The global health and development beat often focuses on stories of disaster and disease, of poverty, of people stuck in difficult circumstances.
But in the history of our blog Goats and Soda, we have always looked for stories with happy endings — stories about resilience, stories of hope, stories of amazing rescues and stories that just made us smile.
As we enter a new decade, we thought it would be a good time to remember some joyful moments from the 2010s.
- Even in a place that's not joyful — a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh — a kid spreads joy by making kites.
- So two goats got stuck 100 feet above the ground, on a beam under a bridge. And then the most amazing thing happened.
- Surf's up after Ebola ended in Liberia: "I'm going to surf and enjoy my waves because it's my country's nature," says one young surfer.
- A Zambian village had a fabulous party to mark a milestone — a toilet in every home.
- The funky chicken is nowhere near as cool as the "dunk-a-chicken" dance video that YouTube star Wilbur Sargunaraj made for NPR. Note: No chickens were harmed in the filming of this video.
- Now if you'd like to move ahead with a happy new year and new decade, check out advice from Nepalis on how to be happy.
- And even though hunter-gatherer tribes don't necessarily have a word for "happiness" if you follow their, um, lifestyle philosophy, you could find moments of supreme joy.
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