Nature Hoe

•when a seal slaps their belly

“My daughter was about to graduate high school when I lost my husband to a motorbike accident. She wanted to go to university but there was no one to support us. I’m an old-fashioned person. I’m not very smart. I only graduated from junior high school. But I wanted her to be better than me. I asked our relatives for help, but they all refused me. Out of desperation I approached my landlord. And she was the only one who supported us. She told me: ‘Get back on your feet so your daughter will have a chance.’ She loaned us half the tuition. The other half I earned by working morning to night. I was doing laundry. I was doing dishwashing. I was going around selling cookies and cakes. My daughter graduated recently and became a midwife. All my hard work paid off. We’ve been paying back the loan. And a few months ago she asked for my bank account number, and she’s been putting money in every week.” (Jakarta, Indonesia)

Augusta Dohlmann (Danish, 1847 - 1914): Foxgloves (1896) (via Sotheby’s)

Miu Miu // Ready to Wear - Fall 2017

“My mother passed away during childbirth, and a woman from a nearby village tried to purchase me from my grandfather. At first he was insulted, but the woman kept begging, so he finally agreed to marry her into our family. She never breastfed me. She never showed me affection. And the moment she had children of her own, she abandoned me. I was ten years old at the time. Her new husband threw my school bag into a lake and told me to go find work. I moved straight to the city. There were times I was so hungry that I made soup out of goat food. But I never begged and I never stole. There are a lot of bad people in the city, but I was lucky enough to meet the good ones. People who showed me the right path. A restaurant owner let me live with him in exchange for washing dishes. Then when I was fifteen, an old Pakistani man taught me how to drive, and I became a bus driver. I met my wife while driving that bus. We have three children of our own now. I have nothing to leave them when I’m gone. But all of us are well fed and well housed.” (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Andrea Fossati (1844-1919), The Guiding Light