Mon/Tues January 28/29: preparing for Xieng
Khouang. Before we got
on the plane to Xieng Khouang on Tuesday afternoon we were briefed
by three organizations: ChildFund, COPE and the US Embassy.
The briefings were very informative and in some respects chilling,
but the trip itself was (well, what can I say but) amazing, and a
mixture of emotions filled me for the entire rest of the week:
anger, sadness, laughter, joy, wonder … yes, amazing.
ChildFund. We wouldn’t have been
able to make this trip without ChildFund, who sponsored us by
providing us with all the logistical support necessary to make
the trip, including organizing all the events in Xieng
Khouang.
ChildFund helps deprived, excluded and vulnerable children
living in poverty have the capacity to become young adults,
parents and leaders who bring lasting and positive change to
their communities.
One of the ways ChildFund Laos does this is by promoting sport
as an activity that can help achieve its aims.
A ChildFund video highlighting the concept that sport matters
may be found here:
ChildFund is also working with communities to improve access to
quality education and clean water.
ChildFund places a particular emphasis on girls and women as
they are critical in ensuring families move out of
poverty. It is accepted that educated women are
significant factors in households' generating more income,
having better health standards and in being more likely to
educate their children in turn. They are also often
excluded, and ChildFund aims to provide a platform for gender
justice across all its work.
Promoting gender equality is an important national goal within
the Lao PDR, as reflected in its Constitution, the framework of
the national machinery for the advancement of Lao Women, and the
country’s plan for governance and development, the National
Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy. The Lao Women’s
Union plays a central, critical role in governance across the
country and the Lao PDR has a strong framework of laws,
international conventions, policies and institutions that
promote the enhancement of women’s equality.
ChildFund facilitated and supported Atlantis’ visit to several
of its partner villages in the Nonghet district of Xieng Khouang
province. ChildFund works in partnership with 12
villages in Nonghet district, one of 47 Government-designated
‘poorest’ districts, to build a better future for children and
their communities. ChildFund is committed to equitable,
balanced relationships with communities in which they are
empowered to create lasting, meaningful change; as such it does
not provide ‘aid’ to ‘beneficiaries’ in ‘target villages’ but
rather works in partnership with children and their communities
in partner villages by supporting long-term community
development and promoting children’s rights.
COPE stands for the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic
Enterprise. COPE is a local Lao organization that works
with the government to provide high quality prostheses and
mobility devices as well as rehabilitation care free of
cost. As a subtitle on its website, COPE uses the phrase
“Helping People Move On.”
There were several interesting displays at the COPE headquarters
in Vientiane including a map of Laos showing the concentration
of bombing during the 1964-73 war.
Density of US bombing of Laos Upper red area is Xieng Khouang province
Lower red area represents the
Ho Chi Minh Trail
The province to the northeast almost completely
covered in red, Xieng Khouang, was where we were heading to spend
the next 3 days.
A youtube video illustrating the work done by COPE, much but not
all of it done to repair damage of UXOs, is found here.
COPE’s website, http://www.copelaos.org/,
also highlights a 2012 visit made by US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton to COPE in which she commented, “We have to do more.”
g An unexploded cluster bomb Inside are small “bombies” as the Lao call
them
Sampling what it would be
like to have an artificial limb
Aileen Killen: As a child of the Vietnam
War, I am still having a hard time getting my head around the
whole UXO thing. I got my first (and only detention) in catholic
high school for wearing a black armband with my uniform on the
day of the moratorium in DC. I am channeling the protester
in me and telling the Lao bomb story to everyone
who will listen.
Here are a few numerical facts from one
of the posters on the wall at COPE:
580,000 bombing missions over
Laos between 1964 and 1973 (that's an average of one every 8
minutes, 24 hours a day, 365
days a year, for 9 years)
> 2 million tons of ordnance
> 270 million bombies (the
bomblets
or submunitions from cluster bombs)
30% failed to detonate (>80 million unexploded
bombies)
all 17 provinces still suffer
from UXO contamination
>50,000 people killed as a
result of UXO incidents from 1964
>20,000 of those were after
the end of the war (from 1974 on)
13,500 lost a limb
40% of them are children
There are still about 100
casualties a year from UXOs.
