jake lyell photography (blog)

From the moment I walked off the plane to get my baggage in Quito, I was out of breath and a little light headed. At 9000 feet, Quito does funny things to a guy used to living at sea level. It wasn’t long before we came back to a more familiar altitude. After sleeping just four hours at the hotel, we hopped an early morning flight down south to Ecuador’s Loja (low-ha) region.

On this most recent assignment with Heifer, Loja’s airport was the starting point for Christian and me on our journey west toward the Peruvian border. In just an hour’s flight from Quito we landed in a beautiful valley in the Andes Mountains. After taking some breakfast in Catamayo, we set out for an 8 hour drive to the border – five of which hurdled us through bumpy, unpaved backroads that gradually spiraled down the mountains into dry scrub forest.

The destination was a village called Hacienda Vieja, which straddles the border with Peru. Because of the remote locations of homes we visited on this trip, we were able to stay with the families that I photographed and that Christian interviewed. Below, Celia (left) and Monfilo (right), our first hosts, in their kitchen. We stayed in their home for two nights, along with an annoyingly gregarious rooster who seemed not to know the difference between 2AM and sunup.

I much prefer staying in houses and foregoing a regular shower or fancy dinner in order to witness the daily lives of my subjects. The lack of amenities and occasional discomforts are more than made up for in the experience of living life much as it existed in the States 100 years ago. Below, a portrait of Celia and Monfilo made during their younger years hangs on a wall in their home.

Some five hours of winding mountain road away from the nearest town with a market or fueling station, Hacienda Vieja relies on its own means to survive. Farmers here grow what they need to feed their families and use donkeys as the primary means of transport. Unlike many NGOs who operate in areas that are easily accessible, Heifer makes it a point to change the lives of those in hard to reach places as well.

With an average life expectancy of 75 years, Ecuadorians’ longevity exceeds that of most developing countries. Above, Felipa Sarango, is a venerable 107 years old. Unlike the elderly of Ecuador’s cities, she has seen little change in her town throughout her lifetime. While most young people move to urban areas to seek a life outside of farming, the successes of Heifer’s agricultural programs in Hacienda Vieja have helped to keep some of them around.

I wish I were fluent in Spanish, or Castillano, as it’s called down here. I’m thinking of returning to Latin America in the slow time after Christmas to take some lessons. Photographing in Ecuador was a bit more difficult than other places I’ve visited. Usually Christian & I are each provided with an interpreter, but on this trip only one person assisted us both.

As Christian does the writing, it was more important for him to make use of our interpreter, leaving me to pantomime direction where my Spanish skills failed me. Sam, our interpreter (below, left) was an interesting and hardworking gentleman. An American who has lived in Loja for over 30 years, he married an Ecuadorian woman and they’ve raised their children here.

It seems on nearly every excursion I make into the developing world some sort of animal, insect or even human attempts to get the best of me. In the past year I’ve been bitten by a dog in China, contracted Dengue Fever from mosquitoes in Haiti, hacked in the arm by machete-wielding thieves in Kenya and mobbed by monstrous fire ants in Zambia.

Yes, I can genuinely say that I’ve had ants in my pants; and it’s not pretty. Unfortunately, these experiences tend to bolster many an American’s perceptions about the “third world,” and make it appear a more precarious destination than it is. Perhaps the reality is that I’m simply accident prone. I had come to expect some sort of incident upon venturing this time into South America.

In reading up about Ecuador prior to my trip, I found out that there are many a species of poisonous snake that inhabit the trees and tall grass of rural areas. I immediately thought, as bite-prone as I am, a snake bite would get me this time around. Nothing quite so dramatic was to be my fate. As it happened, I awoke in the middle of an otherwise peaceful night itching all over. Crawling out of my mosquito net with my flashlight, I fumbled through my bag for my insect repellent, sprayed myself and the foam mattress where I slept.

