Phin District with UXO Lao

For some reason, I can only post with the type centered. So much for the new and improved blogger.

Monday morning we visited a village in Phin District with the UXO Lao survey team. Phin was very close, but not quite on, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I'm also told it is about as far as the South Vietnamese got in an ill-fated 1971 invasion of Laos that was meant to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In Muang Phin (the district capital), there is a monument to the Pathet Lao/Vietnamese victory, and the back of a downed troop transport helicopter that was moved there from some guy's yard. We traveled about 10KM outside of Phin town to a village and met with the village chief and village elders at their community hall/temple.

UXO clearance teams come in two types, roving and site clearance. Roving teams respond to reports of surface contamination and clear just the UXO that has been reported. For example, children playing behind a school find a bombie or two, and word travels up to the village chief, who informs district officials, who inform UXO Lao. A team is sent out to destroy the UXO, then move on to the next roving task, without clearing large areas.

Site clearance teams are just what they sound like. They come to a large site that has been scheduled for clearance, cut any vegetation down to a few inches to allow for the deminers to swing detectors unimpeded, and clear the site, surface and subsurface, by staking out lanes and methodically using detectors to find any UXO.

Before they do this, however, the survey team visits the village numerous times to determine the extent of contamination, the location of contamination, history of accidents, and map the area for the clearance team.

So we tagged along and watched the survey team at work. As we all sat down, an old lady, mouth red from betel nut, leaned over to her friend and said 'they are really big.' I turned to her and said something to the effect of 'big, are we?' which proved very entertaining to the gathered crowd. After the team was done with their information gathering, the villagers held a short baaci for us.

I was given extra attention because of the whole Lao language thing, and they even gave me my very own sash. The woman behind me was especially keen on me, and kept giving me extra blessings, including repeated wishes that I have many healthy kids. Everyone got very excited when I told them my first kid was coming in the next few weeks, and insisted that I bring Katherine and the kid back for a visit as soon as possible. I demurred, but jokingly asked if they had any houses for rent as I might just move there, our welcome had been so warm, at which point my new best friend said it was unnecessary, as we could all live with her. So it looks like we've got a place to live in Phin District.

No Baaci is complete without a little rice whiskey. The quality control of homemade whiskey is often suspect. Thankfully, Jurgen, a former East German soldier and current UXO Lao EOD technical assistant, has a good way of determining the relative safety of lao lao; dip your finger in it and light it on fire. If it burns blue, it's fine. If it burns yellow, it could make you go blind, or kill you if you drink enough. He also was quite insistent that we couldn't drink alcohol, as our next stop was to the roving team to destroy the big bombs they had recently moved to the demolition site.

I was grateful for his insistence we not drink, as it was 10:30 am. However, given the importance the villagers placed on sharing a bit of a drink, we each took about a thimble-full.

I was first, but I made sure to see the blue flame before taking it.