SUMMER 2019 || HEIFER.ORG

HEIFER VIETNAM

Movingon in theMekong
10
28
42

HISTORIESINTERTWINEDPLUS

CAN I RECYCLE THIS?
A handy guide forrecycling at home.

BETTER AND WETTER
IN SENEGAL'S SAHELHOW A HEIFER PROJECTPREVENTS MIGRATION

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 1

4/8/19 9:18 AM

JOIN EMMY-WINNING
ACTRESS UZO ADUBAAND MAKE A GIFT
THAT WILL CHANGE LIVESIN AFRICA
Uzo became Heifer’s first-ever celebrity
ambassador to Africa after seeing firsthand theeffect livestock, training and other assistance hadon the families she met in Uganda.
Join her by giving a special gift that makes apositive change in the world while letting yourfriends and family know you care.
Uzo helped us put together this special collectionof gifts because she saw the difference they make.

Looking for the right gift for a
Birthday. . . Wedding . . . Anniversary . . .
GIVE A HEIFER TOMARK A SPECIALOCCASION

A GIFT OF A GOAT
MAKES EVERYDAY BETTERWHAT BETTER GIFT
THAN CHICKS FOR
YOUR “CHICKADEE”?

Heifer $500

Goat $120

Flock of Chicks $20

A good dairy cow canproduce up to four gallons
of milk a day – enoughfor a family to drink
and share with theirneighbors, and still haveenough to sell!

The gift of a dairy goat isa lasting, meaningful way
for you to help a little girlor boy on the other sideof the world while sharing
your caring spirit withthose close to your heart.

Help hungry families bygiving a starter flock of 10
to 50 chicks. One goodhen can lay up to 200
eggs a year, so there areplenty of eggs for families
to eat, share and sell!

To order gifts visit www.heifer.org/catalog orcall toll-free: 855.848.6437
Let us know if you want a gift card sent to someone you love to recognize your gift!

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 2

4/8/19 9:18 AMhorizons

Dear Determined
Humanitarians,Three years ago, we set a
refined goal within our
mission to end hunger andpoverty: to move smallscale farmers to a living income.
It’s an important differentiator for
Heifer, but it unites us with others
who have pledged to help achieve
the Sustainable Development
Goals, specifically those of zero
hunger and no poverty by 2030.
Though the SDGs are lofty, we
believe they’re truly attainable.
We also believe that each one of
you can play a part in helping
shift the momentum so that wedo achieve these goals — it’s justa matter of how you frame yourown goals. No one has illustrated
this idea as eloquently as our own
ambassador to Africa, Uzo Aduba.
Speaking at the annual Social
Good Summit last year, Aduba
reflected on how individuals
could replicate in their daily
lives the work of large-scaleorganizations. “One choice that
we can make one day in our lives

has the potential to affect lives
larger than we can count,” Aduba
said. “Our job is not to change
someone; our job is to introduce
a pathway for someone to walk
down.” That’s precisely what
we do at Heifer International.
In this issue we’ll take a lookat one of our early successesof introducing new pathways
to families that are helping us
achieve our goals and the SDGs:
our programming in Vietnam,
where we’ve worked since 1987.
While our work there is set tocome to a close at the end of June,
our projects are on a trajectory
to exceed the living income
benchmark by at least $1,000.
It’s an early achievement inreaching our living income goal,
and I find this to be a true Heifer
success story at the macro level.
In the spirit of showcasing
progress and achieving goals,
we also offer a photo essay from
Senegal. You’ll see the very samecommunities we featured a year

ago as we return to the parchedregions of West Africa where awell Heifer helped drill is now
bringing fresh water for crops
and livestock. And in a nod to ourpast, we also feature a historicalperspective in an interview
with writer Peggy Reiff Miller.
She shares interesting tidbits
as well as some insight into theevolution of our organization
over the years, from a relief effort
to community development
and into market systems.
As you peruse this issue, I
hope you’re inspired by the
progress we’ve made over thelast 75 years. If so, I encourage
you take a cue from Aduba andsupport our work going forward
so we see an end to global hunger
and poverty in our lifetimes.
Yours for a better world,

Pierre U. Ferrari@HeiferCEO

HEIFER.ORG

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Feed the Hungry.

FEED YOUR FAITH.
Heifer International is a nonprofit dedicated to helping theleast of these around the world lift themselves out of hunger
and poverty. Our faith programs allow your congregation
to join us on our journey toward a poverty-free future.
Visit www.heifer.org/faith today for free resources.

ANIMAL
CRACKERS

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ARK
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DOUBLETHE CELEBRATION!
Celebrate knowing that you’re giving
someone else a reason to celebrate, too.
Whether it’s your birthday, your wedding
day or you just want the opportunity to
do good, fundraise for Heifer to create
opportunities for families in need.

VISIT WWW.HEIFER.ORG/FUNDRAISE
TO CREATE AND CUSTOMIZEYOUR FUNDRAISING PAGE!

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 2

4/8/19 9:18 AM

table of contents | Summer 2019

SUMMER 2019 || HEIFER.ORG

HEIFER VIETNAM

Movingon in theMekong
10
28
42

HISTORIESINTERTWINED

PLUS

10

Histories Intertwined

18

Moving on in
the Mekong

28

Better and Wetterin Senegal’s Sahel

CAN I RECYCLE THIS?
A handy guide forrecycling at home.

BETTER AND WETTER
IN SENEGAL'S SAHELHOW A HEIFER PROJECTPREVENTS MIGRATION

COVER
Bui Thi My Nhan with one of thethousand chickens she’s raising.
Photo by Phillip DavisTop:
Khardiata Alassane Ba and hermother, Mariame Modi Sow,
show off eggs from their hens.
Photo by Xaume Olleros

Author and historian Peggy Reiff Miller
began investigating the stories of postWorld War II seagoing cowboys as a way
to learn more about her family history.
Her research also led her to dive deep into
the early days of Heifer International.

After more than 30 years, Heifer
International is ending the Vietnam
program, but the farmers andorganizations involved in the projects
continue to thrive and carry on thespirit of the work into the future.

In the dry Sahel region, water is scarce,
making farming and daily life extremely
difficult. Heifer Senegal is making surefamilies and communities have water
for human and animal consumption,
crops and daily chores, as well as areliable source of income and nutrition.

HEIFER.ORG

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letters READERS RESPOND

IN DEFENSE OF OVERPACKING
I loved Bethany Ivie’s article in the
Spring 2019 World Ark. I’m sending
it to my sister-in-law — they loveto travel, and my brother gives her
a hard time about overpacking.
Bethany, you go, girl.
JULIA CRAIG
Bothell, Washington
FROM MASSACHUSETTS TOMISSISSIPPI AND BACKWorld Ark Spring 2019 arrived ona snowy day and brought backmany memories. Thank you
and your writers once again.
About Prentiss, Mississippi: I
started my journey with Heiferin 1965, working in the New
England office. Robert Mayhew

was the regional director, andthe office was in Bridgewater,
Massachusetts. At that time, we
received all contributions from
New England, prepared receipts
and thank you letters, shippededucational materials, spoke tochurches, congregations andschools, visited donors, andarranged for animal shipments
gathered on farms in New England.
Prentiss Institute was one
program that New England
supported. First with shipments,
via the United States Post Office,with boxes of 100-day-old chicks.
We would pick up the boxes at
the hatchery, open them, put aquarter of an apple in each of thefour sections, tape them up andtake them to the post office. I don’trecall that we ever lost a chick.
Then, about 1967, we arranged
for a freight car of cows and sheep,
plus a dentist chair, a piano, andclothing and shoes to be on therail from Boston to Prentiss. My
husband, Paul, and I and Robert
Mayhew were on the freight carwith the animals, a stack of bailed
hay separating us, but allowing us
to feed and water the animals enroute. I think it was a three-day
trip. On one of our stops, the rail
company put on a caboose forus. We finally arrived after several
delays and being put off on anothertrack until another engine picked

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Please send your comments to worldark@list.heifer.org.
Include your name, city, and a telephone number or email
address. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may
be published online as well as in print. Because of the volume
of mail we receive, we cannot respond to all letters.

4 |us up. We visited the recipients andPrentiss Institute. If I recall, a manby the name of James Norman
was in charge of the livestock
program there. That was before
Willis McAlpin arrived. I am trying tolocate my report on that shipment.
ROSALEE SINN
Plymouth, Massachusetts
Heifer staff 1965-2004

Q&A SUMMER
In this issue, we sharea recipe for summer
produce. Do you have afavorite recipe that uses
fall vegetables? If you
do, we might publish it
for the next issue.

For more World Ark content,
follow us on Twitter@world_ark.
You can also follow our writers:@austingbailey,@mollycmitch,@jason_m_woods and@The_Ivie_League.

VISIT US ONLINE
For more stories from thefield, tips on how to takecare of the environment,
recipes and other greatreads, visit the Heifer
International blog. Just go to
Heifer.org, and click “blog”
at the top of the page. Let
us know what you think atworldark@list.heifer.org.

SUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 4

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table of contents | Summer 201904 LETTERS
Readers respond
06 FOR THE RECORDCan I Recycle This?
08 THE GOOD LIFE
Summer veggies recipe
36 HEIFER SPIRIT
Indian motorcycle
diaries

TELL US YOUR
FAVORITE WORLDARK STORY AND
USE HASHTAG#HeiferWorldArk@Heifer

42 HEIFER BULLETIN
Preventing migrationin Cambodia

MANAGING EDITOR
Austin Bailey
SENIOR EDITOR
Jason Woods

PRESIDENT AND CEO
Pierre Ferrari
PUBLISHER
Annie Bergman

1 WORLD AVENUE
LITTLE ROCK, AR 72202, USA
EMAIL: WORLDARK@LIST.
HEIFER.ORG

CONTRIBUTORSWRITERS
Molly Mitchell Liz Ellis
Veasna Prom
Bethany Ivie
Peggy Reiff Miller
DESIGNERS
Pooi Yin ChongJohn Houser
To change or remove
an address, email
donorservices@heifer.org
or call toll-free
877.448.6437.