US Embassy. We met Deputy Chief
of Mission Paul Mayer, who gave us a brief presentation about US
relations with Laos (not great) and noted that the US was
contributing to the bomb clearance efforts there – but only, of
course, to the limits our budget allows. And those limits
appear to be significant.
The team visits the US Embassy in Vientiane DCM Paul Mayer is in the back middle L to R: unknown, Lao Kang, Maggie, Josie, Chris, Sarah,
Lauren,Hannah,Dot, Hoop, Brittany, Misha Paul, Casey, Aileen, Karen, Ray, Tracy, Sara, Luna, Emil
A week after returning home from Laos I was reading about US
relations with Laos and see that we have accused the Lao
government of committing genocide against the Hmong ethnic
minority. We spent more than three days in Hmong country
visiting Hmong villages and making friends with the villagers. I
don’t know what else to say other than, … I had no idea!
At the risk of straying yet more from my narrative, here is a bit
of background on the above paragraph. The Hmong ethnic group
originated in China and migrated southwards mostly in the 1800s;
many ended up in Laos. During the Vietnam War, a large
number of Hmong supported the US government in the “secret war”
against the communist Pathet Lao (“Secret?” I hear you ask …
We - as did the North Vietnamese – claimed we had no active
involvement in Laos: we were both lying and Laos suffered for
it).
Many of the Hmong fighters fled to Thailand following the Pathet
Lao’s victory in 1975. Some of them, however, continued to
hide in the jungles of Laos and it is they who are supposedly
targeted for government reprisal. Which surprises me because most
of them would be in their 60s and 70s now, and I doubt they have
too many younger followers.
At any rate, many of the Hmong that fled to Thailand – most after several years in refugee camps – were
eventually allowed to enter the US, and now it is estimated that
there are about 200,000 Hmong in the US, concentrated in
California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Anne Fadiman’s book, The
Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, contains many touching
descriptions of the Hmong, based on the Hmong that resettled in
the US, but also reaching back to the lives of the Hmong in
Laos. Also see http://www.hmongculture.net/hmong-people.
MAG (Mines Advisory Group). Although we didn’t get to
meet with any MAG representatives, they are one of the major
players in the whole UXO story. Through liaison with villagers,
authorities, hospitals, governments, aid agencies and other
partners, MAG is able to prioritize its work based on the needs of
affected communities. After MAG teams collect vital
information to support and guide the clearance process, MAG can
then prioritize clearance tasks, ensuring the higher impact, more
urgent tasks are conducted first.
In addition to the prioritized clearing and releasing of land, MAG
employs roving teams to address items found and reported in
communities. These roving teams are small, usually about 5 people
in size. By employing roving teams, MAG can provide for the
safety of the population as items are discovered while still
systematically clearing and releasing land for development.
We saw a small team checking out an area about to be developed for
a new school in one of the villages we visited; it may well have
been one of these roving teams.
Atlantis visits Hmong Country. We lunched
on Tuesday at Kob Jai Deu and caught a 1:40 PM flight to
Xieng Khouang. 30 minutes later we
were on the ground. It’s barely 200 miles to Xieng Khouang,
but it’s about an 8-hour drive; flying is the way to go! We headed
for the hot springs (Nam Oun) in the village of Pieng Chan.
The hot springs were great and it was nice to relax.
Princeton contingent relaxing in the tub at the
Hot Springs L to R: Emil, Hoop ’07, Casey ’07, Misha ’06, Maggie ’06,
Chris, Dot ‘14 Lauren ‘12 looks over us
But the relaxation ended shortly thereafter.
We were broken up into 3 teams and given a flip video camera and
told we were to produce 3 videos before we’d be allowed to leave
the country (wink): one each on “Benefits of Participation in
Sport”, “Safe Spaces for Sport and Play”, and “Exclusion in
Sport”.
Wednesday January 30
This day and the next were two of the most amazing of my rugby
life, even take the word rugby out of that phrase. We conducted
outreach activities in 3 villages where we basically played rugby
with the local kids.
Lowland Vientiane in lower left, basically
everything else is mountainous
The upper two red markers are both in
Xieng Khouang Province:
W marker is Plain of Jars, E is Nonghet, just 5 miles west of Vietnam
(Hanoi is in upper right of map)
The area between the two red markers is where we visited.
