Acceptance

Great day! First, in the morning, an organization has accepted my request to shadow one of their UXO clearance teams for a week in September. They're ex-military, so our meeting this morning was actually a bit intimidating. I sort of wished I was a little better prepared with more questions and had read their website in more than a cursory fashion. At least I got a haircut yesterday and wore a clean collared shirt. But nonetheless, they're willing to take me, which is quite exciting. Sort of a breakthrough, since I've been here in Vientiane requesting something of the sort for over a week.
I may be speaking a lot of French. The supervisor whose team I'll be following is French or French Swiss, I believe. But that's alright. I've been speaking at least a little French every day, as well as learning a bit more Lao. My brain starts to swim with words after a while.
The expedition will be out in the weeds in Savannakhet province. He showed me some satellite maps covered in webs of red dots of varying concentrations. This is data they've been given by the US embassy, each dot indicating an airstrike from the sixties and seventies, accompanied by what the aircraft was, how many, on what date, what the target was, what ordnance, class of ordnance, how many bombs each aircraft was carrying, and a bomb damage assessment. It gives them a decent idea of what to expect where. This web of dots indicates where the Air Force thought that the Ho Chi Minh trail was, or else where there was heavy fighting. In some places you see a line of dots in a row where no road, river or village lies, and those places tend to be where the NVA/PL forces were pushing a trail through to attack some target, and the bombardment record marks this trail. In some places, the web is so dense no white is showing. Frightening, really, to see how dense the bombing was. Millions of dollars a day worth of bombs in the sixties. Good thing we showed those bastards. We sure showed 'em.
Nobody freak out; I'm not going to get blown up. They really know what they're doing. And I'm not doing the actual work, just shadowing. The foreign experts train, teach, and supervise, and local recruits do the work. The idea is that the local teams become self-sufficient in relatively short order.
This will be an opportunity to get some excellent photographs of areas and people directly affected by the war. I'll be able to meet some folks and interview them. And UXO clearance is one of the biggest ongoing effects of our war here.
I like this UXO clearance team; they're non-nonsense, goal-oriented, and I have no doubt, efficient. The military will do that for you.
In any case, I was flattered that they took me on so easily after I sent them a letter and my CV. One thing he inquired about is how I spoke French. Maybe my resume just seemed pretty good, or at least to indicate that I wouldn't be a hindrance.