46 MIXED MEDIAGirls Burn Brighter
review@HeiferInternational

48 FIRST PERSON
Plans for the Future@HeiferInternational

World Ark is the educational, informational and outreach publication of
Heifer International. Its purpose is tofurther Heifer’s goals to end poverty
and hunger while caring for the Earthand to raise awareness of the issues
involved in this work throughout theworld. Heifer International is qualified
as a charitable organization under
Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to Heifer
International are tax-deductible to theextent permitted by law.
Since 1944, Heifer has helped 34 millionfamilies, directly and indirectly, movetoward greater self-reliance throughthe gift of livestock and training in environmentally sound agriculture.
Heifer International is a member ofInterAction, the largest alliance of
U.S.-based international development
and humanitarian non-governmentalorganizations, and of Global Impact.
Federal and state employees may
designate gifts to Heifer through payroll deduction by entering CFC #12079.
© 2018, Heifer International. Passing
on the Gift® is a registered trademark
of Heifer International. Opinions expressed in World Ark are those of theauthors and do not necessarily reflect
the views of either the magazine or
Heifer International.

The FSC® Logo
identifies products
which contain woodfrom well managed
forests certified inaccordance with therules of the Forest
Stewardship Council®.

HEIFER.ORG

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for the record FACTS & FIGURESA WORD OF CAUTIONRECYCLE

Keep in mind that it never hurts to check withyour local recycling station to see what canand can’t be recycled – some recycling facilities
can handle more types of materials than others.
And whatever you’re recycling – make sure torinse all food residue before putting it in your bin.

75%

The EPA estimates thatof the American waste stream is recyclable,
but we only recycle about 30% of it.

A H AN DY G UI DE for
recyc ling at h o m e.

This is probably the most complicated question on
the list. And it’s arguably the most important — after
food, plastics take up the most space in municipal
landfills. So, let’s break it down.

Bottles, jars
and jugs

YES!

ONE MILLION plastic bottles
are bought EVERY MINUTE aroundthe world and less than half of thosebottles end up getting recycled.

Cups

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 6

MAYBE!

4/8/19 9:18 AM

s.

Disposable
paper cups

Pizza boxes

Receipts

MAYBE!

NO!

Made of paper,
but thermal paper

NO!

Usually coated in
Bisphenol A (BPA)
le,

n
er

e

E!

In most cases, you can’t recycle
You can recycle a pizza box that has
your cup because it’s lined withnever been used.
polyethylene to hold your liquid better. Once the box has been coated inSome cups don’t have the liner, but
it’s really hard to tell the difference,
so you’re safer just throwing it away.

grease, most (but not all) facilities will
say it’s too contaminated to recycle.

Bags of all kinds(including shopping, packaging
and zip-lock)NO!

Contaminates the restof the recycled paperwith the chemical.

Glass is infinitely recyclable — however, somecity recycling programs don’t accept it; it’s hard totransport because it’s heavy and breaks easily.
You also generally cannot recycle lightbulbs.

YES!

NO!

Although you can’t put it in your home bin, you might
be able to find a drop-off location that accepts them.

NO!

Styrofoam
That’s a hard “no.”THE GENERAL RULE FOR
ALL PLASTICS:
1

2

3

6

4

Yes, recycle it.

75

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 7

Like glass, you canrecycle metal canspretty universally.
Go for it!

YES!

Probably not recyclable.

DID YOU KNOW?

Check with your local collection
service to see if they will accept it.

Germany has the best recycling rate in theworld and recycles 66.1% of all its waste.

4/8/19 9:18 AM

good life TIPS FOR BETTER LIVING

An Easy Summer Recipefor All Your Farmers Market Veggies
By Liz Ellis, World Ark contributorIf you’re like me, summer is yourfavorite time to eat good food.
And if you’re lucky enoughto have access to farmers
markets and CSA shares, there areendless fresh goodies to be enjoyedthroughout the warmer months.
Sometimes though, the trick canbe how to utilize anything andeverything that’s fresh without having
to find a special (read: “fussy”) recipe.
If this sounds familiar, this pasta
primavera is a recipe that you will

8 |want to keep as one of your go-to,easy weeknight dishes. For me, thebest recipes are always the ones that I
can adapt to whatever I have, and thisdish is great with any of the beautiful
veggies from your garden or market.
Even better, this is a dish that the
kids will love! It’s sort of a healthier,more colorful version of mac ‘n’cheese. Ask the kids to help by picking
out the veggies, chopping them oreven arranging them according towhich should go in the pan first. Ifthey are part of the cooking process,it’s more likely that they will dig inwith smiles at dinner.
Finally, having cooked for people(including myself) with all sorts of
dietary preferences, this recipe issuper easy to adapt. Using glutenfree or paleo pasta is a simple way
to change the recipe. Try making
a cashew crème sauce if you areinterested in a vegan version of thisdish. If you give this a try, let us know
how it turns out!

SUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 8

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e

Farmers Market Pasta Primavera
Makes 4 servings• 4 cups assorted vegetables (asparagus, mushrooms,
snap peas, carrots, cherry tomatoes — any combination),cut to bite size
• 2 tablespoons olive oil• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter• 1 sweet onion, chopped• 2 cloves garlic, minced• 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock• 1/2 cup heavy cream• 1 pound small cut pasta (penne, rotelle, farfalle)• 1 cup finely chopped fresh spring herbs (parsley, basil)• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese• Salt and pepper to taste
1. Sauté the assorted veggies. Start with the ones that take a
bit longer to cook, like carrots, and add in the softest ones
last (like cherry tomatoes). Set aside when they are tender,
but still a bit crunchy.
2. Start boiling water and cook the pasta according to the
package.
3. Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter in a large sauté pan.
Add the onion and cook until it softens.
4. Add garlic, stock and cream, and bring the mixture to asimmer. Allow the mixture to thicken for a minute or two.
5. Add in the veggies and cook them until they are heatedthrough.
6. Drain the pasta and stir it into the mixture. Add a few
tablespoons of pasta water if needed.
7. Plate the dish and top each serving with the fresh herbs
and parmesan.
8. Enjoy!

A Perfect
Pairing
This pasta primavera recipe pairs well with
Winemaker’s White from Maryhill Winery inGoldendale, Washington. Maryhill Winery inWashington State has been a proud supporterof Heifer International for more than a decade.
Their latest support comes in the form of acustom wine label, available in both Winemaker’s
Red and White. Two dollars from each bottle
sold will benefit Heifer International.
www.maryhillwinery.com

Liz Ellis joined Heifer
International in 2006 as
the culinary coordinatorat Heifer Farm in
Massachusetts. Since
2015, Ellis has been acommunity engagement
coordinator, currently
representing the northcentral U.S. region.

HEIFER.ORG

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asked & answered PEGGY’S PERSPECTIVE

Histories Intertwined
Interview by Jason Woods, World Ark editor and photos courtesyof Peggy Reiff Miller and the Heifer International archives

S

eventy-five years ago, farmer and Church of theBrethren member Dan West started Heifers forRelief, the organization that evolved into Heifer
Project and is now called Heifer International.
After his volunteer service in the Spanish Civil War, Westreturned determined to create a lasting solution to therampant hunger he saw among refugees. His plan: insteadof giving a cup of milk, donate a cow.
Writer and historian Peggy Reiff Miller can’t remember
a time when she didn’t know about Heifer. When she wasa child and West was in his 60s, the two were members of
the Church of the Brethren in congregations in Illinois andIndiana respectively. Miller remembers West’s involvement
as a leader in regional youth events.
“[Heifer] was always a part of our knowledge,” Miller
said. “We just grew up with it.”
Later in life, Miller discovered that her grandfather
served as a seagoing cowboy, one of a group of men anda few women who volunteered to tend to the livestock
shipped from the United States to other countries by theUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration andthen Heifer Project after World War II.
In 2002, Miller began interviewing men who served
as seagoing cowboys as a way to find out what her
grandfather’s trip would have been like, and that work
snowballed into more interviews, research and writing
about the cowboys and Heifer. In 2016, she publisheda children’s book titled The Seagoing Cowboy. As wecelebrate our 75th anniversary, Miller shares her thoughts
about the seagoing cowboys as well as Heifer’s early years
and evolution over time.

10 |SUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 10

4/8/19 9:18 AM

Heifer founder Dan West (left; pictured
with wife and children on the right)

WORLD ARK: When did you
first hear about Heifer?
PEGGY REIFF MILLER:
When I was a child. [Laughs]. I
mean, I grew up in the Church of theBrethren. It was always a part of ourknowledge. We just grew up with it.
Of course, Dan West was ahuge leader in the church. Had
an incredible interest in youth,and he was a leader at some of theregional youth events I attended. So
there was always that knowledge.
And my roommate in college
was the daughter of Heifer’s
executive at the time, Thurl
Metzger. It’s just somethingthat’s always been a part of me.
What was Dan West like?
For a teenager, when he was in
his late 60s, very intimidating.
I didn’t really know him well, so

I can’t say a lot. But just a very
majestic, tall, stately person who
carried a very serious demeanor.
When did you find out
your grandfather was aseagoing cowboy?
I didn’t know until after he died,actually. He died around 1969.
Some years after that, I don’t evenremember when, my father gave mean envelope of Grandpa’s picturesfrom his trip. I knew there weresome Polish dolls in Grandpa’s atticthat we played with when I was akid. And he had a cane, a wooden,
carved cane from Poland. So thosepictures really put it all together forme. Because at that time, I knew
about seagoing cowboys and was
kind of curious about the history.
So that’s really what got me started
in digging into it, trying to find out
what Grandpa’s experience was like.

And I was interested in writing
for children at the same time. So I
decided I wanted to write a novelfor young adults, and I thought,“What a great topic. A seagoing
cowboy going to Poland.” So thenI started interviewing men who
I knew had been cowboys. And
one cowboy led to another andanother, and, you know, the history
just draws you in. And I realizedthat you couldn’t tell the seagoing
cowboys story without also tellingthe Heifer Project story. Because
the two histories are intertwined.
You know, at first, they wereseparate. The seagoing cowboys
were a program under the Brethren
Service Committee to provide
the cattle attendants that UNRRA
needed—the United Nations Relief
and Rehabilitation Administration.
UNRRA isn’t the same as today’s
U.N., it was kind of a precursor.