(The right marker is less than 5 miles from Vietnam; Hanoi is
in the upper right-hand corner)
In all of the villages that we visited the
experience was amazing (sorry for the continuing use of this
word). We began by meeting the children, a few warm-up exercises
(all of these were child-friendly, i.e. fun), and all the pictures
show tons of smiles. Our players were coaches/participants, and
despite no one understanding a word of the others’ language, the
communication was pretty good.
Village 1. On
Wednesday, we drove to Lao Kang’s village. There, we worked
with children and youth from there and two
nearby villages: another Hmong village and also a Khmu* village. There were over 240 children in
attendance, plus at least 110 spectators from the
village. Some little things I learned about the meanings of a couple of the village
names: “Cow Water” and “Smelly
Water.” (Not too odd, when you consider that another village we visited translates as "River of Monkey Shit."
*Khmu = another ethnic group of
Laos. Between them, the Hmong and the Khmu represent
nearly 20% the population of Laos, and the majority of the
population of Xieng Khouang.
We spent a lot of time Wednesday and Thursday driving through
eastern Nonghet and it was informative to get a sense of the
physical environment: we were at about 4500 feet, and the
temperature was noticeably cooler than in Vientiane. To get
a sense of the scenery from a moving car, click on “driving
to Lao Kang’s village.” (File: 2013-0130a1-lkv-driving
to lkv-110_1711/12.m4v)
One of the first things we saw when we entered the village was a
group of MAG workers using metal detectors to scan the hillside
for UXO (the village is replacing its school with a new building
on this hill, which was immediately adjacent to the area on which
we were playing rugby).
MAG workers clearing out space for new school
building Yellow poles indicate suspect area to be
checked
A panoramic view of practice at Village 1,
showing different stations This is the entire amount of flat space in
the village (and it’s the biggest and flattest area of
any village we visited)
“Rugby is a girls’ sport!” (☹☺) … Maggie
had been at Village 1 before, and had
worked with large groups of kids, mostly girls, and our mix of
children also comprised a majority of girls, though there was a group of boys as well. There was
another group of boys behind us playing
volleyball. When they were invited to join the [male] rugby
players one of the boys responded – “No! … rugby is a girls’
sport!” This is my favorite quote of the week: for a
moment it seemed as if the world had been turned upside down.
Boys playing rugby in the
foreground In the background, right, boys playing
volleyball. “Rugby is a girls’ sport,” the latter said,
declining offer to join us
It is true that, in these mountain villages, rugby is a touch
game. There is not enough flat space for a field, the flat
space is not really flat, the ground is not only hard as a rock,
it’s got occasional rocks and gullies etc. interspersed, so
perhaps the boys didn’t know all of what they were missing.
Nevertheless, to my mind it’s a hilarious quote, and says
something about first impressions locking in and staying with us …
Aileen Killen: “As a pre-Title IX girl, I
never had the same feeling about organized sport that the
Atlantis women have. We had no sports teams in my
elementary school and only basketball in high school (and that
was the days when guards did not cross center court!), which
those of us trying to be " hippies" would never be caught
playing. I was, however, a card-carrying member of NOW and
it was great to hear that the Lao kids think of rugby as a
girls’ game.”
People watching our session; parents up top,
other kids below Most of the kids below also took part in practice
Also watching was this man with a gun Not sure why he was there
Here are a few examples of the
many little drills / games that we shared. They are all
designed to introduce elements of the game in an ambience of
fun.
In the clapping game, you’ve got to clap before
catching the ball. If you clap and the ball isn’t thrown
to you, you sit down and the game ends with the last
participant standing. Following that game, the players
warmed up by jogging in a large circle.
L: The clapping game: the
girl at right has already clapped and catches the ball R: Warming up the kids Click images to see
A few girls were already in costume for a dance
performance later; it didn’t stop them from participating in
the rugby elements. Then there was a touch rugby game with
mostly girls, shown in the second clip.
L: Even the girls in dancing costumes took
part in the rugby R: Touch game Click images to see
The next clip is the touch game of the boys that
were the characters in the “rugby is a girls’ sport”
drama. Then, just like in all of rugby, after each game
the opponents salute each other, to promote the concept of
respect for your enemy.
L: Boys-playing rugby in the foreground;
playing volleyball in the background (R) R: Respect your opponent, the contest is
over Click images to see
Dancers. After the rugby, children
and youth from the three villages put on a wonderful cultural
show, including music and dance from across Lao, Hmong and
Khmu cultures. First, a Hmong village presented a Hmong
dance, then a Hmong village presented a Lao dance, and
finally, a Khmu village presented a Lao dance.
