Go fly a kite

In Stones into Schools, Mortenson talks about the Draconian regime when the Taliban held power in Afghanistan. Some of their more bizarre edicts included forbidding people from listening to music, laughing in public, and flying a kite.

To me, these were truly soul-destroying prohibitions. Listening to music can invigorate lethargy, calm anger, cheer sadness, and so much more. And you have only to witness the huge numbers of people walking around with earphones virtually embedded in their ears to know how very important music is in people’s lives.

And who could live without laughter? There is nothing so good as the genuinely overwhelming belly laugh that results in tears streaming down your face and leaves your diaphragm feeling pained, your body exhausted. To be prevented from sharing a public laugh with a fellow human being would be so demoralising, and who hasn’t smiled involuntarily at the sound of someone laughing?

I read Mortenson’s passage about the Taliban prohibitions in bed one night this week and the very next day one of my Facebook friends posted this quote from Anaïs Nin:
‘Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.’

The coincidence of the kite image struck me immediately. Forbidding someone from flying a kite seems like forbidding them from following their dreams.

So, my wish for today is for everyone freely to listen to some music, to laugh in public, and – I mean this is the nicest possible way – to go fly a kite!

Three cups of tea

Anyone familiar with Greg Mortenson's book will realise where the title of this blog originated. My local library's copy of that book (Three Cups of Tea) was out last time I checked so I've been reading his second book, Stones into Schools instead. It's truly inspirational!

  

Working through his nonprofit Central Asia Institute (CAI), Mortenson has worked to promote peace through education by establishing over 145 schools, most of them for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Perhaps his success stems from his simple philosophy. He believes young women are the single biggest potential agents of change in the developing world, a belief that stems from an African proverb he often heard during his childhood years in Tanzania: 'If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.' (Stones into Schools, p.13)


And he achieves his success through building relationships with the local people. As he writes, the title of Three Cups of Tea refers to a Balti saying: 'The first cup of tea you share with us, you are a stranger. The second cup, you are a friend. But with the third cup, you become family -- and for our families we are willing to do anything, even die.' (Stones into Schools, p.17)


Don't get me wrong here. I have no intention of heading into the back of beyond to build schools. That is for stronger souls than mine. But I do find it uplifting that one man can make such a difference in such a multinational, multilingual, multicultural world.

*** Update
Since I wrote this blog, Greg Mortenson has been revealed as a lier and a fraud. Click on this link to read the latest. SHAME on him!