Thailandia. : November 2012

One of my students Yindee typed a message for you all (he sat next to me watching "Tangled" as I typed this post):

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yindee

On our last day in Laos we went to a rehab center called "Cope." It is a center for physical therapy, prosthetic limbs and rehabilitation. Most of the patients in the cope center are victims of live cluster bombs that are scattered all across Laos from the Vietnam and Indochina war. One hundred people die each year from these cluster bombs and specialists say that it will take over two thousand years to remove all the bombs. On the COPE site they have a visitor's center and that is where we spent most of our time.

This experience was by far my favorite part of Laos. It gave us the chance to see Laos outside of the capital. We saw Laos through the eyes of the natives and what they go through each day to stay afloat in this communist society. I have been worried about doing this post because I want to do the Cope Center justice and the lives that have been changed by it and I can now add my name to that list. I will never see war, East Asia or my blessed life the same. I am so grateful for our Canadian roommate at the hostel who befriended us and told us about the center.

For starters, here are Cope's main four roles they posted on their website (http://www.copelaos.org/):

To act as a portal for skills development and training, upgrading clinical skills in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and P&O within the government rehabilitation services and extending to management and administrative skills to ensure that the COPE develops capacity as a local organisation.
To support expenses of patients who are unable to pay for treatment and associated costs as well as upgrading facilities at the five centres currently supported by COPE.
To act as an interface between the donor community and the Lao Government. International donors require a recognised standard of auditing and financial accountability for proposals to be successfully accepted and managed.
To facilitate referral between the network of clinical services to provide comprehensive treatment of people living with mobility impairments, ensuring people with disabilities in Lao PDR will have access to the rehabilitation services that can improve their ability to participate in their communities.

The facility was incredible and we went around with a guide who told us about everything in the visitor's center. Here are a few pictures from the visitor's center:

The presence of the Vietnam war continues to play a role in the lives of the Lao

people even when the bombs aren't live and here are some examples:

Boat made from a bomb

Pots and pans

A home made from B- 52 shells on the right side.

Each read pole represents a live bomb that needs to be destroyed

B - 52 Bombs

This is a cluster bomb and around 600 of them are inside the B-52s.

They function like a grenade and take lives each year.

This was a model of a typical Lao home and our guide told us that there are too many bombs

to build homes around them so the families will just build their houses on

stilts so the heat from their kitchens don't set off an explosive. I can't imagine

living in constant fear every time I cook for my family.

This is a mobile of make-shift prosthetic limbs that patients

used before they came to the Cope Center.

After seeing all of the visitor's center we watched a few documentaries. One was called "Bomb Harvest" and it was about an Australian who is training native Laotian people to disarm the scattered bombs. The film was incredible. It discussed the illegal scrap metal industry in Laos. Metal from a single B-52 bomb can feed a family for months and due to this families, even children, are willing to risk their lives to collect scrap metal to sell. The team that this Australian man organized saves lives everyday but the disarming of the bombs bring terrifying flashbacks to the elderly and bring some families to tears seeing all of the possibilities that are attached to the scrap metal taken from their town. The documentary was incredible and I really learned a lot. Also, this documentary is available online.

After the documentaries, I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Kim, a patient of The Cope Center four years ago. Peter was sixteen when his friend tossed him a live cluster bomb that exploded, it not only robbed him of his hands but also his sight. He now works in The Cope Center as an advocate and is sharing his story with thousands, he has even met Hillary Clinton. Peter was very kind to us told us about what his life is like now. He said that he loves to break dance and make new friends. I told him that I was an English teacher in Thailand and the flirting began! Through giggles, he jokingly asked me if I could be his teacher! Two of the other teachers came over and he told us that our voices sounded sweet, like sugar! He was so cute and he made us laugh so much!!