Outer Voices Outer Voices

Sailing is tough business, one of the last frontiers of human experience in the natural world, in one of the last remaining wild parts of the planet–the ocean. There’s a small group of people who spend as much time as possible there - contriving their work, their relationships, and everything else in their lives to make it possible to be at sea for as long as possible.

In the Kham region of Tibet, there are families who have been nomadic herders for thousands of years. Almost everything they need, they get from a herd of yaks who graze on the wide expanse of grassy hills within sight of the distant peaks of the Himalayas. Last fall, Stephanie Guyer-Stevens went to Kham and met a family of nomads and their yaks. She heard about the spirits that protect the holy mountains, and learned about some yak economics. Families now send their kids away to school, and there is increasing pressure for them to join the modern economy. The nomadic life is gradually fading away.

There I was, an Indian woman on the move in a strange new land - Mongolia - and it didn't feel so strange. So much resonated - especially the voices of other women - like Monjago, a nomadic herder, Munkhtsetseg, a horse trainer, Onika, a student, Amgalan, a language teacher and Jainaa, a singer. They made faraway feel like home.

Bhutan is a land of prayer flags and happiness. But people are people, and human suffering, including domestic violence, is as prevalent here as it is anywhere. Queen Ashi Sangay Choden Wangchuk takes her job - creating happiness for the people of her kingdom - seriously - so much so that she treks into the most remote corners of the country to meet the people who she would otherwise never see, to find out about their lives, strategize about health care, and to help end domestic violence.

War decimated the landscape of Vietnam. The drastic economic times that followed drove Vietnam into the globalizing economy at lightning speed — and the country soon became the second largest exporter of rice in the world. After the war, Vietnam catapulted into the global marketplace, fast becoming the second largest producer of rice in the world. But the price of this rice is still being calculated: one out of every seven people in Vietnam goes hungry, for lack of rice, and farmers are spending more on chemical fertilizer than they are earning in profits.

LiveHopeLove looks at the universal problems faced by people with HIV/AIDS, through the specific lens of Jamaica, where almost no one is unaffected by the disease.



What are the unique realities of this small island state that set its HIV/AIDS sufferers apart from those in the rest of the world? Poet and writer Kwame Dawes travels to Jamaica to explore the experience of people living with HIV/AIDS and to examine how the disease has shaped their lives.