WUNRN
August 22, 2010
War-era ordnance kills and maims hundreds of
Laotian villagers each year. Eighty-five percent of victims are men, leaving
numerous women to fend for their families.
Since then, Yue, who only goes by one name, says,
"Ooh, there are many things that have changed." She feels "like
two or three persons in one," having to care for her husband and two young
children. "The greatest difficulty is everything in the family became
mine--husband's job became mine. Children's job became mine…I just tried to
grow very little rice for the family. And I also did a little embroidery to
sell and earn money."
The couple could not maintain their farm, so Yue's
husband studied massage through an aid group in
"Since I'm blind, it's hard to earn a living,"
Lue Ha said. He gets on average two customers a day who pay about $3 a session.
"It's not really enough because we have to pay for rent, electricity,
water." If no one shows up, "I don't earn," he said.
If more than one customer
arrives, Yue puts the couple's 6-year-old son in charge of watching the baby.
She changes from her traditional sarong to comfortable pants and she gets to
work using the techniques she has learned through Lue Ha.
Every day, Laotian villagers risk their lives farming,
fishing and foraging. This landlocked Southeast Asian country remains littered
with bombs since the
When an American bomb explodes in
"The men do the plowing, so they take more
risk," said Jo Pereira, an occupational therapist who spent several years
as coordinator for a rehabilitation center known as COPE, based in Vientiane.
But while men suffer more injuries,
Up to 30 percent of the bombs did not detonate when
dropped in the 1960s and 1970s. War-era ordnance has killed and maimed more
than 50,000 people across
"There's no other social safety net,"
Yue is young, healthy and fit for work. But many
wives of UXO victims face the double burden of their husband's injuries as well
as their own health problems.
"It's very hard for our family," said Mai Ma,
whose husband, Phou Vieng, lost an arm and a leg to UXO. "He is the head
of the family. He worked for his wife and children."
Now Mai Ma is the sole provider. She occasionally cooks
for weddings and large parties, earning about $3 each time, but she never knows
when the next job will come. "Sometimes we are hungry," she said.
Mai Ma suffers chronic digestive and throat problems and
the pain of a broken arm that never fully healed. She raises buffalo and
chickens, but often relies on her teenage daughter to help with household
chores.
"Mostly our daughter does the cooking because my
wife is not very healthy," Phou Vieng said.
Doctors have told Mai Ma she needs surgery that will cost
about $300. The family can't afford it, so she just gets home remedies and
herbs, Phou Vieng says. He wishes he could help his wife, but "I cannot
help myself."
Phou Vieng hit a bomb while digging a hole in 1998.
"I just remember it was really loud; explode! And then I couldn't remember
anything," he said.
He spent several months in the hospital. An aid group
helped the family move to a new home in town. He uses crutches to get around.
He tends the buffalo when he can.
"All the work went to my wife," Phou Vieng
said. "I suffer because of that. Now some days we have not enough. It
depends on my wife…We just eat whatever we find--we are very poor."
Poverty tops 30 percent in
One day in January 2009, Su Phaeng left her Phongsali
village on foot to buy a pig in a neighboring province. When she returned home
that evening, her husband was gone--killed in a UXO accident.
Since then, Su Phaeng and her children struggle to feed
the family. Her son works for a construction company and her daughter finds odd
jobs cooking and cleaning. The family grows rice only to eat, never to sell,
"because we're afraid we won't have enough," Su Phaeng says.
She sits in the dim light of her wooden home with rice
sacks piled behind her. That's the family's security. It's also her tormenter.
"When I eat rice, I keep thinking about my husband,
who was working to grow rice to feed the children," she said. "Now
the children eat the rice--but he can't eat it."