By the time I awoke the next morning I was covered in what looked like chicken pocks. Some sort of insect had made a feast of me the night before and left me scratching through the next week. In addition, I would break out in itchy, burning hives on my legs and arms daily for a couple hours before they would subside again. Upon arriving at my next portal to the world wide web I searched through the Wikipedia articles on bed bugs, bubonic plague and the various pock-producing diseases outlined in the heath-risks section of my Lonely Planet Ecuador guide.

If my wiki-diagnosis is accurate, I had fallen prey to a case of fleas-in-the-bed and a subsequent allergic reaction, common throughout much of South America. I should have guessed. After a series of anti-histamine creams and pills, where I again had to use a mixture of Spanish and sign language to communicate with the pharmacist, I seem to be doing fine. As I write this entry in Lima, almost two weeks after the incident, I’ve been hive-free for two days.

From the border, the trip continued back through the towns of Alta Vega and Mangahurquillo, where we stopped along the way further documenting the lives of Heifer project participants. Above, Maria Cacay-Merizalde and Amadeo Cayay-Rodriguez on their farm in the foothills of the Andes. Below, phone booths in the town of Alamor.

The sun was setting over the Rio Zamora on our flight from Loja to Quito, but the trip was not even half completed. We had spent just five days in Ecuador. The next day we’d have part of the day to rest in Quito before flying down to Lima in the afternoon. We’d continue our work throughout Peru for another week.

Stay tuned for Peru…

Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell Photography

Traveling in the developing world can wear on one’s conscience. Although the simplicity of lifestyle and overwhelming hospitality found there can be extraordinary, more often than not, essential needs are not being met, and daily life is a struggle. As my friend, writer Christian DeVries put it while remarking how fortunate we were to be born in America, we (Westerners) hit the jackpot in the global lottery.

Lucky we are indeed. It is my observation that those in the States, regardless of background, who truly work hard and make good decisions can provide for their own needs and those of their family and possibly even save a bit on the side. This is not the case in many places in the world. Work ethic is certainly an essential ingredient in success; but drive, determination and hard work mean nothing when the pillars of society are not in place to reward such attributes.

These same thoughts were stirring in my mind last year while in an open-air restaurant in Iquitos, Peru, on the Amazon River. Until a few moments prior my greatest anxiety was how I might purge my mouth of the intolerable fiery sensation leftover from consuming the world’s hottest chili pepper that had innocently garnished my plate of octopus and crawfish.

A young man, about my age approached my table peddling newspapers, magazines and talk time for mobile phones. Without success at mine, I watched him as he criss-crossed to each table in the crowded restaurant without making one sale. I could genuinely feel the discouragement in my own heart that I’m sure he felt inside, and I also knew that this discouragement was nothing new to him. I wondered what kind of home he might go back to empty handed that evening.

What is different about my assignments with Heifer International is that the day is spent documenting progress and change. I dwell on successes in farming, education, economy and family life, not sickness, injustice and upheaval. The people I photograph, if they haven’t already done so, are climbing farther out of the desperate circumstances into which they were born. Never is it discouraging work. On the contrary, it is inspiring.

Heifer Project International (HPI) is a development organization that fights poverty and hunger by implementing long-term agricultural programs that lead to self-sustainability. Usually that program is an integrated approach that combines a variety of solutions to meet this goal, helping the farmers along the way with whatever materials or training they may need. For example, Mr. Ndossi, above right, received cows from Heifer. He uses milk from the cows that he doesn’t drink to make cheese and sells it in the market. He spreads the cows’ manure on his coffee and banana trees as fertilizer, producing more at harvest time as a result. He also shovels the manure into a pit where it gives off methane. The methane is piped into his home where it used to light lamps and as fuel on his gas stove. Mr. Ndossi has no need to chop down trees for firewood or buy candles in the market. He has plenty to eat and earns a steady income.

