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Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

Outlook: Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

Tracy Mackness (Left); Pavel Gaona (Centre); Rendani Tshiwalule (Right)

05/07/2015

Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

BBC World Service - Outlook, Outlook Weekend: Pick of the Week

'Drug queen' to pig farmer, Love stories in Mexico, Goatherd's fight for education.

British 'drug queen' turned award winning pig farmer; Mexican man who listens to strangers' love stories; South African goatherd's fight for education.

In 2002, Tracy Mackness was sentenced to 10 years in jail for plotting to smuggle four million pounds worth of drugs into the UK. But after leaving prison, Tracy turned her life around. Today she's a pig farmer, selling award winning sausages to shops and markets.  Our reporter Leeanne Coyle went to meet her on her farm in Essex in the East of England.

Pavel Gaona from Mexico City spends his days listening to other people's love stories. He sets up two chairs in public squares and invites people to sit with him and tell him their tales of love, of anguish and  betrayal. Matthew Bannister asked Pavel why he decided to offer this strange service.

Rendani Tshiwalule grew up in a poor family in rural Limpopo, the youngest of 16 siblings. From the age of six he worked as a goatherd to pay for his schooling, reading books while tending livestock. Now he's working as a top geologist and runs an NGO helping other children go to school.

Esther Alexander lost two children to suicide and as if that wasn't hard enough, Esther and her family have also had to deal with being ostracised from their own community. They are Orthodox Jewish and brought up their family in a conservative Kibbutz - in their culture suicide is a very grave sin. Despite the cultural pressure, Esther and her husband have decided to speak out about their experience and their story is now the subject of a film by the Israeli documentary film-maker Assaf Bannitt. 


(Picture: Tracy Mackness (Left); Pavel Gaona (Centre - credit: Eiji Fukushima) Rendani Tshiwalule (Right)

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