Personal tour to Ban naphia

Wrote about my plan with Ban Napia – but didn’t appearance what the villagers are in fact accomplishing and what makes this village so special!
The endure week, I had the adventitious to certificate the beanery authoritative action in Ban Napia. Afterwards the “Secret War” concluded in Laos, the country was (and still is) blowzy with UXO and abandoned bomb shells. Despite the adverse history and the crisis complex in war atom collection, a drifter from the arctic of Laos accomplished the humans of Ban Napia how to use the legacies of war for something useful: 30 years ago, the villagers started to cook the aluminum locations of bombs to transform them into spoons.
The assembly action is absolutely simple: As a aboriginal footfall ample pieces of metal are broiled in the blaze in adjustment to abstracted aluminum from added metals (as steel). Baby pieces of aluminum are again broiled in a anhydrate and already broiled caked in the cast through a baby aperture at the top (the cast is fabricated locally: a board anatomy abounding with a admixture of ash and baptize broiled in the sun – or adobe – and an absolute beanery is acclimated for the shape). Molds can be opened afterwards one minute and can be bound reused.

Today, there are 10 families complex in the beanery authoritative business and a approved ancestors can aftermath 900 spoons in one abounding day of plan – application 25 kg of aluminum and 0,5 m3 of wood. The absolute assembly for the accomplished apple is about 145,000 spoons per year!
The beanery authoritative creates a lot of absorption alfresco Ban Napia – and altercation opinions. Abounding humans I talked with (especially tourists) are absorbed by how businesslike the villagers accord with the legacies of war. War atom becomes just addition ability which villagers use to advance their accustomed lives. Aswell the transformation of an article from something that kills to something that feeds seems to address to people.
However, there are aswell added choir that affirmation that the use of bombs for beanery authoritative encourages war atom accumulating from accessible communities (for 1 kilo of atom metal humans get about 14.000 kip = about 1,30 Euro, which is acceptable money for humans in rural areas) – and abounding accidents with UXO appear to humans who aggregate bombs to sell! There accept been even 3 accessory accidents with UXO in Ban Napia and 3 spoonmakers got afflicted from splashes due to the melting of a detonator and a fuse. My acquaintance Bounmi (also an UXO Survivor) already said to me: “The humans who aggregate war atom alone anticipate about money. They don’t anticipate about their lives.”
Personally, I anticipate it is acceptable that the beanery authoritative in Ban Napia is altercation because it agency that humans alpha to allocution and altercate about the war, the legacies of war, war atom collection, about poor communities etc. It helps to appear awareness. But it is even added important to plan with the villagers and the accumulation alternation to accomplish abiding that the action of spoon-making and atom metal accumulating becomes safe. War atom accumulating will appear anyways and instead of blank this, it’s bigger to face the botheration and brainwash humans to accomplish abiding that no one looses lives or get afflicted by UXO now and in future. And I’m blessed that HELVETAS (together with MAG) is alive to advance the bearings in Ban Napia