On my third assignment with the NGO, I have recently been traveling in Tanzania and Zambia. While it’s true that I mention Heifer quite a bit in this forum, it’s not simply because they are a client; Heifer’s approach to ending poverty works, and to this I am a witness. Above, Yedida Matonya is a Heifer recipient (project participant) near Dodoma, in central Tanzania. Below, participant Ryness Himululi helps her daughter Jennifer with her school work near Ndola, in Zambia’s Copperbelt.

Heifer’s effectiveness as an NGO can be attributed in part to its community-based organization. More often than not, community groups will approach Heifer after hearing of the success of other project farmers, rather than the other way around. After a dialog with local HPI country staff, Heifer will then form an animal or agricultural project that best fits the needs of the given geographic area. Below, Kulwa Selemani farms chickens in Tanzania’s Coastal Province, near Dar Es Salaam.

As a project is established, country staff select members of the local community to act as intermediaries between themselves and the project participants. Supervisors must show leadership skills and a desire to help their neighbors before undergoing training on how best to implement Heifer’s 12 cornerstones (ideals such as Sustainability and Self-Reliance) in the community. Sister Alexandra Buretta (below) is one such person. At the age of 69, she supervises a Heifer pig project with over 200 participants in various villages on Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. By using community-based supervisors and local staff, HPI employees are already versed in the language, culture and community nuances in which they operate.

Tourism is booming in and around Arusha, about an hour west of the great mountain. The city is the gateway both to Serengetti National Park, where wide-eyed travelers come to spy big game like elephants and giraffe, and the snow-capped Kilimanjaro, where trekkers can ascend Africa’s highest peak. Many Tanzanians come here in hopes of finding employment in the tourism industry. Most residents in the area, however, benefit little from the constant influx of foreigners to the area.

In 1999, residents of the Village of Mkuru (above) approached Heifer International and requested assistance. The village, located in a dry, isolated region one hour North East of Arusha, lies at the base of Mt. Meru. The residents here are members of East Africa’s formerly nomadic Masai Tribe. In 1999, children in Mkuru did not receive any formal education. Soil quality was low due to overgrazing, and infant mortality was high from lack of access to medical facilities. Heifer concluded that cows or sheep were not what the village needed to improve their way of life. Though these are familiar livestock to the Masai, HPI in turn introduced 12 camels to the village, along with training in veterinary care, plowing, and camel breeding.

You won’t find many camels farther south than Northern Kenya’s Chalbi desert. Though it took a while to catch on down here, they turned out to be just what Mkuru needed. In the dry, harsh conditions of the village, the grazing habits of sheep and cows make them ultimately unsustainable, eating the vegetation that does grow and trampling away what is left. Camels do not compete with such livestock, preferring thorny scrub brush to grass; and unlike hooves, their soft padded feet don’t contribute to soil erosion. Known for trekking long distances without needing to refuel, camels are shoe-ins for the area’s low water table.

“When we get camels we are happy because they changed our life,” says village chairman Isaya Shakwet (above right). “Camels can carry a lot of goods like water and supplies. We are able to take people to the hospital by camel.” The improvements are many. The overall nutrition of the village has improved since 1999 as residents are drinking milk from the camels. In addition to the animal’s use for its plowing abilities, crop yields have increased as a result of better soil quality. Families are being fed larger meals and are earning an income by taking the abundance to the market. Parents are now able to afford medical and education fees for village children. “Through camels we get a lot of income… We pay doctors once a month to come out and give medical care to pregnant and nursing women. Our community is improving a lot because of all of these things,” continues Shakwet.

As if all this progress is not enough, Mkuru is now earning the majority of income in the tourist industry. Tourists arrive in the village where they begin a 3 or 5 day Safari on camelback through Northern Tanzania’s rugged wilderness. Even after Passing on the Gift (a system where animal recipients give offspring to other villages in need), Mkuru now has 26 camels in the village – more than enough to provide for the village needs as well as meet the demands of carefree foreign adventurers. Before 1999, no one could have predicted the changes that would come about in this village in the next ten years, and no one could be more pleased than the villagers themselves.

