Wednesday, April 3, 2002

Minneapolis Star Tribune 
Minneapolis, MN

Polly Letofsky's world

trek takes her to India

By Chuck Haga 

Polly Letofsky is in India, her walk around the world sustained by Madonna, the spirit of Mother Teresa and peanut butter crackers.

Letofsky, who was raised in Minneapolis, is trying to walk around the world to raise breast cancer awareness and research money.  She started her walk Aug. 1, 1999, near her home in Vail, Colo.

She walked to the coast in southern California, then flew to New Zealand.  After walking the length of both islands, she took a break to reorganize her management team, then hiked south-to-north through eastern Australia.  She flew to Singapore to begin a trek through Asia.

  She entered India early in February.  "Hindi music blares from the shops," she wrote in her journal.  "Women dress in colorful saris (and) they eat cross-legged on the table and with their hands.  Each state speaks a different language (and) even the architecture is different, provided grass huts and cardboard boxes are considered architecture.

  "Some people can entirely immerse themselves into all elements of a different culture, and more power to them, but I have to have standbys just to keep a grip on things.  It might be a Madonna CD or a stash of crackers and peanut butter--something, anything, to go back to my familiar world for just a minute when everything gets too overwhelming."

  Breast cancer is "grossly under diagnosed" in India and elsewhere in Asia, Letofsky writes, and awareness is almost nonexistent in rural areas.  But as she walked through the streets of Calcutta, she was joined for a while by Valerie, a breast cancer survivor, who gave her a pin.

  "Mother Teresa gave this to me, and it's obviously given me good luck," she told Letofsky.  "I want you to have it now to continue that good luck as you cross India."

  Letofsky, 39, plans to walk through more than 20 countries on four continents, breaking off occasionally for recuperation.

  Members of one of her sponsoring organizations--the Lions--equip her with prepaid long-distance phone cards, pepper spray, toothpaste and local currency for snacks and emergencies.  They also arrange local programs on breast cancer along her route.  In media interviews Letofsky preaches the importance of early detection to fight breast cancer.

  In a Star Tribune interview shortly after she started her walk in 1999, Letofsky explained that she was a sixth grader in 1974 when she read about David Kunst of Waseca, Minn., and  his four-year 15,000 mile walk around the world.  The urge to make her own walk never left her, she said.  She dedicated her journey to raising awareness of breast cancer after a friend died from the disease.

Letofsky will avoid some areas that could be dangerous, including Afghanistan.  She plan to walk to and through Europe, then fly to the United States and Hike from New England through the Midwest--with a stop in the Twin Cities, where her siblings live--and finally home to Colorado.

  Her regular journal entries and other information are on her Web site: http://www.globalwalk.org.

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