Fleeing Famine? No, I'll Stay Here and Farm

The day the whole village fled famine, I chose to stay behind. Three years later, they came back.

While everyone else headed south, I led my whole family into the mountains. It wasn’t because I’d lost my mind. I’d done the math: fewer than one in ten survive the journey, so staying put gave us a chance. Three years later, when the haggard refugees passed my house, they saw rows of neat terraced fields, a yard full of chickens and ducks, and me sitting in the sun by the doorway, leisurely shelling peanuts.