Bordering Tanzania to the Southwest, remote and landlocked Zambia is one of the world’s poorest countries. Sparsely populated, its 12 million residents are quartered mainly in and around its capital Lusaka and in the Copperbelt region to the North. HIV/AIDS has had a devastating effect on Zambia’s population and economy. Today, nearly 17% of the country’s citizens are living with the disease, causing the average life expectancy here to sink to just 38 years. Above, the main thoroughfare runs through the town of Mumbwa in Central Province.

With such overwhelming statistics, HIV/AIDS has had an effect on nearly every family we visited, including the Kalusa family. When we visited them in a village outside Mumbwa, Mr. Kalusa was away attending the funeral of a relative. His wife Bess Mutelo is 38 years old, and together they have nine children. As if nine weren’t enough to provide for, the Kalusas have also taken in Bess’ mother Olipa, as well as seven other children – relatives whose parents have died. Below, the Kalusa children bring water from a well dug by HPI in the village of Mika, near Mumbwa. Well installations are not something that Heifer is particularly known for. However, when it became apparent that a great need for them existed in rural Zambia, the NGO stepped in.

In addition to a nearby well, the Kalusa family has received goats and draft cattle from Heifer. The goats provide meat and milk for the family. The draft cattle provide milk as well but are mainly used for plowing fields. With sixteen children in the house ranging from 8 months to 24 years, there is no shortage of hands to work the field. However, in years past, providing enough food to go around was a problem. The use of manure as fertilzer and the cattle’s plowing abilites have a significant effect on crop yields. Remarking on successes of the project, the oldest son, Loswell Mutelo says, “The biggest impact I have seen is that we produce more food than before. We are a big family but we are able to feed ourselves.”

In light of the recent spike in global food prices, especially in the developing world, the fact that this family of 19 is able to raise enough food to provide for themselves is remarkable. In fact, they produce more than enough milk and vegetables to feed themselves; they are able to take some to the market, thus earning an income. The excess produce is reflected in one of the houses on the Kalusa’s compound, where Bess Mutelo, the family’s matriarch, displays her collection of fine dishes.

Is the Kalusa family rich now? Not by our standards they aren’t. But like many farmers that are Heifer participants, they are past the point of worrying whether or not they will find enough food and are putting priority on things like education and caring for those in their community and family that are in need. In more ways than one, they are passing on the gift.

Our journey ended in the town of Livingstone, near the Zambia/Zimbabwe border, where a different attraction is drawing large numbers of tourists. A massive gorge of the Zambezi River, Victoria Falls stretches 1.7 kilometers from end to end with a height of 108 meters. Though the falls can be viewed from Zimbabwe as well, sightseers have all but given up venturing into its political instability. They come from all around the world in droves to lay eyes on the falls and don rain ponchos to protect from the endless spray emanating from the rushing of water into the deep basin below.

More refreshing than the cool water of the Zambezi, however, was to be outnumbered by the hundreds of middle class Zambian tourists who came to glimpse the falls at the same time as I did. Only then could I begin to visualize an Africa where its citizens had not only attained the necessities of life, but also the luxuries of leisure.


-Jake Lyell travels regularly with freelance writer Christian DeVries to document the work of Heifer International. The quotes in this post were provided by Mr. DeVries.-

It pays to check out craigslist, especially if you’re a freelancer. In passing, I just sold a hand-truck in their classifieds for $10 within 30 minutes of posting it. Over in the the jobs section, when a request came up late last week for a fashion photographer, I responded immediately. This job was far different from the last one I got off craigslist, which was photographing a junior soccer league. Hey, anything to fill in the gaps.
Will West (shown above) is burgeoning a fashion designer out of Virginia Beach. He came to Richmond on Friday night to showcase his Don Bazaar clothing line at the Hyperlink Cafe.


