How the People of Laos are COPEing …. Vientiane

Woolly says – We’d had a slightly later start to the day, our huge breakfast needed to be walked off and feeling that we had got to grips with Vientiane I set off with confidence. Passing many of the places that we had seen yesterday it didn’t take long to arrive at the Cope Visitor centre, not maybe your usual touristy type of thing but one that we had all wanted to go to. Set up in 1996, COPE’s work has helped thousands of people with mobility related disabilities, including UXO survivors which now have access to prosthetic and orthotic services, allowing them to regain mobility and dignity. A very nice young lady greeted us at the door and told us to ask anything we wanted to before directing us into the cinema room. The video that we watched explained about the atrocities that Laos had gone through during the Vietnam war where it had been used as a bomb drop area as planes flew back to their bases, the country was the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita. Although not involved in the war themselves their people suffered and continue to suffer to this day. The removal of live bombs is still ongoing and only by clearing the land can farmers begin growing produce again, it’s a long process and every week someone still dies here from one of the incendiaries that remain. I was shocked and felt very humble at what the people face.

The film gave us information about how the cluster bombs were being disarmed as well as stories about people who had recently been injured through the simple task of lighting a fire or digging their ground.

Woolly says – The museum part was fascinating with lots more stories of how Cope has helped, providing prosthetic limbs and physio as well as a recently added outreach programme that goes into the smaller villages. Around the walls were examples of the limbs that people had fashioned for themselves as well as a display on how the plastic body parts are made and then shaped for each person’s own needs. Having left a donation (they don’t charge) which would go quite a long way towards a new leg for someone we wandered towards the river.

Our plan had been to investigate the night market but as it was still early I wasn’t sure that was going to happen, as we neared the reedy banks of the Mekong we found row upon row of small newly built shops, as I had suspected not many were trading although looking around it appeared that not many were occupied at all. The women didn’t seem to disappointed and having sat for a while we wandered on where we came to row upon row of stalls under tents, and there was me thinking I had got out of shopping!

No shopping involved but we did amble past hundreds of clothes stalls selling Hawaiian shirts and elephant themed clothing.

Woolly says – I think I could look cute in a pineapple shirt! With the evening drawing in and the crowds thickening it seemed like a good time to head back ready for more adventures in the morning.

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