Hope

Lately I feel like the more I listen and learn, the more dark the world seems. Plastics in baby stuff leach poison. Our food is full of weird pollutants. The feed lots our food animals are raised on seem like a level of hell Dante forgot to include. The American financial system is in grave trouble. ... I end up feeling a bit hopeless and small and like my best efforts don't amount to much in this world. It's easier to dive into sewing projects and loving my baby girl than think about the big things. But then.

( jacket picture from amazon.com)

My book group went to hear Greg Mortenson, the author of Three Cups of Tea and founder of the Central Asia Institute, speak last night. Although the night started late and began with too many self-congratulatory speeches, it was wonderful to hear a humble man speak about how he has made the world a safer and better place for us all.

A very short version of his story: he wanted to climb K2 as a tribute to his sister who had died, but failed and ended up lost and emaciated in the small village of Korphe, whose residents nursed him back to health. Before he left, he asked what he could do to repay their kindness and they asked for a school. Since then, he has built dozens of schools in Pakistan and Afganistan and these schools are the only educational alternative to extremist madrassas which purposefully go to the poorest areas to preach extremist violent Islam and recruit jihadists. (If you haven't read the book, buy it here so some of the proceeds go toward building schools).

(photo from threecupsoftea.com)
Here's just one story of how he has made an impact. One of the girls who went a school Mortenson built in Pakistan then went on to be trained as a medical ___(can't think of the term) for $800. Since she has been back in her valley, no women have died in childbirth. Before her training, I think it was something like 20 a year. And that is just the story of one girl who went to one of his schools.
Mortenson also shared an African proverb "If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. If you educate a girl, you educate a community." I thought that sounded nice, but he later said that boys have to ask their mothers for permission to go on jihad and if those women are educated (and haven't lost civilian family members to American bombing) they are a lot less likely to send her son out to avenge the West. That is powerful. My group members and I were joking that American mommies don't have that kind of power of their sons' futures.

Anyway, I don't want to go on and on and steal the show if you have the opportunity to hear him speak (schedule). It was just nice to go hear such an amazing, yet so regular person talk about how he had changed the world. And, it was exciting to be in a room full of 1,500 other Palousians (I have just made up this word for this sentence) who care about promoting peace, especially through education. Greg Mortenson is now officially on my list of heroes. I wonder if he knows Desmond Tutu?