| Tea, Conversation and Three Cups at St James Episcopal Church. |
Sunday, November 2, 2008: Some
20 participants, in a book talk at Fremont’s St. James Episcopal Church,
were fascinated with the mission, tenacity and dedication of Greg
Mortenson as he went about, against so many odds, building schools
for children, especially girls, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
”The discussion was held
from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. after services and the opinions were
as passionate as Greg Mortenson is about his mission.
First the group saw a video about
the work that the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson’s non-profit philanthropic
organization, is doing in the two countries. Then a discussion
session was held.
Vicki Baker, AAUW member and discussion
leader, started the dialog off with this thought. “
This book is so important for us to read now,” said Vicki.
“We as a nation are stumbling as Greg did when he
got lost on the mountain. We need to find our way down
from this mountain of doubt we have and we need to find our purpose
as a nation and as individuals.“
She then pulled some quotes
from the book and there was much discussion around them.
Here are some perspectives from the group:
- The first quote from famous mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary
centered on the passion that not only children in Pakistan had for
learning but that their parents had for education as well. Readers
were so impressed with the desire the children themselves had to
learn, scratching in the dirt with sticks to learn to read.
- Many tried to picture American children having that same intensity
about learning that the Korphe children had. “I can’t
imagine a fourth grade student in America showing that kind of fierce
desire to learn,” said one participant.
- Another attendee felt that we Americans have so much and complain a
lot. “We take so many things for granted,” she said,
“we complain if we have to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.
Things are just too easy for us. Reading this
is eye-opening.”
- One gentleman, now retired, shared that he had been a truant officer
in the Bay Area and was saddened that some 5000 children in the school
district were truant – two-thirds of them girls. “If they only realized,
” he said, “that there are places that don’t have any
schools at all.“
- The group talked about Mortenson’s quote about the importance
of educating girls to at least the fifth grade because they stayed
and contributed to the community while the boys tended to leave. There
was some talk about the Taliban and their insistence that girls not
be educated and how truly sad that is. “It’s all about power,”
summed up one of the participants.
- Most marveled at how committed to his mission Greg Mortenson was,
defying death and throwing his whole being into accomplishing what he set out to do.
- A teacher in the group was amazed at how little it took to build
a school in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It cost a million
dollars to build a school in America and Greg managed to build his first
school for 12,000,” she said. What a great investment!”
- Another “aha” for one of the readers was how important
it was that, while Greg provided the dollars, he let the community build
and make all the other decisions. “These were truly
their schools,” was the consensus.
- One of the readers pointed out that education was so important
if you want to bring democracy to a country. Until people
received an education democracy would not work so well.
|
|
|
|
|
|