I was brought on board to document the evening, from the models getting ready backstage to the last strut down the runway. Ending at two in the morning, this is one of the latest jobs I’ve ever had. However, it was well worth staying up late to be in such marvelously fine company.


It’s been since August since I’ve been out of the country and I’ve grown a bit restless being back home for a couple months. It was great to be able to pick up such interesting work during my time here in Richmond. Staying out of the country for weeks at a time and then coming home and getting jobs has proved a challenge, but I feel I feel I have kept the balance rather well this Fall. I leave for Haiti next week… wish me luck.

Sitting in an internet cafe in the steamy Amazon port city of Iquitos in North-Eastern Peru, I began to get a glimpse of what my life could be like if I continued to work hard… a nomad or a bedouin of sorts, but less romantic, with a hotel for a home and Sky Chef as my most-frequented restaurant. It was in Iquitos that with a bit of trepidation and negotiation I received my China assignment with Heifer International. There I was, halfway through my stint in Peru knowing that the second I got back to the states I had just over two weeks to submit my work, get a visa from the Chinese embassy and send my passport off to Philadelphia. Additional pages needed to be added to make room for the official stamps given at each border I might cross for the next few years.
I’d have no idea what was waiting for me on the other side of the immigration gate in Beijing. To begin with, my 13.5 hour flight direct from Washington was delayed for a bit, allotting me just two hours to pass through customs and immigration. After getting through what seemed more like a Russian bread line, I had twenty minutes to check in and make my flight. I resigned myself to the fact that if I made it, my luggage would not.
I sprinted to the Air China check-in, but after pulling out my passport and itinerary the two guys at the desk just kept scratching their heads at the screen in front of them. Finally they handed them back and said “ticket office” – never a good sign. I went to every Air China office I could find but no one seemed to know anything, and no one spoke English. Two hours later I was still frantically running around the airport, now with two hawks (whose aid I had not requested) carrying my bags while demanding in a primitive international sign language that I go to the nearest ATM to take out money for their services. I finally got to a small Air China desk that seemed to know perfectly well what had happened, promptly printing me a boarding pass on the next flight to Chendgu, (above) the hub of South Central China. I never found out what the problem was until meeting up the next day in Chengdu with Christian DeVries, a freelance writer with whom I’d be collaborating over the next two weeks. In an effort to cut air pollution ahead of next summer’s Olympic Games, the Chinese government had canceled a number of domestic flights and barred half the cars in the capital from driving on the roadways for the day. I wonder if mandatory conversational English crash-courses for all airport personnel are not somewhere in the list of all the draconian measures Beijing’s officials are enacting.

The day after my arrival in Chengdu, a city of five million, I was immediatlely catapulted off to a world I never knew existed. We headed south near the Tibetan border to the cool mountains of the Sechuan region. There Christian and I were to meet the Yi people, an ethnic minority whose way of life carries on much the same as it has for centuries past, in stark contrast to the bustling, westernized streets of cities like Chengdu. The Yi people are well known for their ornate traditional dress, still worn by most women and some men, but less known for their habit of sitting and even lying on the roadways during their down time. This can make for an interesting drive through the region’s winding mountain roads. The ease with which I could photograph people was somewhat hampered by the necessity to use two translators (English to Mandarin to Yi) to get my words across.

If you’re unfamiliar with Heifer International (HI), take a brief look at my Ukraine post from June or their website. Of the many development organizations working in poverty-stricken areas around the world, I have become partial to Heifer’s model of self-sustainability, having witnessed its effects first-hand. Heifer works mainly in rural areas, where China’s poorest live. It’s hard for us to imagine how a cow or a few goats can transform the life of a family, but as in most pastoral societies, wealth is measured by the amount of livestock one owns.