HEIFER.ORG

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asked & answered PEGGY’S PERSPECTIVE

Abraham Reiff, Peggy Reiff Miller’s
grandfather, served as a seagoing cowboy.
Pictured: his Merchant Marine card (top left),seagoing cowboy card file (right) and a signed
photo from his 1946 UNRRA trip to Poland.

Heifer Project leadershiphad been trying to convince
UNRRA to ship some of the
Heifer Project animals. Because
this was after World War II
when shipping wasn’t available,
except through the military andorganizations like UNRRA.
The seagoing cowboy program
was under the Brethren Service
Committee to begin with. And
Heifer Project was under theBrethren Service Committee. They
were parallel. And UNRRA had
about 12 of their 360 shipments
carrying Heifer Project animals.
Then when UNRRA disbanded after
just two years of service, Heifer
Project continued, and then the

12 |seagoing cowboy program wasdirectly under the Heifer Project.
That’s interesting that you knew
about the seagoing cowboys
before you knew you had afamily member who was one.
We never talked about it. And wekids didn’t know to ask. That’s
been one of the really interesting
things about my work. There
are a lot of families that havebeen in that situation, that
discovered. And they’ve beenreally grateful for knowing more
about what their relative didthrough my work. That’s been
one of the biggest motivators forme in continuing for 17 years.

What’s the most surprising thing
you’ve found digging into thehistory of the seagoing cowboys?
That’s a hard question. There’s
no one specific thing, but overall,
for me, I think it was the power ofthe internet to make connections.
Because I started my website in
2008, which was kind of fairly early
on in terms of websites and blogs
and so forth. And I had no idea
when I started that website what wasin store for me. And since then, it’s
just been one surprise after another.
Because as I posted more and morematerial, I began to get requests
from people for information. You
know, from families of seagoing
cowboys, from students, fromSUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 12

4/8/19 9:18 AM

Hope the cow was delivered to
Poland with 334 other heifers via
the S. S. William S. Halsted in 1946.
Cornelius Queling was one ofmany German Heifer recipients in
1950. Miller met him in Nierswalde,Germany, in September 2013.

elementary school throughgraduate students who were writing
papers, Heifer International staff,
when they would get inquiries fromfamilies of seagoing cowboys andneeded information, they would
contact me. And it would work
the other way, too, when people
were sharing information for me.
And the biggest surprises were
the international connections.
Because that led to trips to Poland
and Germany and Finland for me.
In Poland, it was an architectural
history graduate student who
contacted me for permission to use
photos in an article that she waswriting. We developed an email
relationship, and using materials

that I had found in Heifer’s archives
about the shipments to Poland,
one of her friends was able to
track down one of the recipientsof a heifer in 1945. That was in2013, and he was just turning
90 at the time. And I had just anamazing interview with him.
And then another request camefrom a museum in Germany that
led to an exhibition about the Heifer
Project deliveries after World War
II to the German-speaking people
from Silesia and the seagoing
cowboys that delivered the heifers
to them. That was one of those
Heifer trips through UNRRA.
This German museum isabout Silesia. It’s called theFinding the Stanislaw Debertfamily, which received a heifer
from the Heifer Project and ahorse from UNRRA in late 1945,
was the highlight of Miller’s
research trip to Poland in
October 2013.

Upper Silesian Museum. So I wasable to go over, and I fed theminformation for the exhibit, andI was able to go over and see it.
And then the most recent
surprise was contact from Japan
public television that led to thepiece that was in the Holiday
issue of the World Ark. You know,
I never know where the requests
are going to come from. It’s just …
that’s been the biggest surprise ofall, I think. Seventeen years ago,
when I started this, I would never
have dreamed that I’d have all theseinternational connections related
to the work that I was doing.
All because of my grandfather’s
packet of photos.

HEIFER.ORG

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asked & answered PEGGY’S PERSPECTIVE

Dan West stood by theconviction to do as much forpeace as a soldier does for war.

A color slide of Faith, the first heifer donated,with the donor, Virgil Mock (left), and the boy
who raised her, Claire Stine (right).

Wilbur Stump, the first seagoing
cowboy Peggy Reiff Miller interviewed,
tending to a heifer on the Zona Gale.
Children from the Vila Skaut orphanage in Konstancin,
Poland, stand by four seagoing cowboys and Hope, a cow
donated by the Heifer Project, on Christmas Day 1946.

14 |SUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 14

4/8/19 9:18 AM

Do you have any favorite
stories that you found?
I do. Story-wise, I think one thatstands out — well, there would be
three. The first, Heifer founder
Dan West’s story of his experience
serving within the military as aconscientious objector in World War
I. And that led him to the convictionthat he wanted to do in his life as
much for peace as a soldier does forwar. And that was a large part of his
motivation in starting the Heifer
Project and many of the other things
that he ended up doing. So that’s
probably my favorite of all stories.
Other favorites would beseagoing cowboy stories about
the impact that their trip had on
their lives. For some of them, theseyounger cowboys, for some of them,
they changed their college major
when they came home. To social
work, or they went into the ministry.
And many of them became peace
activists. My favorite story of allwith that is Harvard theologian
Harvey Cox, who was a seagoing
cowboy, and he tells about his
experience in his book Just As I Am.
And it’s an incredible story about
how seeing the destruction overthere in Poland made him have theconviction that there could neverbe another war, and he became
a peace activist. And it tells more
about that in his book, too. It’s justan amazing story, a 16-year-old
who secretly wanted to be a partof the war but was too young andended up being a peace activist.
What are some of your favorite
Heifer historical photos?
There are three basically. One is acolor slide that I found in Heifer’sarchives that I had no idea existedof Faith, the first heifer, and her
donor, Virgil Mock, and the teenage
boy who raised her, Claire Stine.
That’s one of my favorites.
Another is the heifer Hopethat was given to the Konstancin
Orphanage outside of Warsaw,
Poland. It’s a picture taken on
Christmas Day 1946 that shows
Hope, who had only been there
maybe not more than a week,
and children from the orphanage
and four of the seagoing cowboys
from that trip who stayed behindin Poland to do kind of a tour for
the Brethren Service Committee.
So they were able to visit thisorphanage and that’s the heifer
that I kind of modeled my picturebook on. That’s a favorite one.
And then one of seagoing
cowboy Wilbur Stump, takenwith him and the heifer he wastending on the Zona Gail on his
trip to France. Wilbur was one of
the first seagoing cowboys that
I interviewed. So that’s always
been kind of special one for me.
In your view, how has Heiferchanged over the years? How is
it similar or different than theorganization that started in 1944?
Well, it started out simply as a relief
organization, just to provide relief
to people who had been hurt in
the war. And then it evolved intodevelopment, where the training
aspect was added. Then, as thedevelopment aspect continued
with the introduction of the 12
Cornerstones, Heifer evolved into
community building. I mean, thetransformation that takes placein communities through those
12 Cornerstones is just amazing.
The stories that Heifer has told.

It’s moved the next step now
in terms of the marketing angle.
Using cooperatives and marketing
to ensure that there’s sustainability
for these communities that take on
the Heifer project model. So it’s anamazing development in terms of
the purposes and the outcomes.
And then, I think anotherchange, originally it was a Christianorganization. It was started by the
Church of the Brethren, withina couple of years, it became
ecumenical, which was the goalfrom the start on the part of theBrethren Service Committee. The
gifts of animals that were given
were given in the name of Christ,
not to proselytize but simply to be aform of service given in the love of
Christ. And that was very important
to Dan West all through the years.
But when Heifer incorporated
in 1953, the tie with the Brethren
Service Committee was broken.
Broken sounds like a negative
term, I didn’t mean it that way
because the Brethren Service
Committee was very supportive ofincorporation. Heifer was still faithbased at that point, but as the years
progressed and board members
were added for their expertise andnot just simply because of theirdenominational connections,the church connection gradually
fell away, and Heifer is no longer
a faith-based organization.
Another change that I’ve seen is
the personal connection between
donor and recipient. In the earlyyears, that personal connection
was there. Either directly, fromdonor to recipient, or throughthe denomination, who had aconnection that set up the recipientsand overseas relationship through

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asked & answered PEGGY’S PERSPECTIVE

Members of the Schulz
family stand next to thecow they received in
Lubeck, Germany, in
1956. In 1945, the Russian
military forced the family
to flee their native Poland.

The Labatzki family children with a cow donated fromthe Heifer Project in Friedrichskoog, March 1956.

a denominational agency orwhatever. But there was more of apersonal connection. And that was
especially strong during years of
the German shipments. There wasa decade in the 1950s when Heifer
made shipments to the Germanspeaking displaced people from
Eastern European countries who
were sent back according to the
Potsdam Agreement, sent backto Germany at the end of WorldWar II. So there were like 10-12
million of these displaced persons
that Germany had to resettle. And
many of those had come from farm

16 |backgrounds. Heifer’s shipments
were mostly to help those displaced
farmers. And the Brethren Service
Committee had an office building
they built in Kassel, which theycalled Brethrenhaus. And there
was a Heifer Project office as part ofthat. They encouraged recipientsto write thank you letters to thedonors. So there were a lot ofinternational relationships between
these families that developed,
and some of those still hold today.
There’s an incredible two boxes
full of material in the archives that
contain these thank you letters.

An East Prussian settler
with the heifer that was
donated to his family
from the Heifer Project.

But as Heifer grew and theprogram expanded, it wasn’t
possible to keep up that donorto-recipient relationship.
So what are you working onnow, and what’s next?
Well, I’ve been working on and hopethat this year I can really focus ona book about the first decade of
the Heifer Project. I spent the two
past springs, three months in 2017,
two months in 2018, at the Heifer
Ranch to kind of sequester myself.
I took all the minutes from theHeifer Project and Brethren Service

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Seagoing cowboy
Richard Tobiasdelivered twin calveson this trip to Germany
in September 1956.
The mother heifer was
donated by his church.

