OMG - It's been too long since my last post and my apologies to all of my fellow bloggers for the lack of comments on your blogs - truth is it was a busy couple of weeks, and I got engrossed in a couple of books I was reading....which I'd like to share at this point.
The 1st was "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
I bought the book about two years ago, started to read it through, stopped and then picked it up again about two weeks ago and couldn't put it down.
It's a true-life memoir about Greg Mortenson - his failed attempt at climbing the world's toughest mountain, K-2 in Pakistan in the early 90's, and getting lost along the way down, led him to a village in Korphe, one of the most remote and rugged terrain in the world. The people of Korphe does not have much to offer but they give this stranger their most prized possessions - which isn't much!
Greg promises to return to build a school - but the task is not that simple.
Along the way he be-friends the head of the small village and is called the "adopted son". The entire village gets to know Grey and they affectionately call him "Dr. Greg".
This guy goes through so much.....and that's why this story is so remarkable and inspiring:
- he has a "fatwa" placed on his head by an Islamic lord - which bans him from entering into Pakistan to build schools;
- he gets kidnapped for 6 days by a fascist Islamic group in Peshawar as they think he is an American spy;
- he has to battle with ignorance on the need for the girls to be educated;
- he has tea with the Taliban;
- gets detained by US Intelligence as they thought he was affiliated with Osama;
- dodges bullets and near-death in Taliban country in Afghanistan;
- meets Donlad Runsfield to present his view of the reasons why terrorism has arisen;
- has to sleep in his car to save money for his trips to Pakistan
Trust me....this is a true story and it made me tear-up. This guy is a real American-hero, and it's interesting to read his perspective on how the Taliban operated, their extreme take on Islam, and the role of education in fighting terrorism.
Since then he has built 40 schools in Pakistan and has started to build schools in Afghanistan in the most forsaken village on earth.
The second book is called
"I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced" by Nujood Ali and Delphine Minoui.
It's about a 10 year old girl, living in rural Yemin, whose father forces here to marry a man whom is three times her age. Nujood goes through the trails of all that is in marriage including it's consumation.
She is abused and forced to live the life of an adult. This hard life, and being away from her younger sister whom she fears the same faith may fall upon, leads her to flea to the courts to obtain a divorce.
It's a story of courage, love and the struggle to become the "
youngest divorcee in the world".
Nujood also was one of Glamour magazine's
"Women of the Year" in 2008 -
an award that she shared with two great political figures that same year - Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.
Hillary Clinton had said that:
"[Nujood] is one of the greatest women I have ever seen"
Anyways folks - hope you can catch up on some of these books. TTYL!
