Thoughtful Thursday #1

Have you read the book "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin yet? It's been on the NYT Best Sellers List for 62 weeks thus far - it's #1 in its category right now. I read it after my mom passed it on to me, and I can't give it anything less than the highest recommendations. It's the best non-fiction book I've read in ... ever, I guess. Certainly among the best, I'm sure they've already added it to the required reading for all the Comparative Studies classes in colleges across the country. It tells the story of the director of the Central Asia Institute as he went from Loafer Climber Dude to humanitarian and director of an NGO whose mission is "To promote and provide community-based education and literacy programs, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Central Asia." So they build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The guy, Greg Mortenson, is incredible in his drive to both reach out to girls and provide a non-extremist education in areas most Americans wouldn't (and shouldn't!) dream of going. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that no Americans should go there, but there are plenty of us over there screwing things up trying to make everyone live like us, and I certainly wouldn't trust the "average American" to grasp the concept of cultural relativity. Which is a point Mortenson makes pretty strongly in the book - the "American way of life" is just that - our way of living - and not necessarily appropriate to all (most) situations in the world. The book is both witty and ... prescient. Go get a copy! You'll be reading about a future Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.