L: Hmong villagers do a
Hmong dance R: Hmong villagers do a Lao dance Click images to see
L: Khmu villagers do a
Lao dance R: The 2nd group of Hmong dancers reprise
as boy rugger runs in path Click images to see
1st group of Hmong dancers watches 2nd group
dance
Qeej. Following
the dancers, a player holding a most unique instrument came
onto the stage to the enthusiastic applause of all including
the dancers. The approved transliteration of the word
(in RPA or Romanized Popular Alphabet) for this instrument is
“qeej” but until you’re specifically informed in Hmong, it
doesn’t give you a clue how to pronounce it. A close
approximation is actually “cane” with the n nasalized, kind of
like an ng. Here’s very roughly how the Hmong RPA
transliteration works: all Hmong words end in a vowel sound
but there is a consonant added, and this final transliterated
consonant indicates only the tone (which most of us will
struggle to figure out without being further educated).
The double vowel indicates that the word will end with a nasal
sound, and the “ee” is pronounced like the “a” in cane (or the
“E” in “Emil”). “j” is the tone (high falling).
The word “Hmong” in the accepted Hmong RPA transliteration is
spelled “Hmoob,” which neither I nor any other lay person
would pronounce correctly from reading it: it’s pronounced
simply Mong (or actually to me sounds closer to “Mung”) in the
Mong Leng (Green Hmong) dialect, but in the Hmong Der (White
Hmong) dialect, the “H” represents air being blown through the
nose before the “M”, a sound we don’t have before an “M” in
English. (The colors noted above refer to the dominant colors
of each group’s traditional clothing. “b” represents a high
level tone.)
But, … have I digressed? Here is the qeej, or “khaene”
(another transliteration I’ve seen – see
http://www.hmongnet.org/hmong-au/qeej.htm” for more
info). It is one of the oldest harmonic instruments in the
world. “The most important function of the khaen
(another transliteration) for the Hmong is during the funeral
ceremony when it is played continuously for many days. The
soul of the deceased cannot return to the ancestors without
this ceremony, which is fundamental to the Hmong world view.
The khaen is also played at the New Year Festival and special
occasions.”
The qeej player approaches stage Lots of anticipation on faces of dancers
Qeej player in action Click on image to see his
performance
Following the qeej player, a group of Atlantis
players joined with the group of local dancers in several
minutes of spontaneous dancing. Here are a few still
pictures of that event; a couple of them are associated with
video clips as well. Unfortunately a lot of the video
was filmed by someone that was clearly too short to film
accurately over the crowd (so I had to edit out a couple
minutes worth). But – all in all, it was a great few minutes
that everyone enjoyed, including the spectators.
The impromptu dancing began with a few of us joining during
the reprise by the 2nd group of Hmong dancers. This
lasted just a few seconds: click on this link:
Atlantis
joins local dancers. Then
the first group of Hmong dancers and the Khmu dancers joined
as well, shown here, Everyone
dancing.
Finally, the Atlantis and local girls got in a circle with
“performers” moving in and out – though it’s mostly blocked
out, it looks like Brittany got it off to a rousing start with
a split. By the end, everyone was having a great time
including the crowd that had gathered around to watch. To see what you can, either click on the
third still image below.
L: Lao Kang in center R: Hoop & friend dancing
Huge crowd has gathered to watch these
impromptu performances Click image to see
In the middle of all of this, Tracy was running
around giving high fives to anyone that cared to receive
them. Check it out here: Tracy’s
high 5
Following the performance and lunch we were officially
welcomed by the village Elder and took part in a Hmong Baci
ceremony (similar but not identical to the Lao ceremony; the
Baci ceremony exists in some form throughout all Lao ethnic
groups). We thanked the village for its hospitality and the
first stage of an eye-opening week was completed.
Waiting for lunch: Dot chilling with a
couple of elders: a musician & Ray
L: Meal is blessed by village elder (at
head of table) R: We partake of meal
During the meal, we are wished good luck via
symbols typical of that wish: this is Misha’s hand holding an
egg and some money. A white string on her wrist, she is
triply blessed.
