even after 30 years. Working with LOW, we are building a preschool in Lathsene village. Our hope is that they continue to build more preschools in the future. In addition to the Lathsene preschool, preschools are being built in Lathngorn and Nong Diang villages.

The Lao people have learned to live with these UXOs (unexploded ordnances) for over 30 years and go on with their simple lives as normal as possible. The land they farm and to raise cattle are uncleared. That means that they could inadvertently hit with their shovel a UXO buried under the soil. They prepare, grow and harvest the land even though it is a big risk to their lives everyday. They know the risks. The have no choice to use the little land they have available to them. They are poor. They have no alternative but to use the resources they have.

In addition, the UXOs are made of primarily high quality US steel. Given the large number of UXOs — up to one-third of the two million tons of bombs dropped in Laos in a roughly ten year period, but with the more heavily concentration of bombings in the late 1960s — and given the high demand for high quality scrap metals, poor families of parents and children are searching the lands for UXOs and will trade the UXOs for cash at local foundries. The scrap metal bring in income to feed the family. Many children do not play. They work the fields and search for UXOs and scrap metal so that they can sell it at the foundry for as little as 18 cents for 1 kilo (MAG — Mines Advisory Group — statistics). These children do not have a childhood. Everyday, their focus is how to make money to help the family. As a consequence, there are at least 1-2 people injured per week, maybe more. The sad thing is that they live so far from the cities, they lay in the field for hours or days before someone can find them. Most die because they have little time and no access to medical help.

MAG and UXO Lao and others are both trying to eliminate these UXOs, but UXO removal is a tedious process and costly, funding for these projects are limited and, as with everything, lack of money is always an issue. They do try to do the best they can with the limited funding they get from world organizations.

We visited the local hospital where a Hmong farmer was badly injured when he was tilling the soil to plant rice. His shovel hit bombie (cluster bomb) and it exploded. He lost both feet and 3 fingers. He is such a poor man and he is the main provider for his family. He had decided to expand his fields to earn more money to support his family. One could say that he was foolish to work in a field that has not been cleared. We thought the same, until we visited the villages where we are building preschools. The villagers there are also farming on land that has not been cleaned up. We asked them why because it is dangerous. Their answer is consistantly: “If we don’t use the fields, we don’t eat.” Now, the Hmong farmer is maimed for life and will have limited ability to earn money for this young wife and children. Prosthetics will likely be provided to him with training to earn income through alternative means, but it will a hard transition. His family has been farmers for generations. In that moment, it was all became real to me. I now have a better idea of what these people go through everyday of their lives.

From Barbara Shimoda. Visit www.givechildrenachoice.org