Female Hero Highlight

 Good Morning Loved Ones,

This morning as I woke to Nova's meows I found that sleeping in would not be an option. After a journal entry and a few items of business, I opened up Isabel Allende's book The Soul Of A Woman and continued my read. Her writing is fluid, full of laughter, and generous. Within the books pages hold timeless heroic female figures. Today, Olga Murray has captured my senses and caused the Little One within me to be seen and heard. For as Olga has decided to spend her life's mission fighting against human trafficking, so have we. Little One, or Baby Sister, deserves to have a protector that shields her, and other little children like her, from evil pedophiles. Families are sacred, and worth fighting for. 

Excerpt from Isabel Allende's The Soul of A Woman, Pages 80-83

"Her story is fascinating, but I will have to summarize it here. (Please find Olga Murray online. It's worth it.) After becoming a widow in her sixties, Olga decided to trek in the mountains of Nepal, where she fell and broke an ankle. The Sherpa who accompanied her had to carry her in a basket on his back to the closest village, which turned out to be very poor and isolated. There, while she waited for transportation to the city, Olga witnessed a festival. The villages prepared food with the little they had and dressed in their best clothes, and there was music and dancing. Soon agents came in the buses from the cities to buy little girls between the ages of six and eight. Their fathers sold them because they could not afford to feed them. 

The agents paid the equivalent of two goats or a piglet and took the girls away, after promising the parents that their daughters would live with good families, go to school, and eat well. Instead, the girls were sold as Kamlaris, a form of bondage similar to slavery. Kamlaris worked nonstop, slept on the floor, ate the family's leftovers, and had no education or healthcare. Those were the fortunate ones. The others were sold to brothels. 

Olga realized that even if she used all her money to buy a couple of girls, she could not give them back to their families because they would be sold again, but she was determined to help the Kamlaris. That became her life's mission. She knew she would have to care for the girls she could rescue for several years, until they could fend for themselves. She returned to California and created a charitable organization called the Nepal Youth Foundation (nepalyouthfoundation.org) to provide housing, education, and healthcare to exploited children. Olga has saved some fifteen thousand girls from domestic bondage. She has also managed to change Nepal's culture. Thanks to her, the Nepalese government has declared the Kamlari practice illegal. 

Olga has other similarly spectacular programs--- several homes for orphans and abandoned to hospitals, where mothers are trained to feed their families tasty, well-balanced meals with the resources they have. I have seen the before-and-after pictures. A famished kid, just skin and bones, who couldn't even walk, is playing with a ball a month later. 

Olga's foundation built a model village on the outskirts of Kathmandu. It has a school, several workshops, and housing for vulnerable kids. The name is perfect for the place: Olgapuri, 'Olga's Oasis'. How I wish you could see it! This marvelous woman is adored by thousands of children in Nepal, and it's not an over statement when I say thousands. When she arrives at the Kathmandu airport, there is always a crowd of kids and young people with balloons and garlands to welcome their mama. 

At her late age, Olga is so healthy and strong that she travels a couple of times a year back and forth from Nepal to California, twenty hours. She works nonstop to fundraise for and supervise her projects. Her blue eyes shine passionately when she talks about her kids. She is always smiling, always cheerful. I have never heard her complain or place blame; She is all kindness and gratitude. Olga Murray is my heroine. When I grow up, I want to be just like her."

End of excerpt.

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The Soul Of A Woman was published in 2020 in Spanish, then translated to English by the writer in 2021. Olga has passed away from her mortal frame as of February 20th, 2024. Peacefully walking with death onto her next great adventure. 

May we all strive to find a greater purpose to life, as Olga did. 

May we all throw stones of love, that our ripples spread loves grace far and wide. 

May we acknowledge a universal truth, building something slowly, with careful planning, will allow a legacy to form which will continue on well past our physical death. 

Rest in peace angel. May those you have served find purpose in your hands. 

-À

12/03/2024