Laos Why We Cannot Forget: Memoirs of Shared Histories

On a Manila-based newspaper, there is a grainy photograph taken on January 7, 1957. It is a lineup of several Filipinos about to board a plane bound for Laos . They included three physicians, one dentist, three nurses, one nutritionist. They landed in Vientiane, capital of an Asian kingdom in a geographical location that made it a “buffer” pawn among six countries that locked it on all sides, some desirous to keep it in their Cold War ideological spheres.The Vietnam war (1955- 1975) raged on its eastern border, spilling its carnage into its own soil. It had its own bloody civil war to contend with -- a Communist inspired insurgency. Newly freed from France ’ s colonial rule, very poor and undeveloped, it lacked the nation-building skills and infrastructure to survive.This is the setting that the Filipino volunteers found themselves in when they arrived. They were invited to render technical and humanitarian services at a time these were most needed. The aid project they were tasked to do was unique. The existing model for international development assistance during this era called for donors from Northern white, rich to Southern poor, black or brown recipients. The Filipinos were going to do something else not tried before in Laos or any place else. Firstly it was an Asian-to-Asian effort, a developing country donor to a desperately poor underdeveloped host. Furthermore, it was more than an emergency, short-term, humanitarian winning-hearts and minds campaign versus an insurgency.There was no point in treating Lao patients only to send them back into desperate circumstances that contributed to them in the first place. Hence among the volunteers who followed the first batch were agriculturists, health care educators, social workers and other livelihood technicians who immersed themselves in Lao village life, in remote, sometimes inhospitable regions. At that grass roots level, they recognized the roots of development problems and provide sustainable solutions.So what happens when young, impressionable people live and work communally in austere lifestyles that in some ways were similar to their provincial roots in the Philippines but in other ways exotic. One aid specialist said that the “volunteers’ work and living conditions pushed the limits of their technical training and demanded high levels of physical and emotional stamina.” They exemplified an interesting example of development aid “unique in Lao history and perhaps in Philippine history, one non-governmental organization working consistently over 18 years.” Over that time, 600 volunteers served in Laos , about 100 on the ground at any one time, most signing up for two-year terms. Twenty one died there, mostly in accidents. The fact that over 115 marriages were also consummated among them testifies to an intense experience of their formative years.This book compiles how they lived their lives during Laos ’ most historic events. Someone wrote that everything fades eventually. At least when someone dies, you mourn. It so much harder when someone disappears. We blink and we miss what she or he can tell us about what they remember. They are now recorded here. Read more