Stones into Schools

Stones into Schools
by Greg Mortenson

When I read Three Cups of Tea, I was amazed and impressed by Greg Mortenson's travails and ultimate success in his quest to build a school in remote northern Pakistan. (I reviewed Three Cups here.)

Stones Into Schools begins when Mortenson meets a group of sixteen Kirghiz horsemen who have ridden six days to locate him on the Pakistan side of the Irshad Pass. These men have come from the farthest reaches of the remote Wakhan region of Afghanistan to ask Mortenson to build a school for their children.

Mortenson promises, but it takes him 10 years and much help from his native Pakistani and Afghani “dirty dozen” as he calls the brave lieutenants of his non-profit organization, Central Asia Institute (CAI), to achieve that goal. They must travel through areas afflicted by the ravages of 20 years of war, deal with landslides and earthquakes, and build relationships (through many cups of tea) with the local mujahedeen. Along the way, many poor communities request help, which is given where possible. The CAI builds several dozen schools while working toward one of the highest inhabited regions of the world where the Kirghiz horsemen dwell.
From the standpoint of overcoming incredible logistics, the CAI’s effort makes a fascinating story. But this is also the touching tale of  a people surrounded by Taliban fighters, opium trade, and cruel environmental conditions whose last best hope is that a school will bring a better life to their children and community. Their persistence and eventual success in fulfilling this dream is nothing short of legendary.
As Mortenson says in his last chapter, “If this is what the weakest, the least valued, the most neglected among us are capable of achieving, truly is there anything we cannot do?”
This is an inspiring book, well written.  Read it.
P.S.  I'm out of town for a few days, playing with my granddaughter.  I'll catch up on visiting your blogs when I return!

My Sister's Keeper

Thirteen year old Anna Fitzgerald is cast in the unusual role of having been conceived as the perfect bone marrow donor for Kate, her older sister. Kate suffers from a rare form of leukemia. Anna has donated tissue to her sister many times in the past, but now Kate needs yet another invasive procedure to gain a few more months or years of life. Anna objects, for reasons that only become clear late in the book, and hires an attorney to sue her parents for her medical emancipation.
Anna’s mother can’t give up on the dying daughter, which forces her to ask Anna for more and more sacrifices. Anna’s father fights fires, but is only too aware that the disaster in his own family is beyond his ability to control. He seeks answers in his love of astronomy, where stars glow with a safe, cold fire that brings him comfort. Anna is trying to define who she is, other than a donor for her sister. A brother, Jesse, rebels against his inability to help anyone or control anything. And Kate, whose courage and sense of humor endear her to all, wonders if it’s time to surrender to impossible odds.
Readers will sympathize with all of them and fear, as the characters do, a resolution in which someone has to lose. The ending is a shock, but somehow fitting, nevertheless.
A Tabiona, Utah teacher was reprimanded (I thought she was fired, but I can't find a reference for it now) due to assigning this book to her high school students and the resulting flak. One student objected to some of the language and sexual content. I found nothing particularly explicit in the book and can only assume that the resulting hoopla came more from the troubled student’s special needs (she was a rape victim) and the teacher’s mishandling of the situation than from the novel itself.
Jodi Picoult writes a powerful book about a thought-provoking subject, well worth the read.

The Appeal

A novel by John Grisham.
Krane Chemical’s improper disposal of toxic waste leached into a Mississippi town’s water supply, causing a “cancer cluster” of horrific proportions. In a lawsuit filed by Jeannette Baker, whose husband and son had died from cancer, a jury returns a guilty verdict with a $41 million award.
Carl Trudeau, billionaire CEO of Krane, has no intention of paying a dime. He immediately begins an appeal process, and at the same time, manipulates the election of a Mississippi supreme court justice who, bought and paid for, will overturn the verdict. Although the many players left little room for characterization, Grisham does admirably depict the plaintiff’s dedicated attorneys, the callous Mr. Trudeau, and the politicization of the judicial electoral process. The result is a chilling tale of corruption, in which verdicts and acquittals can be bought. Unfortunately, I suspect such things can and do happen in real life.

Riding Lessons

by Sara Gruen.
Janie's review:
At eighteen, Annemarie Zimmer is a world class equestrian and Olympic contender when she’s badly injured in a jumping accident that ends the life of her beloved mount, Highland Harry.
Fast forward 20 years. Annemarie is laid off from her job and her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Feeling as helpless as she did after the accident destroyed her future plans, she takes her rebellious teenage daughter and returns to her parents’ New Hampshire horse farm and riding academy. There, the vital father who taught her to ride is now wasting away from ALS.
She’s always felt that she failed her parents by giving up on her equestrian career, but she doesn’t know how to make it up to them at this late date. She’s felt emotionally empty for a long time. Connecting with her dying father, her ultra-disciplined Austrian mother, or her troubled daughter all seem beyond her. Even her attempts at barn management lead to disaster.
Things begin to change when she rescues a starved gelding with rare brindled coloring that closely resembles her old horse Harry. As she faces family loss and generational conflict, her search for the origins of the mystery horse gives her focus and brings her close to a long-ago romantic interest, the family veterinarian.
Although at times I wanted to slap Annemarie upside the head and tell her to pull herself together, I couldn’t help but sympathize with all she’d been through. As a fellow equine lover, I mourned Harry and rooted for the brindled horse who seemed to offer her a second chance. In the end, Annemarie’s rediscovery of passion and caring, and her renewed ability to walk her own path with confidence, made for a satisfying reading experience.

