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Nshima & Curry

Melvin's  Blog

Nshima & Curry

RIDING A GOAT TO SUCCESS

Take a look around you. What's your most prized possession?
Perhaps it's your high-speed computer, which allows you to
communicate with people all over the world, sometimes even
the ones in your home.

Perhaps it's your SUV, an all-terrain vehicle that offers
"pure driving pleasure." You've driven it deep into the
woods, it has driven you deep into debt.

Perhaps it's your new titanium golf clubs, endorsed by Tiger
Woods. They've allowed you to hit so many birdies, the darn
animal activists are after you.

If you have trouble deciding, it's probably because you own
a lot. A digital camera, a DVD player, a wireless,
Internet-ready toaster. A television in every room, even one
for the dog. Three sofa sets: one in the living room, one in
the basement and one in the formal room, in case Charles and
Camilla drop by. A wardrobe filled with dozens of shoes,
reminding you of the best dream you ever had, the one in
which you were a centipede.

Of course, you deserve everything you have. "I earned it,"
you tell everyone. "You should have seen how hard I worked
in all my jobs." So what if you were born into a privileged
family or country -- you deserved that, too. "I earned it,"
you tell everyone. "You should have seen how hard I worked
in my previous life."

Well, imagine for a moment that you live in a poor country
and own very little. Nothing but the roof over your head and
the shirt on your back. It's a second-hand shirt, which once
belonged to a tall American and is thankfully long enough to
cover the lower half of your body.

Now imagine also that you have a friend in a neighboring
hut. He doesn't own much either, but he does possess
something you don't: a goat. And what a fantastic animal it
is, producing several quarts of milk a day and enough manure
to fertilize the pumpkin patch. And best of all, this
wonderful animal eats almost anything -- grass, weeds,
shrubs -- even giving your friend his regular haircut.
Before you know it, you're suffering from a serious case of
goat envy.

"If only I had a goat," you tell yourself, "I wouldn't be
poor anymore. I could sell the milk, sell the offspring, and
fill my hut from top to bottom with shoes."

It may seem far-fetched that a goat can make a big
difference, but try telling that to Beatrice Biira. As a
child in Uganda, she couldn't afford to go to school, not
until her mother received a goat from Heifer International,
the charitable organization. Money from the goat's milk
enabled the family to send Beatrice to school, where she
worked hard and earned a scholarship to Connecticut College.
What a fantastic animal -- the goat, not Beatrice, though
she's a wonder herself. Not many people have ridden a
goat to America.

It helped that the goat produced offspring, becoming a dam.
The female parent of a four-legged animal is known as a dam,
the male parent a sire. If you live near a goat farm, you
probably already know this. You've probably heard the farmer
yell, "Hey, someone left the gate open again. The dam goats
are loose!"

As required by Heifer, Beatrice's family gave the goat's
first kid to another needy family, continuing the cycle of
giving. If you asked Beatrice whether you should buy
yourself another TV or give someone a goat, she might laugh
and say, "Well, I've watched American TV and let me tell
you, goats are more entertaining."

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