The Jieshuo family (shown above) has moved out of extreme poverty since receiving their 15 or so goats from Heifer. The goats provide meat for the family, and offspring are sold or bartered for additional food supplies: “Our children live better and better as the years go by. Before the project we only had potatoes to eat. Now we have rice, more meat, and eggs for the children,” says Chuomu Aniu, the wife and mother of three (above, far left). In addition to their three children, Chuomu Aniu and her husband Jieshuo Er’ri are able to care for their nieces and nephews, whose parents are deceased.

Within the Yi prefecture and to a greater extent in other areas of China, the young are fleeing the countryside and their agrarian culture to make new lives in the cities. Urban life offers higher wages, and for some, the chance to earn an income for the first time. However, this phenomenon creates problems on both sides: a lack of workforce and production in rural areas and overpopulation and unemployment in the cities. Above, Jiese Wujia (68, left) and her husband Mose Youha (71, right) will retire when their bodies do. Below, a man passes a sleeping street-child in early morning Chengdu.

I’m fortunate to have navigated the ropes of many developing countries with minimal physical wear and tear throughout the last few years. However, I wasn’t so lucky in rural China. On the third day of the trip, I asked our driver to stop so I could photograph a herd of water buffalo that was approaching our vehicle on the road. As I was shooting, I backed up straight into the vicinity of a dog chained on the side of the road who wasn’t so happy that I entered his territory. I ran back to the car pulling up the torn leg of my jeans, dismayed to see that his bite had caused some bleeding. Bei, our coordinator and Christian’s translator, was on the phone immediately as we drove back to town. Joy, my translator, offered endless condolences. The rabies vaccination was not available in our area but was to be delivered to the hotel later that night. The five-part vaccination required me to stop into the clinic two additional times while in China. Furthermore, since the vaccinations in China and the US differ, I had to bring the last two doses back with me on the plane in an ice-packed thermos. I just received my last dose this week. Below, I receive complementary medical care from The People’s nationalized health system.

The second half of our journey took us north of Chengdu to Nanbu County and east to the municipality of Chungqing. In this swelteringly hot region of the country where temperatures reached well over the hundred degree mark, villagers were harvesting their rice fields. Below, farmer Zhang Weishu separates rice grains from cut grass. Heifer donated pigs to his family, but also set him up with a bio-gas unit for his kitchen. Bio-gas is a method of cooking where manure from animals is placed in a pit outside the house. The methane that the manure gives off is transported to the kitchen’s cooking range just like natural gas or propane; with no observable odor. “Using bio-gas has saved resources; it is clean and saves time,” says Mr. Zhang.

Zhang Weishu’s neighbors, Zhang Weiping and his wife Xie Shutang (shown respectively in the following two photographs), are also Heifer project participants. In fact, most everyone in this village has been helped out by Heifer. (The name of the village is Village #12, can you get more Marxist than that?!) Residents say their village was all but forgotten by the government until Heifer started working here and began bringing families out of poverty. Only then did the government build a road through the village.


Not only has the Chinese government kicked in to help out where it previously hadn’t, but it has also mimicked the Heifer model of livestock distribution to needy families in places in China where Heifer is not already working. Below, Wen Yongqing and her husband Wu Yuantian sort silkworms given to them by HI. “Before I was not so hard working and my wife was always angry with me. Now she doesn’t get mad so easily because I am working hard,” says Mr. Yuantian. (We all know his wife is probably just too demanding.)

Driving around Chengdu at night with the windows down, Christian and I marveled at glitzy neon streets and the abundance of advertising billboards that often stretch across the width of entire skyscrapers. Western brands are popular here, from the ubiquitous Starbucks and KFCs to high end fashion like Louis Vuitton and Hugo Boss, while BBC and CNN are banned. Homesick for American radio, Christian and I would often sing the songs of our homeland during long drives, perhaps sometimes to the chagrin of those in our entourage. That night we began to sing “Sounds of Silence” when after the first line, our driver, who spoke no English, immediately perked up and began fumbling through the glove box. He found a CD and slid it in. We waited to hear what it was: “Hello darkness my old friend…”
We almost lost it. Christian and I started laughing hysterically while Bei and Joy were perplexed. By the second line we were belting out the words right along with Paul and Art. Unable to discuss politics or religion or media coverage openly, it was as if we were sending out all that we meant to express in code: “Hear my words that I might teach you, take my arms that I might reach you.”