Donald Baldwin talks withJapanese-American farmer
Dale Sakuma in Burlington,
Washington. Sakuma donateda heifer to be sent to project
participants in Japan.

Two heifers arrive at the Vila Skautorphanage in Konstancin, Poland.

Committee meetings up throughincorporation in 1953. And I put
all of those actions in a timeline.
That gives me a framework to workwith now. That’s my goal for thisyear, is to hopefully get a first draft
written. It’s a big undertaking.
What are the most interesting
points on the timeline
you’re working from?
Well, those first years were reallyfascinating in terms of the numberof people that were involved. I
mean, it was very much a volunteer
organization at the beginning. And

to watch that evolution of going
into staffing and the committee.
It was all volunteer work on thecommittees. And the dedication of
the people. And the difficulties thatthey ran into. I mean, there were anumber of times, just in that 10-year
period, where they talked about,“Can we go on? Should we close?”
When UNRRA disbanded, that wasa critical point because their freeshipping was gone. Because theiragreement was that the Brethren
Service Committee would recruit
UNRRA seagoing cowboys, and in
return, UNRRA would ship Heifer

Project animals free of charge.
So with that free shipping gone,that was a critical point where
there was discussion about, youknow, should we just bless what
we have done and wrap it up?
But there was so muchcommitment, I mean the stories
that the seagoing cowboys broughthome about the tremendous
need in Europe helped fan the
flames. And the people who had
already donated so many hours
just wanted it to keep going. It’san amazing story of commitment
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Moving On
in the Mekong

The countless tributaries that crisscross the Mekong Delta are a major means of transportation.

For more than three decades, Heifer Vietnam has given farmers the tools
they need to feed their families and make their farms profitable. This year,
Heifer Vietnam farmers are set to exceed the living income benchmark— $4,500 in the Mekong Delta — by at least $1,000. Overall, in the last
20 years, poverty rates in Vietnam have fallen from nearly 60 percent to20 percent. Heifer’s work in Vietnam will end this year, but the futureis bright for project participants in the country, as incomes continue torise and institutional and provincial government partners continue tostrengthen rural communities for years to come using the Heifer model.

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Bui Thi My Nhan and herhusband, Vo Thanh Khoa,
raise a thousand chickens at
a time, making a good profi t.

A

By AUSTI N B A I LEY, World Ark editor
Photos by PH I LLI P DAV IS

towering spreadof cookies, hot tea
and fresh fruit ona lemon-colored
lace tablecloth
welcomes visitors
at the home of Vo Thanh Khoa
and Bui Thi My Nhan, in the
Tra Vinh province of Vietnam.
Temperatures in the Mekong
Delta stay balmy year-round, so
the common room of the houseis open to attract any breeze, its
tile floors cool against bare feet.
The bounty on the table reflects
the bounty in the yard, where athousand chickens scratch andcluck underneath tall net tents.
Cows rest under trees in the back.
With its tall ceiling andsparkling white tile walls, the airy
home is a welcome respite fromthe muggy heat and dust. The
house used to be open all the time,

simply because the family didn’t
have the money to buy a door.
Farming small amounts of rice,
coconuts, pigs and chickens kept
husband, wife, mother-in-law andson fed, but paid for little else.
In 2011, Vo Thanh Khoa and
Bui Thi My Nhan joined with 14of their neighbors on a Heifer
project. They had raised free-range
chickens before, but with the new
project they penned the birds,
vaccinated them against disease
and kept them on a bed of rice bran
and microorganisms. The special
bedding mixture kept the pensfrom getting smelly and, once it
mixed with the chicken litter, could
be sold as fertilizer. The family
soon added beef cattle to the mix.
Within a few years, theirincome doubled and so did thesize of their home. While theoriginal structure was cement

and thatch, the new addition
gleams with pristine tile anda sparkling metal roof. As in
most homes in this region, a
few stairs lead from the ground
up to the house, and everyone
shucks off shoes before climbing
them so as not to track in dirt.
The new living area makesa clean, comfortable spot for
7-year-old Vo Minh Tri to study.

Vo Minh Tri, 7, has a new place to study.

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Rice paddies make up a large portion of the landscape outside Can Tho City.

Farming communities that
adopted the Heifer model
will continue to shareknowledge and animals
in a ripple of giving withno foreseeable end.

This success story is a typicalone for Heifer project participantsin Vietnam, who have beenturning gifts of chickens, beef
cattle, dairy cattle and training intomoney for home improvements,
savings and economic security
since 1987. After 32 years, Heifer
International will close its offices
in Vietnam in 2019. The work,
however, will continue. Farming
communities that adopted theHeifer model will continue to shareknowledge and animals in a rippleof giving with no foreseeable end.

20 |Narrow paved paths allow motorbikes to access neighborhoods off main roads.

JUNGLE COWS
The ingredients for successful
farming – water, sunshine andfrequently replenished soil – allexist in abundance in the Mekong
Delta, where annual floodwaters
quench tired fields with mineralrich silt. The ubiquitous ricepaddies glow a nearly fluorescentgreen, and palm trees markthe boundaries between fields,

neighborhoods, jungle and thecountless tributaries that reach into
every part of this region. Womenin matching flowered tops andpants cut elegant silhouettes intheir iconic non lai straw hats.
The region grows more ricethan it needs and exports it to therest of the country. And in recent
years, some farmers in the Mekong
have added another product to

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Duong Ut Mao pampers her Holstein mixes, even chopping their food for them.

their repertoire that’s increasingly
in demand, both locally and as
an export: milk. Veer off the main
roads into the rice paddies andjungle and you can find thriving
Heifer dairy projects in the hidden
communities around Can Tho City.
Boats were long the main formof transportation in the Mekong
region. Today, though, motorbikes
stream down roads and onto
the narrow concrete paths thatreach into the neighborhoods
hidden behind curtains of dense
jungle. The home of Tran An
Sarinh and Duong Ut Mao stands
where a narrow cement track
gives way to an even narrower
dirt path. The flat front yard rolls
up to a waterway bustling withboats carrying fruit, ducks andother farm goods to market.
The small wooden home seems
quiet and lonely in comparison,but that’s only because all theTran An Sarinh runs a chopping machine that makes fodder more easily digestible.

activity happens around backin a palatial open-air dairy cattle
operation the size of a fast-foodrestaurant. A slanted concrete pad
provides a sanitary base for the

13 black-and-white Holstein mix
cows who spend their days here,munching fodder and enjoying
the shade of a 20-foot metal roofthat keeps the sun away and theHEIFER.ORG

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The cows live in a specially designed bovine mansion withhigh ceilings for air flow and cement floors for hygiene.

Duong and Tran sleep in a loft inside their cow
shelter so they can hear if a cow goes into
labor or becomes ill during the night.

A mechanical milker makes the work go quickly.

Beef takes a long time to see dividends, but for dairy
you can get income daily.” – Phan Minh Hieu,
Heifer animal well-being coordinator
air circulating. These beauties
look like they would be more athome in the pastures of Wisconsin
than in the balmy tropics ofsouthern Vietnam. In fact, thecows are a cross of Holsteins anda local breed, giving them somegood adaptations to their tropicalclimate and conditions while
helping them produce the copious
amounts of milk that Holsteins are
known for. While they’re relatively
hardy, Duong admits she does
pamper her Holstein mixes withmosquito netting, a chopping
machine to make their foddereasier to digest and a three-timesa-day cleaning regimen that22 |keeps the cow shed manure-freeand visitor-ready at all times.
The babying goes on 24-7.
Duong built a loft bed with lacypink mosquito netting at thecorner of the dairy and sleeps
there every night, just in case a
cow goes into labor or gets sick.
Her husband stays with her in theloft, so a grandmother sleeps in thehouse with the couple’s 15-yearold son and 10-year-old daughter.
When the cows do need hercare in the wee hours, Duong has
many years of experience to callupon thanks to her Khmer heritage.
While dairy farming is still notcommon in her country in general,

Tran delivers milk to a collection
center via motorbike twice a day.

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FAST FACTS ABOUT VIETNAM
Vietnam is an oblong country
only 30 miles wide at its narrowest
point, but it looms large in theAmerican psyche. Nearly 60,000
American soldiers died in the
Vietnam War, while the death

toll among the Vietnamese
people was 2 million or higher. In
Vietnam, the war is known as theResistance War Against America.
In 1975, a reunited Vietnam
limited trade to fellow communist

countries. In the 1990s, theVietnamese government
reestablished economic
relationships with Westerncountries, and its economy
has since strengthened.

CHINA
VIETNAM

Hanoi
LAOS
SOUTH
CHINA SEATHAILANDCAMBODIA

MekongDelta
Can Tho City

Ho Chi
Minh City

milk has long been a part of the
Khmer diet, and Duong and manyother of the participants in Heifer’s
dairy projects here are combining
their experience and expertisewith new training and technology
to capitalize on the growing market
for dairy products in Vietnam.
Duong and Tran rise early eachmorning to milk their cows, then
Tran sets off to deliver the milk toa cooperative collection center, a
process he repeats each evening.
Two large dairy companies,
Vinamilk and Dutch Lady, buy milk
from the cooperative, providing
a reliable income source for the
farmers. Phan Minh Hieu, ananimal well-being coordinator
who has worked with dairy
farmers in the region for years,

Pho, a noodle soupwith countlessgarnishes andvariations, is a popularstreet food in Vietnam
and can be eaten any
time of day.

Vietnam is officiallyan atheist state. In
practice, however, mostVietnamese people
practice a combinationof Confucianism,
Buddhism and Daoism.

says she’s confident farmers havethe knowledge and equipment
they need to be successful evenafter Heifer International ends its
Vietnam program this year. “Theprices are good and the market isstable,” Phan Minh Hieu said. She
is among the growing number ofparents in Vietnam who are now
buying milk for their children, acultural shift with both nutritionaland economic benefits. Unlike
beef cattle farmers, whose longterm investments come withdelayed payoff, the Khmer dairy
farmers are constantly motivatedby nearly immediate returns on
their investments. “Beef takes along time to see dividends, but
for dairy you can get income
daily,” Phan Minh Hi said.

