As told by Mohammed Rofique, 35 year old, teacher
Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh
***
Once upon a time, there was a farmer in a rural village who had four acres of rice paddy fields. His farm was in a hilly area surrounded by tall mountains and dense forests on every side.
This farmer had a very large family but he had no elder son in his family to succeed him as head of the family. He was worried about what his future would hold.
One year, at the beginning of the rainy season, the farmer wanted to grow more rice in his fields in order to save some money. Not having any money himself, he went to a wealthy man in his village, who loaned him 100,000 Myanmar kyat for the whole season’s planting and cultivation costs. The farmer was very pleased and thought that he would have a successful harvest.
One night during the harvest, a herd of elephants came to the rice paddy fields. Paddy fields are an elephant’s favorite places to eat. The elephants were hungry and ate until nothing was left in the fields. In the morning, when the farmer saw what had happened to his paddy fields, he began crying loudly. He had no rice to sell that year and he still owed a lot of money.
But the farmer was determined. The next year, when the rainy season came again, the farmer went to another wealthy man of the village and got another loan of 100,000 kyat to cultivate his paddy field, as he had done the year before.
One day, the two elephants returned and ate almost everything in the rice paddy – again the farmer’s paddy was destroyed and he had to go back home empty-handed. The farmer was so unhappy and disappointed that sometimes he thought about ending his own life.
In just two years, the loaned money doubled and he racked his brain thinking about ways to pay it back. But he was strongly determined and he never wished to give up.
In the third year, the farmer thought every day about ways to get money for the costs to cultivate. This time, he neither had money nor any encouragement from his family to do so again. And besides, he still worried about his outstanding debt. The farmer was very discouraged and afraid, because he had lost everything for two years in a row.
One day, while the farmer was sitting in a bench under a baryon tree, a wise elderly man with a long coat and a long stick on his hand came by the tree and sat next to the farmer. The elderly man asked, “What are you thinking about?” and the farmer explained to him very politely what had been suffering during the last three years of cultivation and that he had no way to settle his debts. The elderly man encouraged him and gave him some advice. He said, “If you want to prevent the elephants from eating your crops, cut back the forest trees near your paddy fields, then plant your rice”.
No sooner that the words had passed the old man’s lips, than the farmer started to run back to his home. Full of excitement and encouragement, he went to a few people and asked for the money. Finally, a man agreed to give him some money with double the interest from this previous loans.
That year, when the monsoon season came, the farmer went to his fields and cleaned the forests around the paddy at first, and then cultivated as before. That year, no elephants came through his paddy fields, because there were no longer any forests nearby. That year, the farmer grew 400 tons of rice and sold all of it for 800,000 kyat. He was able to pay back all of his debts, and keep another 400,000 kyat for his family. His family was so happy and finally realized how important self-confidence is for everyone to succeed in life
Moral: Life is a struggle and sometimes we fail, but we should never give up until we achieve our goal.