The Host

by Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series)
Parasitic Souls are taking possession of the human race, leaving only a few pockets of rebels to protest the invasion.
When Wanderer (a Soul) is inserted in Melanie Stryder’s human body, Melanie’s defiant consciousness simply refuses to go away. A bit of a nonconformist herself, Wanderer identifies with Melanie enough to be drawn to a rebel hiding place to seek out those Melanie loves.
Wanderer fears humans at first -- she has been taught they are a violent, unstable species. Likewise, the humans hate and fear her. But as foreign becomes familiar, the warring species learn they’re not so different after all.
What ensues is fascinating characterization, as Wanderer and Melanie seek their separate desires within their conjoined destiny. Neither classic science fiction nor classic romance, the book defies genre in an imaginative, thought-provoking read that questions the foundations of identity, trust, and love.

NEXT

I was fascinated by the genetic research intrigue from the very beginning of this book. Then I talked to Steve and found that many of the incidents that occurred in the fiction have actually occurred in real life.
Such as, genes are really being patented. This seems absurd. Genes belong to those of us who possess them as an integral part of our DNA, not to researchers who happen to obtain a sample of our blood or tissue. Also, as Chrichton points out, the possessiveness of patents can only serve to inhibit research and slow fighting diseases caused by these genes.
Also, several lawsuits have actually been filed, as happened in the work of fiction, against university hospitals that took a person’s cell material during treatment, and the genes were then patented and sold for millions.
I found the story, that at least begins with today’s facts, interesting and thought provoking, well worth the read.

The Innocent Man

By John Grisham
This book is a departure from Grisham’s usual fare. For one thing, it’s non-fiction. Also, the style is more direct. He sticks to the bare facts, which in themselves are shocking.
Ron Williamson was falsely accused and sentenced to death for a woman’s murder in Ada, OK in 1981. A man with serious mental illness made much worse by isolation and incarceration, he spent 11 years on death row, protesting his innocence the whole time. The police had nothing but circumstantial evidence, hair samples that were supposedly similar to the defendant’s (hair sample analysis is known to be unreliable), and confessions supposedly overheard by jailhouse snitches.
Finally, the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System obtained a retrial based on a DNA match from the crime scene with an already incarcerated prisoner, proving Ron innocent at last. The real criminal, Glen Gore, was the last man seen with the murdered woman, and had given hair and saliva samples not long after the crime. For reasons unknown (but hinted to be due to Gore selling drugs and doing favors for the cops) , Gore was not investigated prior to Ron’s false conviction.
The book also chronicles the conviction, appeals, and eventual release of Ron’s supposed partner in crime, Dennis Fritch. Two other men were convicted for another murder in Ada around the same time. Their trial, too, was a travesty, but those men remain in prison.
So, is everyone really innocent until proven guilty in our court system? Or does that only describe those who can afford a good lawyer? Certainly in these cases, poor legal defense allowed police fabrications and outright lies to railroad innocent men into prison for many years.

Merle's Door

Ted Kerasote begins his book about his dog Merle by describing what Merle must have sensed when the dog approached Ted’s river-running group. A canine reads olfactory signatures, in this case, the odors of sweat, pizza, wild game, and the outdoor life these people led. Merle must have liked the way Ted smelled, because he stuck with him through the river trip, and afterward, for a 14 year life together.
Throughout the book, Ted interprets Merle’s thoughts and feelings in a way that is totally believable. He intersperses his description of events in Merle’s life with research on dogs, wolves, and other wild creatures, offering an explanation for Merle's behaviors.
Merle’s life offers an experiment in dog freedom and equality, rather than a canine functioning in a typical human-as-alpha/dog-as-beta environment. Because of his lifestyle in a unique fenceless, leashless Wyoming community, Merle developed his senses and independence as few domesticated animals are able to do, and became an outdoorsman’s ideal companion. Although the book’s title actually refers to a doggie door Ted installed to give Merle more freedom, it also serves as a metaphor for the door Ted opens into Merle’s – and all dogs’ - psyche.

Three Cups of Tea

Greg Mortenson was a climber. He attempted K-2 in 1993 and failed, nearly dying in the process when he became separated from his party on the way out. A Muslim porter rescued him, and a northern Pakistani village nursed him back to health. He experienced the kindness of these impoverished people, whose children wanted to learn so badly that they worked on their lessons outdoors in all weather, drawing numbers and letters in the dirt because they had no building in which to meet, no books, no pencils, no paper. They had a teacher only half of the time because they shared one with the children in the next village. Only a few girls attended the makeshift classes.
Mortenson promised to build them a school with decent conditions where all would be welcome. Several years and a bridge later, he managed to do so with the endowment of a millionaire scientist, Jean Hoerni.
Mortenson continued his building in other villages, helping the people, school by school. He is single-handedly fighting Muslim extremism by giving the children, girls and boys, a chance for unbiased learning.
The man’s devotion to his cause has been unwavering for the last fifteen years. He was kidnapped for 8 days, had two fatwas issued on him, but he lived on to build over 50 schools schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
After 9-11, he spoke out for his Muslim friends, begging his country, the U.S., not to lump the innocent Muslims with the terrorists. Over his ten years of working in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he watched the rise of the madrassas, which often teach terrorism at the expense of unbiased education. He urged that extremism could not be fought with bombs alone. In the end, we needed to rebuild and aid and educate the people, to convince them that Americans were friends, not enemies. For this, he received hate mail from many “Christian” Americans, calling him a traitor among other things. After the hysteria passed, more people have come to see him as a visionary, a hero in many ways.
Mortenson deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his work, if anyone does. He’ll receive one in his lifetime, Inshallah.