The Vietnameseunit of currency iscalled the dong.

The family keeps their animals
comfortable and well-fed, and it shows.

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Life blooms on every corner of the farm.

Integrated farming methods
utilize animals and plants.

Vegetables are the focus, but the family raises cows, too.
There’s no doubt Nguyen Van Dua
and his wife, Huynh Thi Loan, havegreen thumbs.

LAND OF PLENTY
Vietnamese cuisine brims withfresh herbs and vegetables, and achef would likely find every single
ingredient he or she might needgrowing fresh and abundanton the farm of Nguyen Van Dua
and his wife, Huynh Thi Loan.
The farm itself takes up only acouple of acres, but it’s so jampacked with productivity thatthe family is enjoying financial
security for the first time.
Success seemed elusive
before 2013, when the family of
five divided their efforts between
rice and vegetable farming on
less than one acre of land. Alongwith 25 other families, they
signed on to a Heifer project thatoffered members training in
how to boost farm production
and loans to buy seeds and farm24 |Cow manure is composted into fertilizer.

equipment. Nguyen Van Dua
and Huynh Thi Loan soaked up
all the know-how they could attrainings on business planningand how to boost soil fertility,
and they became star students.
The couple opted to stop farming
rice and focus on more laborintensive but also more lucrative
vegetable farming. By fertilizing
their soil with compost and cow

manure and incorporating lotsof clever and efficient tricks into
their operation, the family morethan doubled their income.
That extra money went directly
back into the farm. The family
doubled their land holdings andbuilt an extensive irrigation systemthat saves countless hours theyused to spend hauling buckets ofwater to each plant. The irrigation

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LIFE ON
THE WATER
The Mekong Delta at the very
southern tip of Vietnam is notquite land and not quite river,
but a soupy mix of the two.
With its highest points still lessthan 10 feet above sea level,
the entire delta sees annual
floods that swallow towns andvillages, regularly and to no
one’s surprise. The river andtributaries, along with manmadecanals and flooded rice paddies,shape the land and the livesof all inhabitants. Elevatedroadways are built to peek justabove the annual floodwaters,
and rice farmers rely on thehuge nutrient-rich silt deposits
brought in by the river to keep
Mekong Delta soil productive
enough to keep churningout enough rice to feed theentire country, plus some.
Boats have always been themain means of transportationin this region. But more thanthat, boats are, for many,
home. Waterways bustle withhouseboats where multiple
generations of families live
and work. Toddlers learn topaddle and swim at the sametime they’re learning to walk.
The water is also a sourceof food, livelihood andwaste disposal, although thegovernment is working to curtailthe latter. Visitors crowd in to
see the interplay of all of theseelements come together in
the Cai Rang Floating Market.
Passenger boats launchthroughout the morning fromthe boardwalks of Can Tho City,

The Cai Rang Floating Market
attracts locals and tourists.

Boaters can fi ll their gas tanks
without leaving the river.

Snack boats cater tohungry shoppers.

under the gaze of an enormous
golden statue of Ho Chi Minh.
From 5 to 8 a.m., this section of
the river splashes with paradesof Western tourists packed into
canopied motorboats for the
45-minute commute to Cai Rang.
Traditional grocery storesand markets in Can Tho City
are beginning to squeeze out
the floating wholesale bazaar
that clogs a half mile sectionof the river each morning. The
market is much smaller than itwas even a decade ago. But it stillbustles with boats piled high withpineapple, mangos, durian andother tropical fruit. Vietnamese
women in traditional conical hats
paddle canoes-turned-cafes tocustomers eager to buy bowls of
steaming noodles for breakfast.
Other floating snack shops
offer coffee and rice cakes.
By 9 a.m., the sun andheat drive the vendors away,
and the tourist boats headback to Can Tho City.

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REPORTER’SNOTEBOOK:DURIAN,

Jackfruit rinds can be made into tea.

THE FRUIT
YOU’LL LOVETO HATEThe family built their own biogas system.

Maestros of industry, Nguyen
Van Dua and Huynh Thi Loanare geniuses at squeezing themost out of every resource.
All-natural pest control really works.

further boosted production,
and when the family
switched to completelyorganic farming, the prices
they got for their produce
went up, too. The farm’s mostrecent additions are a biogas
operation that turns cow
manure into fertilizer and
one that uses natural gas forcooking and lighting.
Maestros of industry,Nguyen Van Dua and Huynh
Thi Loan are geniuses atsqueezing the most out of
every resource. A pile ofjackfruit peels dry on a clothin front of their modest
wooden home, soon to be
ingredients for a tea they will
sell. Handmade lantern-likepest traps that attract andcapture insects are set out
among the rows of onions,beans and bitter gourds.
These traps, combined with26 |a diluted mixture of garlicand chiles splashed on thecrops, erase any need tobuy chemical pesticides.
Similar approaches
are working well for othermembers of the group, andthe $2,500 revolving loan
fund continues to help thefarmers to boost productivity,
and the high quality of theirvegetables ensures a strong
market. A few times a week,
Nguyen Van Dua and Huynh
Thi Loan host aspiring
vegetable entrepreneurs
who make a pilgrimage to
see the clever planning andhandy contraptions thatchurn out such enviable
profits. The group is now
working on the next step,
creating a logo they can put
on stickers they will use tobrand their produce in themarketplace. ■SUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 26

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To be fair, cheese smells pretty
awful and Americans happily put
away an average of 35 poundsof it per person per year. So
please know that I mean no
offense, and in fact I applaud
and envy the sophisticated andhealthy cuisine of Vietnam. Pho
is unfailingly delicious. Freshfish and spring rolls and tropicalfruit for dessert? I’m all in.
But durian?
Most Americans have neverheard of the delicacy that’s so
popular and revered in Southeast
Asia that it’s known there as“the king of fruits.” It’s certainly
the most pungent. The smell is
so distinctive, so pervasive andlingering, that durian is bannedon public transportation in
Singapore. In November 2018, an
Indonesian plane hauling durian
in the cargo hold was grounded
when passengers refused toboard because the stench.
Teams of scientists havedevoted countless hours in thelab to figure out what biochemicalcompound cocktail gives durian
its famous aroma. The unique fruit
invites passion from both devotees
and detractors. Famous fallen
foodie Anthony Bourdain was a fan,although he acknowledged durian
had some drawbacks. “Your breath

will smell as if you’d been Frenchkissing your dead grandmother.”Sound enticing? You’ll findplenty of opportunity to sample
durian in Vietnam on the roadfrom Ho Chi Minh City to Can
Tho City in the country’s verdant,
balmy South. High temperaturesand humidity keep this tropicalregion lush and green, androadside fruit stands are well
supplied with mountains of
spiky, oblong durian pods.
Friends had warned me thatdurian smells worse than it tastes,so I screwed up my courage
as a fruit vendor sliced into
two durians before finding one
she deemed ripe enough. The
smell was repellant, like rotten
garbage soaked in fingernail
polish remover, or a dumpster
full of dead dogs on a hot day.
The vendor chopped the durian
in half, then extricated theplump yellow fruit that popped
out cleanly from the pod. The
texture of the fruit is custard-like,but with a smooth, dry skin.
It tastes better than it smells, ittastes better than it smells, it tastes
better than it smells … I repeatedthis over and over in my head as I
went in for a taste. But my friends
were wrong, I had been tricked
and the taste was far worse than

I could have imagined. Like aputrefied, bloated organ harvested
from a week-old corpse. I grabbed
a banana from my photographer’s
hand and shoved it in my mouth
in a desperate attempt to erase
the flavor of death. Unable
to put away any more of thedurian, we accepted a Styrofoam
clamshell of it to take with us.
And even though we stowed itin the trunk, the smell quickly
infiltrated and overwhelmed
the entire car. My clothes andsuitcase reeked of it for days.
Why does this fruit that’s sobeloved in Vietnam, Thailand,
China and Indonesia remind me(and many other Westerners)of adolescent boys’ sweaty
tennis shoes stuffed withold coleslaw? The answer,
apparently, lies in the different
ways people’s brains interpret
olfactory sensors. Apparently,
the complex components thatmake up durian’s unique aroma
are similar but not identical tonoxious smells like sulfur andturpentine, so brains like minelump durian into the do-not-eat
category. Other brains, possibly
more sophisticated or maybe
just more practiced, interpretthe aromas differently and findthem pleasant and appealing.
A friend who lived in China fora year told me the trick is to keepeating durian. By the third taste,
she said, you’re hooked. I nevermade it that far, but plenty have.
Durian fan clubs abound on theweb, and so do opportunities totour fecund durian farms acrossSoutheast Asia during harvest
season. Do you have what it takes?
A disclaimer written in bold warns
that these special tours aren’t foreveryone. “Prerequisite for travel:
You must not dislike durian odor.”

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BetterandWetter in
Senegal’s
Sahel
Daily life in the community of Nakara,
Senegal, is not easy, and it takes awhole family pitching in to make it.
But for thousands of families in thenortheast of Senegal, finding cleanwater will no longer be a problem.
PHOTOS BY XAUME OLLEROS

I

n between two iconic landscapes, the vast Sahara Desert to thenorth and the tropical grasslands of the savanna in the south, sits
Africa’s Sahel region. Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red
Sea, the Sahel is nearing a population of 100 million people.
Although life has never been easy in a place where rain isn’t seen foreight months of the year, the effects of a growing human population led
to increased soil erosion and desertification starting about 50 years ago.
In the community of Nakara in northeast Senegal, as in most placesin the Sahel, water is a scarce commodity, and it takes a lot of timeand effort to procure. Every day before and after school, 10-year-old
Khardiata Alassane Ba helps her mother, Mariame Modi Sow, with thechores, which include gathering water wherever it can be found.
Heifer International is providing 3,500 people in communities like
Khardiata’s with year-round access to potable water for their families,
animals and crops. The project will also double the incomes of 600
farming families. ■28 |Khardiata Alassane Ba,collecting rainwater from a
puddle outside of Nakara.

