How Does Livestock Impact Villagers Ability to Sustain Themselves?

Why is livestock so vital?

In 2005 one of my older sisters collapsed because of a chronic heart disease. She required extensive surgeries and a heart transplant. At the time, I was a high school senior, making very little money working under the table, and I sent what I could to help. My two sisters came up with $6000 USD to send to help save my sister. Without the means to pay the entry hospital fee, the hospital was not obligated to provide medical care to my sister.

My brother and brother-in-law stayed with her every single day. The hospital was a nine hour bus trip away from the village. They rotated sleeping outside on the hospital steps with sitting close by my sister’s bed side.  Every day, they alternated who waited in line to beg for food, because they couldn’t afford to pay. After three and a half solid months in the hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, the doctors sent her back home to the village in Buon U 3. The recovery and the amount of pain she experienced was absolutely absurd for her. Now my brother and brother-in-law continue to be her major supporters and guardians.

Now, due to the severity of her health conditions she is unable to farm, which is the primary occupation of my other family members. She mainly does light chores around the house and cares for young children, occassionally helping neighbors to harvest (against doctors orders) to take in some extra money. Whenever my brother-in-law has to leave the village to work at the farm, my sister looks after animals such as ducks, chickens, pigs, and goats. Having livestock helps my sister and her husband to sustain themselves to provide food and financial support to cover her heart medicines and routine monthly visits to see the doctor.

Summer of 2020, we supported my brother-in-law to built a pig pen with bricks and cement. He did it all by himself with just $300 because my sister was hoping to raise pigs. A community member in the village and a long time friend of theirs has been raising livestock as a way to support herself and her family. This friend sold her six little piglets for another $300. Fortunately, Faith and I were able to help make it happen. She sold five pigs ten months later to help with medical expenses. Now, she is expecting and hoping that this one pig left behind will produce piglets, so that the cycle can continue.

Livestock is vital to humans. Chickens and ducks provide eggs and meat. Goats, pigs and cows provide meat to sell or eat. Water buffalo are used to farm, although my family hasn’t had one since I was a young child, and would walk it to pasture with my siblings. Caring for animals is now an important part of life for some of my older siblings who have health problems. My other oldest sister is what you might call in the US a “homesteader.” My older brother who has suffered a stroke and many health conditions keeps chickens and cares for the home and children. Sometimes the cost of feeding the animals is a struggle to maintain, even though it offers a much needed source of income and food. There are not many jobs available besides farming and factory work, which are intense manual labor, so caring for livestocks offers a way to contribute to the family for those that cannot work in the fields anymore.

The way that my brother-in-law and brother care for my sister who had a heart transplant has been a true testimonial of care. They are great role models to me. Because they are genuinely caring individuals the wave of that energy transforms other lives in a deep and impactful way. I see the impact that it creates, the amount of gratitude and appreciation in her eyes. I recall her smile, radiating with so much hope and light for a better tomorrow, and it makes giving so worth it!

Rich Enuol

Rich founded Across the Sea in 2021 to support the community that he came from in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Since 2005 he has been raising funds and giving back to this community of indigenous villagers. He loves to garden, take photographs and be in nature. He feels at home surrounded by his many houseplants, and in this mini-jungle likes to play his guitar and practice juggling.

He has had many different jobs since coming to the US, such as server, cashier, factory worker, manicurist, personal care assistant for individuals with dissabilities, manager in a non-profit organization, cultivation, language interpreter and an infant & childcare specialist.

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