As China’s economy continues to open and grow, more and more people continue to climb out of poverty. In fact, if the UN reaches its Millenium Development Goal of cutting global poverty in half by the year 2015, it will be because of promising statistics coming out of China and India. Around 10% of the Chinese population is living below the poverty line. That sounds like a pretty good statistic until you figure that 10% of the population equals 130 million people, more than the entire population of Japan.

Cities continue to expand and quality of life there is, for the most part, better. But change is slow to reach the countryside where education is not yet a universal affair and where power lines and water pipes don’t always stretch.

Heifer.org




Words by Jake Lyell. Quotes provided by Christian DeVries. All images Copyright Heifer International 2007. Thanks to Christian, Bei and Joy.

I’ve been going non-stop for the past nine days and my shutter has fired more times than I can recall in my comparatively young days as a photographer (I’m 26). Batteries constantly charging and files downloading, it’s good to have a rest. This time I’ve been in Ukraine, a country that for most part is off the beaten track, that is unless you happen to be a Mongol or Viking invader. As history has it, Ukraine is actually a much-traversed land situated in North-East Europe. I’ve been photographing for Heifer International in Western Ukraine, which was at various times in the past 500 years part of Poland, Austria, and the USSR, and has seen occupation from the likes of the Mongols in the 13th century to the Nazis in the 20th.

Of course, upon arriving my luggage was MIA. A message (that looked like it’d been sent via telegraph) had been delivered to the airport that said my bag had wound up in Orlando for some reason and may take a couple days to arrive. I had to leave the very next morning to travel South so I would have to go without. I always travel with my camera gear on board in case something happens and this time it was lucky I did. I didn’t collect my bag until four days later. By that time the clothes I had been wearing all along had traveled through four days of cow pastures, barns, hay fields and a rain storm. The writer I traveled with, Christian DeVries and I were up at 6 most mornings and worked until 11 or 12 at night. Ukraine is so far north that in the summer the sun rises around 4:30am and doesn’t completely get dark until after 11. Lots of time for pictures, not a whole lot of time for sleep. The cuisine was great, though marked by an uncanny knack to put excessive amounts of dill on EVERYTHING.

In case you’re not up to speed on your NGOs and development organizations, Heifer works in rural areas of developing countries providing needy people with what they can use most: livestock. Most of us live in the cities or suburbs, so it’s hard to imagine just how valuable livestock is to the rural family. With a cow or a few hens, a family can help provide for itself with milk and eggs and trade any excess products for goods or sell them for cash. This enables families who would otherwise live in absolute poverty to become self-sufficient. Furthermore, every participant agrees to “pass on” the first of their animal’s offspring to another needy family in the area. My primary assignment in Ukraine was to photograph the people and communities Heifer International has affected. Those we visited were hospitable, strong, proud and most of all, hardworking. They were bee-keepers, sheep-farmers, gardeners, parents and grandparents, and children (who especially love to goof-off of the camera).


Heifer’s system of passing on the gift transforms communities living in poverty, as I’ve recently seen first hand. Communities become self-sufficient over time and no longer require aid from other development organizations. Heifer is not a relief but a development organization. It can take years for the pay-off to happen and decades for communities to be transformed. But lasting change is not made overnight. They work at the community level, with local staff to monitor the progress of the community and provide initial training and veterinary services to farmers. Agencies like the Red Cross and UNICEF work to solve immediate needs. Heifer works over time to develop communities. Both long-term and immediate strategies are essential to bring up struggling nations.