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Collecting water is a chore that takes up
a lot of time and energy for women andgirls who live in the dry Sahel region.
“Almost every day, you go and look for
donkeys,” Khardiata said. “When you comeback, you take a donkey cart. If you don’t
have a bucket, you need to do everything
to get one. Take it and go get water.”In addition to water for drinking, families
must find water for cleaning, tending toanimals and other activities. Khardiata andher mother also collect water to mix withcow manure to make biogas, as pictured
on the bottom of the page on the left.
In the near future, families in Nakara will
have a cleaner, more accessible source ofwater through the Heifer Senegal project. A
well is under construction between Nakara
and Younoufrere, another Heifer community.
Pictured above, men unload pipes, which
will carry water up from a nearly 400foot borehole. Since the well is so deep,a traditional handpump won’t do at all.
So a generator is brought in to pump
the water up far under the ground.
The generator for the well will be solar
powered. Once the well is finished,
it will provide clean drinking water
for two communities. The water will
also be used to irrigate vegetablegardens and keep animals healthy.

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Khardiata and her family
also received chickens fromHeifer Senegal. The eggs
provide both income andvalued protein in their diets.
Additionally, families in Nakara
received hair sheep, which
Khardiata sometimes milks withthe help of her friend Aminata
Harouna Sow, pictured on thebottom-right of the opposite page.
On a daily basis, Khardiata
helps her mother with a varietyof chores, which can include
gathering firewood, cooking,cleaning or planting vegetables.

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FOR MORE ON KHARDIATA
AND HER COMMUNITY, VISITHEIFER.ORG/SENEGALWATER
AND WATCH THE SHORT VIDEO,“DREAMS FROM THE DESERT.”

Before the sun comes up, Khardiata starts her day with
ablution and morning prayers. Afterward, she begins
helping her mother by sweeping the ground aroundthe house. In the afternoons, Khardiata prepares andeats lunch with other women who live in Nakara.
Some days, Khardiata uses a wooden notebook to learn
the Koran during her informal religious schooling.
Unfortunately, her family cannot yet afford to send her tothe community’s school, pictured on the upper right.
For a child to attend primary school in Nakara, it costs
the family about $80 a month, a fee Khardiata’s family
cannot currently pay. But that will change soon throughthe family’s involvement in the Heifer Senegal project.

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4/8/19 9:19 AMheifer spirit GIVING RESOURCES, GIVING SELF

Khardung La Pass and Back Again:

A Biker’s Tale
By Molly Mitchell, World Ark writer, and photos by Gunjan Mahanta

For Pranjit Talukdar,
his road to working ininternational development
and eventually Heifer India
began on a motorcycle,
riding the highest road in
the world. Talukdar told
us in his own words about
the ten stops he made on
his route to Khardung
La Pass and back again,
his misadventures along
the way and how thatroad led him to change
his life’s path as well.

1  NEW DELHI“I was in the banking and financial
sector,” Talukdar said. “I did myMBA like everybody else, andI joined the bank and started
doing portfolio management,
financial management and soon. So, I was doing pretty good.
My dad’s a doctor and my wife’s alawyer so I know how rich I could
have become!” he laughed.

36 |“Then I took a trip,” he said.
“What inspired me actually was that
I watched The Motorcycle Diaries
with Che Guevara, who did a trip
across South America when he wasturning 30. To find himself. He wasa doctor, and when he came back,
he became Che Guevara. I thought, I
was turning 30 and that was a goodidea. I was doing fine, but my boss’s
boss was doing exactly the samething, and there was nothing new.”
Talukdar decided to take off on
his own extreme motorcycle trip:
riding Khardung La Pass, the highest
motorable road in the world at 18,380
feet above sea level. He was used toriding a small motorcycle, but forthis trip he needed a bigger one. He
showed up at a friend’s house twodays before his trip with no supplies
and no bike. His friend saw that

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Talukdar was bound and determined
to make the trip, so he was willing tolend his Royal Enfield Bullet and give
Talukdar some guidance for the trip.
“He said, ‘So what do you have?’
I said, ‘I don’t know, I have nothing.
But I am going to go. I will go.’ Hesaid, ‘I know, I can see that.’”“Because we were all from thearmy school, he knew how much I’dfollow. So he drew the map of whichplaces I must stay at night. He said to
use as much of the daylight as you
can. Start early in the morning, andhalt before the sun sets. Do not, donot, ride at night. Because there’s noroad. No one will be able to find you
if you get lost. He said to take enoughpetrol to fill your tank and an extra
gallon. There’s a place called Tandi,
and that’s the last petrol pump.
There, you refill. ‘Til then, there’s
nothing. After Tandi there is nothing.
Again, refill your extra tank, and thengo. Take your tent, extra tires, learn
how to fix your bike. So I said okay.”
Takular and the friend hetook with him would end up
breaking almost all the rules on
their devil-may-care journey.
“I practiced one day, it went fine.
I rode back to the office on his big
bike. I was so thrilled. That was thenight my sister-in-law threw a party.
I didn’t realize I was partying ‘til
3 a.m.!” he laughed. “So I said, ‘Ohdamn, I was going to leave at 6.’ Sowe went to sleep. At 6:37 a.m., we left.
“I went with my brother’s friend. I
should not have been travelling witha pillion, because the roads are reallysteep. But I did not have an option.
He said, ‘I can go with you, but I do
not know how to ride a bike. I canonly hang on to you. If we go down,
we go down together. Let’s go!’”
They started on their carefree

way out from New Delhi on a hot
July day. After the first leg of thetrip, they were already sunburned.
“So, we tried to cover ourselvesbecause after that first part it was
getting colder,” Talukdar said.
2  MANALI“When we reached Manali, we werevery happy. We had covered halfway.
We were so thrilled we stayed
overnight. And the next morning
we shopped. Because apparently mybrother’s friend was not carrying
warm clothes. He was not prepared!
He was playing video games when
I pulled him out!” Talukdar laughed.
“So we shopped for warm clothes.
While we were doing that, westarted eating. We’re both foodies,
so we got some good food.”
Talukdar had planned to leave

early in the morning, but at 2 p.m.
he and his friend were still enjoying
the food scene in Manali. But theylearned that major construction
was scheduled to start that very dayon the road they needed to take.
“And I said, ‘No! We cannot
stay! We have to go!’ So we went.
In the rush we forgot to fill ourpetrol tank. And we went up.
“When we climbed up themountain, we realized our petrol
had gone into reserve. There wasno petrol and we were in reserve
already. So we [found a shop] andwe figured out that we could buy
petrol on the black market. Whichis in those bottles you can getwhich are not very good petrol but
at least it will last. We bought aboutfour bottles which could take us to
Tandi. So we got happy again!”

Sharp switchbacks and narrow roads are part of what makes
the journey to Khardung La Pass a treacherous challenge.

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go and try the top [route] first.’ He
got off and went to go check if there
was a road there. He came running
down! He said he was walking, andhe could see that there was somewater, there must be a water flow.
He thought it was small enough toride through. When he was about
to step, he saw a big tree flowing
by. He said if the current was sostrong that it could take a tree, then
we’ll be caught! He said, ‘Hell no!
Take the other one!’ So, the otherway we went and kept going.”

In between Rohtang Pass and Kehlong, the bikers hit snow
and extremely cold temperatures.

3  ROHTANG PASS
“After that we crossed Rohtang Pass,
which is where the most tourists
go. After that there is nothing. The
moment we crossed Rohtang Pass,the snow started. It was freezing
cold. It was bone-chilling. We put on
everything we were carrying. I put
on, I think, three jackets, and [myfriend] also started putting on jackets.
“Then, we wanted to have acigarette. The Zippo would not lightbecause our hands were frozen.
The cigarette was in my mouth, [myfriend] was trying to light it and I
was trying to pour the gas from thetop. The gas fell on my hand and lit afire there! He said, ‘It lit your hand!’ I
said, ‘I cannot feel it!’ It was so cold!
“I lit my cigarette, and we
filled our Zippo. So we went.

38 |“Then we got very hungry. We
stopped in one small bar and asked
for some food. Chapati roti andmutton. It was so … it was the tastiest
mutton I ever had in my life. Man, we
ate. You’re told not to each so muchbecause it will not digest because theair is going to be thin, but we werestarving and got such good food!
We ate. We did not realize by thetime we finished it was about 7:30
in the evening, and it was dark. So,
we thought, can we stay here? Theysaid, ‘No no no, you have to go.’“We were told not to drive at night.
But then, we had nowhere to stay.
So, we started riding at night. And
there were times when we did notknow which way to go, because we[couldn’t see in the] fog. So I said,‘You know what, I think you should

4  KEYLONG“We kept riding at night. We had no
option. If something had happened
to us, no one would find us. We were
so happy to reach Keylong. Not only
did we reach Keylong, we found a
hotel and there is a wine shop nearit. Can you imagine? So I said, ‘I
think we have earned ourselvesa drink.’ And it was so cold. So we
got rum. We had to! We lived! We
thought we would not make it!
“So, we lived, and we had ourshare [of rum] and we had somegood food. We went to check ourbike, and we realized the shocker
was broken. We found a guy who
knew how to make bikes, and he had
a whole bike. We bought his shocker
from his bike and changed out theold one for the new one. So we got
our petrol filled, and this time we had
our extra gallon filled. And we rode.”5  SARCHU“This ride was long. Very long. We
kept going. And we reached a placecalled Sarchu. There you have to[camp]. Sarchu is like a valley. It’s
surrounded by mountains. It’s …
it’s very cold. It’s,” Talukar laughed,“It’s killing. It’s pretty cold. And

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the good part is, there is one wine
shop there. They know the truckers
and the army guys, they need that.
So did we. We had Maggi [instantnoodles], and for the night we hadsome rum. And we spent the night.”
6  GATA LOOPS“Next morning. The Bullet that I
borrowed from my friend, it was an
old Bullet with the old system. Since
it was so cold, it wouldn’t start. I had
to kick it about a hundred times tostart it, and finally it got warm and it
started. The moment it started, I said
let’s go on. We found roads … small
and narrow, but roads you have totake [Gata Loops – a road famous for
its 21 switchbacks] to go up. I said
we’ll stop at 21 loops. The moment
we started climbing, my friend had
nature’s call. I said, ‘I cannot stop.’ Hesaid, ‘You know I have to go.’ I said,‘I don’t know. I am not stopping thisbike until 21 loops. Do you realize[how hard it is to] kick start? You do
not even know how to ride a bike?’“At one point [a truck pushed us]
and we skidded and we fell. We fell
towards the hill. But the moment
we fell, as if he was waiting for thismoment, he grabbed the bottle andran into the forest!” Talukdar laughed.
“The truck drove off, and I got
up and pulled up my bike. He cameback and afterwards we climbed. ‘Til
then we were complaining about
the gravel and how the road’s not
good. But then suddenly the bikewent into sand. And I realized it was
the desert. It was a river bed. It was ahuge stretch of land. Then we looked
for gravel, because [on gravel] we
could ride the bike. We could not ridethe bike anymore because there it
has to be pushed through the sand.”The view of Tanglang La Pass showcases the stark landscape inthe Himalayas . It is imperative to be prepared, because populated
places to stop are few and far between.

