Photographer Rick Gunn is biking around the world and contacted us recently while biking through Vietnam and asked if he could visit some of our project sites. Here is an excerpt from an article that ran in the Tahoe Daily Tribune and is also on Rick's site with his stunning photographs of Vietnam another locations he has visited.
In my heart I wanted something different than the picture postcard experiences offered up by my travel guide. What I sought was something more meaningful, something deeper.
So I sent out a few e-mails.
In a stroke of luck, I received a reply from James Hathaway, co-founder of Clear Path International, a U.S.-based humanitarian mine action organization operating in central Vietnam. Clear Path International has provided surgical, medical, and financial assistance to more than 2,500 survivors of ordnance accidents and their families since the year 2000.
After an invite, I cycled 70 miles south to Da Nang, then made my way to the Da Nang Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Center, one of the places where Clear Path International assisted mine survivors
There I was introduced to 25-year-old Vinh Nguyen Dinh. Vinh was being fitted for a new prosthetic leg.
When his doctors were done with the fitting, I watched as Vinh pulled himself to a set of training rails.
Twenty minutes later, with muscles trembling and sweat pouring from his head, I stood in silent witness as Vinh took his first unassisted steps since the accident.
"Vinh was planting trees on his land," his doctor explained. "That's when he swung his pick into an unexploded bomb."
I cringed.
"It might take a while," the doctor concluded, "but Vinh will learn to walk again."
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