Why is Ukraine a struggling nation? Why does 29% of the population live below the poverty line? Its harried past has a lot to do with it. Fiercely nationalistic, Ukraine has resisted rule by other countries for the past thousand years. When it resisted Stalin’s takeover in the 1920s, he inflicted famine upon the land by systematically locking the people’s wheat and grain in government storehouses, thus starving the population into submission. Over 5 million Ukrainians died during this starving, and over 13 million died throughout the greater Soviet Union. This genocide has never been formally recognized by the West.
In 1986, the Chernobyl incident, and Moscow’s subsequent cover-up and mishandling renewed nationalist fervor, spawned mass street protests and set the spark that led to the country’s independence in 1991.
Since then, Ukraine has struggled greatly in its transition to democracy. In 2000 it was rated the third most corrupt government in the world by the independent watchdog group Transparency International. The silver lining could be in Ukraine’s current President, Viktor Yushchenko, elected in 2004 amid a fury of pro-western style democracy fever known as the Orange Revolution. Yushchenko promised an era of new government with an end to corruption. The country’s standing on the corruption list has improved in recent years, but that’s not saying much. The average person on the street will say that nothing has changed since the 2004 election. People are still working for unbelievably low wages while the country’s wealthy are getting richer. However, Ukraine has seen the transition to a free press. Whereas during the last decade 13 journalists were murdered and a number of papers shut down for criticizing the government, today the press is free to chime in with its own opinion of how the things are being run. This is not quite the case in neighboring Russia, where Vladimir Putin has tightened the reigns on the media.

Putting strain on this uneasy transition, Ukraine also struggles to find its identity between Europe and its sister country Russia. Central and Western Ukraine are strong backers of the pro-west Yushchenko, whereas the East backs Prime Minister Yanukovych, Yushchenko’s rival in the 2004 election. Believe it or not, some people still long for that old-time, hard-line autocracy of yesteryear and wish to be part of Russia.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has made several pleas to join the European Union but has now set 2015 as a target deadline to meet the EU’s lofty standards. There’s certainly a lot of catching up to do during that time. While life in most cities is improving, rural areas of Ukraine often function with the technology and health services available 100 years ago.


Though notorious for his religious persecutions, Stalin didn’t destroy too many of the country’s ornate churches during his rein and the land is still dotted with many beautiful steeples. The culture has also witnessed a revival of Christian traditions and the reemergence of the Orthodox church. Churches are again are filled with devoted worshipers and the smell of incense as they were during the country’s founding in the 11th century.

However jaded Ukrainians are about their political system, they compensate for it in their love of friends, their vigor of life and yes, their passion for vodka. ‘Wherever there are friends, there is vodka’ seems to be the motto people live by. It’s dangerous to accept a shot. In accepting the first you open yourself up to being playfully prodded into the next, and the next, etc…. (which is not pretty when you’re trying to take pictures). The hospitality warmth of the people I encountered and photographed was overwhelming and won’t be forgotten.

You can buy an animal for someone in Ukraine. Visit heifer.org

Words and photos by Jake Lyell.
All images Copyright 2007 Heifer Project International.

One of the more amazing things in life is to watch a pro-golfer swing a club. Even if you don’t like golf, you’d be pretty astounded. I discovered this as I was asked to photograph at the Kanawha Golf Invite for Captech this week. The event featured John Rollins, a VCU graduate and Richmond native, who did very well on the last PGA tour and continues to have success in the world of professional golf of which I know nothing about. Yes, it seems Richmond has a new hometown hero. Maybe a statue on Monument Avenue is in the works. And maybe John Rollins will be shown beating children with his golf club and taking away their books. (Only Richmonders will get this.)
He hung around, offered tips, and hit golf balls with thirty to sixty-something aged professional males who were nearly knocked to their feet every time he swung the club. The golf tutorial was a fundraiser for VCU. Some of the better pictures (none shown here) will be used by Captech for advertising purposes. YeeeHaaaaw!!!(All photos are very much the copyright of Jake Lyell.)