Talukdar sighed heavily. “We thought
we’d die. We pushed the bike acrossthat part. There was no other way.
“Then, when we came to a little
steady part, then we realized that mybike was actually broken [from when
it fell]. I could only go in first gear. So
I said, ‘We are dead. What do we do?’”Talukdar figured out a workaround for manipulating the gearson the bike and pressed on.
“Suddenly,” said Talukdar, “Theroad finished. There was no roadafter that. After that what happened
was, there was a riverbed where I got
stuck. There was water which falls,
and they had cut out a road there.
But when [the water] keeps falling, it
becomes too deep. So my bike wastoo heavy to come out. It got stuck.
“There were a lot of bikers duringthat time. They were waiting because
they were also stuck one by one,and they pulled themselves out andsomebody else helped them out.
They saw us, and they helped usout. So, we learned how to comeout of a waterfall if you get stuck,”
Pranjit laughed. “Next day we got
stuck alone! So we had to get off thebike and put a stone underneath.
We did not stop the bike. If theignition stopped, then it would bevery difficult to start again. Twice
we got stuck and came out.”

Pangong Lake was a highlightof Talukdar’s trip.

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7  TANGLANG LA PASS:
17,480 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL“After that, the road suddenly
finished. There was no road after
that. Just trodden path, and it was
climbing up. That was the toughest
climb. And when we reached thetop, it was Tanglang La Pass. It was
the second-highest motorcycle
road in the world. So, we climbed it.
When we reached it, we saw there
were other bikers who were finding
it difficult to breath because it wasso high. We were so happy reaching
there, we stood there, and we smokedagain. We celebrated! We had to dosomething! We carried medicines
to get us acclimated. But thenour journey was so troublesome,”
Talukdar laughed. “We did not get touse them! I said forget about getting
acclimated, we have to reach there
somehow! So, we reached there,
we smoked and we were happy
for some time. We helped someother people who were trying to get
acclimated — helping them breathe,sharing medicine and water, stuff
like that. We thought that we had
climbed up so high, that going
down would be easier. We wereon the bike but there were times
you had to push, pedal through it
because we were so high. So, we
thought going down would be mucheasier. But then, it was not easy.”
8  KHARDUNG LA PASS
“There was no road even while going
down. So now we had to hold on
to our brakes very hard. The roadwas quite curvy, so we took many
steep, blind turns. When we came
down that hill, after that it was easy.
There were good roads entering into
Leh. So we reached Leh, where wewould stay until the next morning

40 |Talukdar and friends spent a day at Pangong Lake, which lies at 14,270 feet.

to go to Khardung La Pass.
“Before we could go to a hotel,
we went to a garage. We said, ‘Can
you fix our bike please? Because wehave been pulling our bike!’ To climb
up was okay – first or second gear.
To climb down you have to get into
neutral or do something because
you cannot be in second gear tocome down. And on the plain, youhave to do something about it. He
said that when we fell, the pedal on
which the foot rests has bent, so it
was stopping the gear. So he fixed it.
We were all set to go for Khardung
La Pass. We found a hotel, we stayedat the hotel for the night. Next
morning, we went to Khardung La
Pass. So there we were. We had ourown time, and we celebrated there.
9  PANGONG LAKE“[We heard] that there was a lake. If
you do not go to this lake, your trip
is not complete. So the next day wewent to Pangong Lake. There wemet my friend Victoria from Boston
and her brother Steve. They werealso there, but they were in a car.
So we took a dip there. We took a
picture in the Chang La Pass, whichis the third-highest motorcycle
road. We went to Pangong Lakeand spent the night, we had fun.”10  BACK AGAIN“The problem was when we cameback, we had missed one day. We
had to stay one day extra to go to
Pangong Lake. Those days I was in
the bank, and we could not get sucheasy holidays. I had just 10 days,
I had to get back. So … now I had
wasted one day, and I had two days
left. “And I said, ‘There is a problem.
We’ll have to drive overnight.’ We
had to drive through. We could notstop anywhere. Because what will
you do? We had no other option.
“I would never advise anyone to

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Gunjan Mahanta (far left), Pranjit
Talukdar (middle left), and friends
Victoria and Steve at Pangong Lake.

Talukdar and friends also visited
Chang La Pass, the third-highest
motorable road in the world.

do that again. No one should everdo that. But we did. And now I findmyself so foolish. I was taking achance for what, for a day in thebank? So, we drove overnight. We
drove the entire trip. And it wasscary. That trip was quite scary.
“When I reached Rohtang Pass,we were dog tired. We could nothave driven anymore. And it started
to drizzle. We parked the bike, andwe slept. Right there, sitting andsleeping the way we could makeourselves comfortable. We slept forsome time, got up and we went to
freshen up. We were so dirty andugly looking! We were in bad shape.
“So we came again throughand stopped again in Chandigarh.
When we reached Chandigarh, we
stopped in the same hotel. We hadsome chicken soup. We felt good. I
don’t know why — I should not havethought like that — but I thought‘Why wait? Let’s save this day. Let’sreach home, and then we will rest.’“It was the wrong decision. The
moment we got onto the highway,
we were so tired I was not able tokeep my eyes open. We would ridefor 10 minutes, smoke, if we could
get tea we would have tea, wakeup, have some water, ride anotherten minutes. That’s how we came.
When I finally got home, it was 4 a.m.
My wife opened the door, and she
could not recognize me for sometime. When she finally recognizedme, she said ‘… I think you needa shower. Let’s talk after that.’“But then, it was quite amazing.
The places that you saw — it was sobeautiful. There are places where
you can just sit on the bike whileriding, and you can just open yourhand and you are able to touch ice
on both sides of the road. You justopen your hand, and you can touchice. It’s beautiful. It’s clean, it’s soclean, it’s so fresh, it’s so beautiful.
It’s worth taking a risk. But you
should not do it alone. It was quite
an experience. Now I know thetracks, now I know the mistakes.
Talukdar said this trip
affected his life and choice ofprofession in a profound way.
“After I came back from that after
about five or six months, I left myjob and came into the development
sector. I joined Save the Children.
“You spend so much timewith you. [When] you work in a
corporate land, you do not spend
time with yourself, do you realize
that? You follow a timetable, you
do not spend time with yourself.
I spent a lot of time with myself; I
did not want to give it away again.
I wanted to keep that with me.
“Yes, I think it did [affect his
decision to leave banking]. I think

it did because … I don’t know if itmakes sense, but it helped me tosee. My life was mostly doing Excel
sheets then. And numbers andportfolios and shares, which will
make money and investments,
which will make money. I do notknow why, I do not know how, I
do not have a specific answer. But
then when you give so much time
— you have nothing else to do, all
you can do is just ride,” he laughed.
“And I also … the thing is, when
I moved from the banking sector
from the position I was pretty goodat, it was a risk. I got a little brave totake risks. I think it is worth taking
a risk, and I got a chance fromSave the Children doing the samething. I could use my expertise.
“First thing they did, they sent
us to Rajasthan to the hottest
place. They work for child rights.
And we were a bunch of guys
who came from corporations.
And we were complaining all day
about the AC. How come the AC
is not strong enough, the hotel is
not good enough. And we went
there where there was no light,
no current, no system of AC. And
those children were so happy! Their
happiness was infectious. You
cannot complain, sit there and saythat it’s hot. We used to complain
about everything in life. But thenwe see their houses, and they are sohappy. And living better than us.
“So, the paradigm shift happens,but it happens gradually. You seethat you are making people happy.
What you were doing earlier,
your clients used to shout thatthe profit could have been more.
Now these people are happy. It
makes you feel good. It’s kind of
addictive. So you stay. So I stay.” ■HEIFER.ORG

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4/8/19 9:19 AMheifer bulletin NEWS FROM THE FIELD

How a Heifer Project
Prevents Migration

PHOTOS BY PHILLIP DAVISBy Veasna Prom, Heifer Cambodia communication and networking manager

Meout Ya holds chicks given to his family by Heifer Cambodia.

M

ore than a million
Cambodians havemigrated to find work
abroad, most often
in Thailand. Around 53 percent
are undocumented migrant
workers. As a result, they face many
challenges, including staying in
low-quality shelters, enduring poor
working conditions and receiving
lower pay than other workers.
Many live in fear of being arrested

42 |and deported back to Cambodia
and losing all of their savings.
Chea Kimshour and her husband,
Meout Ya, live with their threechildren in Rolea B’ier district,Kampong Chhnang province. Before
joining a Heifer Cambodia project,Chea Kimshour’s husband migrated
to work in Thailand because of
the lack of job opportunities in
Cambodia. He needed to earn somemoney to support the family andpay off their debts, and that left Chea
Kimshour alone to care for theirchildren and manage the farm.
In 2004, Meout Ya was able
to migrate to Thailand througha broker as an undocumented
migrant worker. Chea Kimshour
borrowed $500 from a middleman
with an interest rate of 20 percent
per month. In Thailand, Meout Ya
worked as a construction worker
for a small company and sent

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Meout Ya and Chea Kimshour earn $300 a month selling chicks.

