COPE

As awful as the city of Vientiane was, one great thing did come out of our visit there: our stop at the COPE center!

Let's go back to the night before.....

After a very comfortable 6 hour bus ride from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, we arrived in the town around 730.  We busted out the Lonely Planet and headed in the direction of the "recommended" hostel (thanks, LP).  This place was absolutely disgusting but we had our bags on, it was dark, and we were exhuasted- so we stayed.  We threw our bags down, locked up our passports, and headed out in search of food (we have fallen into a bad habit of boarding day-long buses without eating lunch.....makes for two starving girls come 8pm).

Within 5 minutes of our food search, Katy and I exchanged glances and knew we were outta Vientiane the next morning.  The city is gross-garbage strewn all over the streets, beggars everywhere (and I am used to the Chicago homeless population and this is much worse)....and you can't walk five feet without bumping into a ladyboy hooker propped suggestively on top of a motorbike.  Despite the icky feeling that was surrounding us, we had no problem making the best of the situation and actually finding some delicious pizza for dinner (first Western food we've had) and then moving on to a few different ticket offices in search of our way out of there. 

Within a half an hour, we had our ticket south to Thakhek booked for the next morning. With our pick up scheduled at 1130, we made a plan to see all the sights of Vientiane in the few hours preceding.  Turns out, out of the three places we went (the Laos Natural History Museum, Pha That Luang (most important national monuent in Laos), and the COPE center), the only place that was free (COPE) was by far the best thing we did in Vietiane!

A brief history lesson before I describe what COPE is.......(and please understand this is following my basic reading about Laos history, mostly from my travel bible: Lonely Planet....don't take this as complete fact)

    Laos had been under control of the Siamese around the 18th century until the French eventually negotiated their control (hence the lasting French influence here)....until around the time of WWII during which a nationalist movement was formed to prevent the country's return to French rule.  Further struggles ensued as the country searched for an identity.....etc, etc. Fastforward to 1965 (in conjunction with the Vietnam War)  at which point the US started dropping massive amounts of cluster bombs ("bombies," as they are known in Laos) in the eastern and Northeastern regions of Laos.  You can learn more about the reasons behind all of this, etc if you simply google "secret war in Laos."  Or maybe most of you already know about all of this.....you have to forgive my scarce history knowledge as I write this--but at least I am learning along the way!

Back to the bombing.....from my COPE booklet: "From 1964-1973....the US Air Force carried out a massive aerial bombardment equal to a plane-load every 9 minutes for 9 years."  Now what is the current problem with all these bombs? 30% of them failed to explode on landing.....leaving them scattered throughout Laos as landmines.  Sadly, many children and adults are still being affected by these unexploded ordnances (UXOs).  At the time of publication of their brochure, there were still an estimated 78 million UXOs in Laos, and as recently as January 2008, one bombie accident killed four children and inured five others.  I don't have an exact number for how many Laos people have been affected by the bombies, but I know the number is quite high.

One of the huge components of this problem is that the metal that is found in the bombies is worth a lot of money. Remember from my previous post just how poor this country is...and many adults take the risk and go searching for bombies to sell the metal.  And what do you think kids do when they see their dads "playing" with this metal? Go out and look for them as well.  It's a really devastating concept and I actually felt quite guilty yesterday when Katy and I showed up at the COPE center and the nicest man, Nam, greeted us and said "Where are you from?"  Should've gone with Canada.......

So: COPE (Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise). And if you are still reading at this point, then I have succeeded in my blog because I just scrolled back and this is quite possibly the longest explanation ever!  Anyhow, the COPE center was established in 1997 with the goal of helping UXO victims gain access to prostethetic limbs, physical therapy, and other medical care associated with harm caused by UXO accidents.  The center has expanded to help other people who just need access to orthopedic care in general, and according to the center, about 50% of their current patients are UXO victims.  You must remember that medical care in Laos is almost non-existent...we in fact shared a local bus ride with a Aussie yesterday whose brother got hit by a tuk-tuk in Vientiane, the capital of Laos- and he had to be flow to Bangkok for medical care.  He actually received "stitches" in Laos on his leg and when they got to Bangkok, they unstitched him and realized that the doctors in Vientiane had completely missed the fact that the accident had severed his achilles tendon.....woops.

So there ya go. Make the best out of every situation...and we definitely found a reason to be glad we were in Vientiane!  If you are interested in learning more about COPE..... www.copelaos.org

It's a pretty neat organization and the people who worked there were sooo nice.  There is also a documentary that we didn't have time to watch, but if anyone is interested (I'm sure I will watch when I get home) it was called Bomb Harvest, and it's Australian.

Next up? Further south to the 4000 islands, or Si Phan Don....for some time laying on the beach :)