Safe harvest
Words and photograph by Sean Sutton
Close to a stream at the bottom of a hill near to Houay Dok Kham village in eastern Xieng Khoung province, Thong Xai and his extended family of about fifteen people have begun the day with a ceremony to thank the spirits for this year’s rice harvest. They eat a specially prepared meal and drink ‘Lao Lao’, a strong and pungent home-brewed spirit. Thong Xai’s wife Pha explained: “We do this every year to give thanks and to ask for a good harvest next year. We invite the spirits to come and join us for the meal.”
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| Thong Xai and the rest of his family take a break from harvesting their rice crops |
Soon the family are thrashing rice grains out of the recently harvested and dried plants. The rice is collected into a large pile and the stems discarded to one side to be used later as animal feed. Children joyously and chaotically run around performing summersaults into the beds of hay.
In the past MAG roving teams have destroyed a lot of ordnance here and now a team utilising the village assisted clearance concept is clearing the farmland surrounding the village. So far they have cleared forty hectares of the land, benefitting about twenty families.
Thong Xai: “There have been more than ten accidents here on this land,” he said. “Two people died and five were injured while farming. Also four died dismantling bombs for scrap metal. The last accident happened last year before MAG had cleared the land.”
Despite the accidents and the danger, like many of the villagers in Laos, the people have had no choice but to continue farming.
“We have always been afraid,” continued Thong Xai. “Especially when preparing the land for planting in April and May. Every year the villagers found bombs, usually about a hundred a week around this village. We would tell MAG and they would come and destroy them in big bangs. We had to work slowly and carefully. It was very scary, but without rice we couldn't eat.”
Now, thanks to MAG and and the support of it's donors, the land is safe.
“This year when we ploughed the land we didn’t find a single bomb. Not even an old bullet. I couldn’t believe it. We are so grateful. We are safe here now and that makes a big difference to us. This year our harvest is very good,” said Pha. “At the ceremony this morning we thanked MAG for saving our lives.”
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