Thanks to the family’s poultry business, Meout Ya
no longer needs to find work outside of Cambodia.

home only about $50 per month tosupport his family. He rarely went
outside his room and workplacebecause he was afraid of the police.
“I never slept well,” Chea
Kimshour said. “I always thought
about my husband. When mychildren got sick, it was so hard forme to take care of them alone.”
In January 2018, a Heifer
project was introduced in her
community, and Chea Kimshour
joined the project’s self-helpgroup as well as an associatedagricultural cooperative. Throughthe project, she received trainingthat included business planning,

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4/8/19 9:19 AMheifer bulletin NEWS FROM THE FIELD

Meout Ya tends to the chickens in the coop.

Chea Kimshour convinced her husband, Meout Ya, toreturn from Thailand to start a poultry business together.

chicken and garden management,
leadership, microfinance and the
12 Cornerstones. Chea Kimshour
gained a strong sense of confidence,and she saw the benefits of owninga business. She convinced herhusband to return home to run
a chicken operation together.
Upon his return, Meout
Ya attended the training on
chicken management with hiswife. Together, they borrowed$500 from the cooperative tostart their poultry business.
At first, they were worried about
the investment due to a previous
bad experience where they tried
to raise 15 chickens; most of the

44 |animals died, and they lost money.
After joining the project, the couple
has successfully raised more than
180 hens with two incubators, andthey produce at least 500 chicks permonth. Now, they can earn morethan $300 per month selling chicks.
Chea Kimshour said they nolonger have challenges selling theirchickens since the cooperative
connected them to local markets.
With their success, Chea Kimshourand Meout Ya are sharing theirknowledge and experiences withother self-help group members whoare interested in raising chickens.
“I don’t think I could raise
hundreds of chickens without

Chea Kimshour and Meout Ya hold acarton of eggs from their chickens.

disaster … before receiving thetraining,” Meout Ya said. “Moreover,I am no longer living with fear as I
was in Thailand. [Now] I see my wifeand children’s smile every day.”“There’s no greater happinessthan having family members
living together,” Chea Kimshour
said. “I will not allow my husband
to migrate to Thailand anymore.
Our chicken business is going very
well, and we plan to expand ourchicken pen and increase to 500
hens next year. I am so grateful thatthe project is implemented in mycommunity and gives my family theopportunity to change our living
conditions and to be together.” ■SUMMER 201919-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 44

4/8/19 9:19 AM

DO YOU MATCH?

CHECK YOUR EMPLOYEE MATCHING GIFT
PROGRAM TO DOUBLE YOUR DONATIONYour company may match your gifts to Heifer International.
Use our handy checklist below and complete the easy steps today:❑ Give to Heifer. Thank you for your recent gift!
❑ Visit www.heifer.org/matching and find youremployee matching gift program to double(or triple) your recent gift.

❑ Once you submit your matching gift claim,
call or email us and we’ll send you a matchinggift canvas backpack!

888.5HUNGER (888.5 4 8.6 4 37)
CORPMATCH@HEIFER.ORG

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 45

4/8/19 9:19 AM

mixed media FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The power of female
friendship prevails in

Girls Burn Brighter
By Molly Mitchell, World Ark writerG

irls Burn Brighter is alove story about two girls
who grow up together
in a small village called
Indravalli in Karnataka, India, andtheir epic quest to find each otherafter tragic circumstances separate
them. The imaginative and confident
Savitha and the sweet, chronicallyincredulous Poornima discoversomething startling together. They
learn early that something is more
important than marriage and more
powerful than the burdens andexpectations placed on them by themen in their lives: their friendship.
The love they share for eachother is, as Savitha considers at
one point in the book, the only
relationship she ever had that was
not tangled up in fear. As women
living in poverty in India, Savitha
and Poornima are abused at every
turn in every way possible. The
novel is a painful, frustrating read asthese two guileless young women
discover and strive against someof the ugliest forces this world
has to offer – poverty, disease,misogyny and generalized cruelty.

46 |It is heartbreaking to hear theirinner thoughts, picking throughthoughts and memories for anything
remotely valuable, much as Savitha
spent her girlhood picking throughgarbage heaps for scraps that might
be valuable enough to sell. Savitha
thinks often of a scrap of indigo
fabric she wove for Poornima,
and Poornima holds precious amemory of her late mother brushing
her hair. They come to recognizethat their friendship is the only
thing bringing color and vitality
to lives sapped of joy by poverty.
As a reader, one groans to watch
the girls fall victim to those who
would (and do) make them slaves.
Even though the novel is fictional,
the horrible things that happen to
Savitha and Poornima are all too real
for thousands of girls around theworld. Human trafficking is alive andwell in India, preying on young girls
seeking to escape poverty and abuseat home or from forced marriages.
Lured by promises of jobs, thesegirls are forced to disappear into theblack hole of the sex trade. Fearing
physical punishment, rape andGirls Burn Brighter
By Shobha Rao
Hardcover $25.99
paperback $17.99
416 pages
harm to their families, escaping
these situations alone is nigh-on
impossible, and corruption in law
enforcement leaves little hope forhelp or conviction of these crimes.
In 2015, almost 7,000 cases ofhuman trafficking were recorded,
according to the United Nations

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Office on Drugs and Crime. Of
course, human trafficking is anotoriously difficult crime to track,
so these numbers are in all likelihood
only the tip of the iceberg. According
to John Winterdyk, professor of
criminology at the Canadian Mount
Royal University, via Asia Times,“Estimates point to about 200,000
victims in India but there could be
more. It is one of the fastest growing
and most profitable crimes. About
90 percent of the girls trafficked here
are for the domestic sex trade.”
Sex trafficking may be the mostextreme expression of misogyny

Poornima and Savitha experience,but the universal hatred of women
both girls experience from almost
every man they encounter in theirlives — not only pimps, but fathers,
romantic partners, husbands,
brothers — is crazy-making andmaddeningly realistic. Poornima
is attacked with hot oil by herhusband, permanently disfiguring
her face. No one she encountersafter the fact is surprised by this.
They know it was her husband
and are only idly curious whether
he used oil or acid. This practice isalarmingly common in India andthroughout Southeast Asia today.
While starting off at somethingof a slow burn, Girls Burn Brighter
catches fire as you become desperate
to find out whether Savitha andPoornima are reunited at last. Savitha
and Poornima’s friendship and love
for each other, “burning brighter”
than their grief and anger and pain,
would be impossible with a man in
their lives’ context. It is only witha fellow woman that it would bepossible, and is perhaps powerfulenough to help them survive theunrelenting horror of being borna girl into poverty in India.n

TEACHERS:CHOOSE YOUR ADVENTURE!
Embark on an educational and fundraising adventurethat teaches your students about the world. Pick the
FREE program that best suits your class, or create your own.

READ TO FEED ®

GLOBAL STUDY GUIDE SERIESYou choose
Middle or high school

1 day–2 weeks
All ages

Nurture a love of reading
while helping others with ourreading incentive program.

Venture around the world andexplore our work with ourin-depth interactive guides.

Connect with students in
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3–6 weeks
Elementary

MILK MONEYVISIT WWW.HEIFER.ORG/SCHOOLS FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO ORDER FREE RESOURCES.

HEIFER.ORG

19-WA-CD24 2019 Summer WA.indb 47| 47

4/8/19 9:19 AMfirst person PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

PHOTO BY XAUME OLLEROS“I want to study to be a teacher
and teach boys and girls.
Then I’ll send the money home
and tell my mom, ‘Take this andshare it between you and Dad.’”– 10-year-old Khardiata Alassane Ba
In Nakara, Senegal, harsh conditions and a lack of opportunities make it hard to turn dreams
into realities. Things in the community are starting to change through a Heifer Senegal project. A
solar-powered well means convenient access to clean water, and Khardiata’s family is earning moreincome through the chickens and sheep they were given. Soon Khardiata will be able to attend
school so that, down the road, she can both become a professional and support her family.

48 |SUMMER 2019

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With one action:
Fight hunger andpoverty today,and help end it
tomorrow.
PARTICIPATE INHEIFER’S 2020
LEGACY CHALLENGE!
There has never been a better time to include Heifer
in your will or estate plans. When you set up a legacy
gift today, a generous donor will match 10 percent(up to $10,000 per disclosed gift) of the amount you
indicate. The additional donation will be put to use
immediately to fight hunger and poverty today.
It’s easy to make an impact that will be felt today —and tomorrow!
• Add Heifer to your will or estate plans — contact us
to find out how!
• If you’ve already put Heifer in your will or estateplans, let us know!
• Activate the matching gift by providing us withinformation about your legacy plans.
Name Heifer in your will to ensure your impact long
into the future. And if you act today, 10 percent will
be matched and immediately start fighting hunger
and poverty!

Contact Debbie McCullough,Vice president of planned giving
888-422-1161, ext. 4922
Debbie.McCullough@HeiferFoundation.org
Find out more:
HeiferFoundation.org“Heifer is our best connection
to the rest of the world.”-legacy donor Bette Clark

HeiferFoundation.org

HEIFER FOUNDATION | 1 WORLD AVENUE | LITTLE ROCK, AR 72202 | 888.422.1161 | INFO@HEIFERFOUNDATION.ORG | HEIFERFOUNDATION.ORG

HI Foundation Legacy Ad.indd 1

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1 World Avenue
Little Rock, AR 72202/USA

Nonprofit
Organization
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PAID

Heifer International

Please scan here to
donate livestock to a
struggling family.

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69.RPWASU2019

Why do so many Friends flock to Heifer?
Because so many good deeds happen!
Monthly gifts from Friends of Heifer mean regular servings ofnutritious milk,,

an abundance of quality food,safer stoves to cook with,and health care,,steady income for medicine
the chance to stay in school,

and a bunch of families transformed.
More than 30,000 Friends of Heifer make monthly gifts to strengthen our work to uplift families. Their“multiplier” effect dramatically increases Heifer’s reach and impact — helping children get more milk
and nutrition, and parents earn a reliable income that supports health care, education and progress.

So many good deeds from one monthly gift — that’s what Friends are for! Become one today.

See form enclosed between pages 24-25,
call us at 888.5HUNGER orvisit www.heifer.org/monthly

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