Misha with string, egg, money: all good
luck symbols
The Village Elder (head of table) will soon
make a presentation Click image to see video
Before we left Atlantis gathered with the
dancers, the LRF Youth Leaders, and whoever else wanted in for
a group picture.
Atlantis, dancers, LRF Youth Leaders, and
more
Here are a few of the villagers that said
goodbye as we left
We got back in our vans and headed to Thamxay village.
En route we passed several roadside villages. One
village we visited on this trip doesn’t even have
electricity. Scattered along the roadside, at most
villages we passed, however, are 21st century satellite
dishes, advertisements for wireless services, etc.
Roadside satellite dish
Another roadside town and a wireless
advertisement
Thamxay is home to the ChildFund field office, a
guesthouse, a market, and a couple of restaurants and small
shops. The buildings for Nonghet district
government are located a short (three minute) walk away. By the way, Nonghet
means “Oxen Pond” in Lao.
Nonghet. After checking
into the guesthouse, we regrouped and headed to the market to
do shopping for our group dinner.
View from the guesthouse
Shopping for the evening meal
Nonghet Market Scenes
More Nonghet Market Scenes
Village 2. After
that, we headed to our second village, a 5-minute drive from
Thamxay towards the Vietnam border. Boys and girls
from another of ChildFund’s partner
villages, a 10-minute walk, joined us. Incidentally,
Village 2 won its division in the
inaugural Hmong New Year Women’s Touch Rugby tournament.
A panoramic view of just about all the flat
space in Village 2
This was a smaller, more manageable session with some 50
participants. Our players broke into groups and led
games, drills and touch rugby matches for four groups of boys
and girls, while a few Atlantis players took the youngest
players for fun, basic games – some for developing rugby
skills, and some for developing basic motor skills, balance
and strength. And some just to have fun.
The process wasn’t too much different from at the first
village and I don’t think there was as much picture or video
shooting. The following passing drill with little kids
went on for about 2 minutes without a dropped pass before I
thought of taping it; here’s the next minute or so.
Young children showing off their ball
handling Click image to see video
The next clip shows what some people call “Ultimate Rugby”
(pass in any direction).
Finally, the Atlantis players working with the youngest kids
moved from rugby skill games to a finale that had nothing to
do with rugby (animal sounds). Just to have fun.
Although it’s not rugby related, hopefully the kids will
associate this (and fun!) with the people that brought them
rugby
L: game of “ultimate rugby”
R: Everyone’s a barnyard animal Click images to see video
Village 2 has
actually built goalposts for their rugby field;
here the ball carrier is about to score between the
posts.
The game takes place at one of the Village
2 goalposts.
As at Village 1, we took a group
picture with Atlantis, the LRF youth leaders and the
children of Village 2. Just
like so many rugby team pictures, it took place in front of
the goal posts.
Atlantis, youth leaders and the children of
Village 2
After our session in Village 2, we
returned to the ChildFund office, where we met the team at the
field office. Mr. Song, the Provincial Area Manager,
gave an introduction to ChildFund’s approach to work in the
area, while Khounkham, the Child Participation and Rights
Sector Manager, explained the specific projects the
organization is working on, which run the gamut from
education, maternal health, water and sanitation, using sport,
play and media to amplify the voices of children, food
security and building the capacity of government and local
duty bearers to provide essential services to communities.
Listening to ChildFund presentation in
Nonghet Our only close-up exposure in Laos to
“the real world,” I.e. with desks, full in-trays, etc.
What would traveling abroad be like without
traveler’s diarrhea … It began earlier today and by the end
of the tour nearly everyone would be victimized (I myself
made it to Las Vegas: I arrived healthy but spent the next
24 hours sick in bed). Sarah Sall is the only one I know who
remained symptom-free not only throughout Laos, but also Las
Vegas … (Though I think there were a couple others.)
Regardless, it was, in each case, a small blip that was over
in less than 24 hours.
Wednesday evening we cooked for ourselves in Nonghet (well
most cooked, some worked on video) and stayed in a local
guesthouse. It was cold. Pictures during the
preparation of the evening meal follow.
Hard at work preparing the evening meal
L: Maggie and Chris at work R: Hannah cooking
While others cooked, I worked on my team’s
video project, determined to win the competition (we didn’t:☹)
Off to bed; we still have another day and a half in this
part of the world. The guest house accommodations in
Nonghet are very nice; they seem to be used to hosting
visitors.
g 
