MrsThisIsTheCadillacOfNailguns ·
29/12/2010 20:42
I have never come on here to recommend a book before,despite reading about 4 books a week,but I absolutely loved this book and sat up 'til the early hours this morning to finish it.It is the story of a man who takes a wrong turn coming down from failing to climb a mountain in Pakistan.He stumbles into a strange village mare dead than alive and is looked after by the villagers.As a gesture of thanks he promises them a school that they desperately need,but as he has no regular job and no home back in the US,it takes him years to raise the money for the project.But he does it and goes on to build more all over Pakistan and Afghanistan,despite being kidnapped and risking death.His especial concern is that girls get educated and his description of hundreds of girls in Kabul studyingwith no books or pencils, in an open air bombsite surrounded by rubble with just one blackboard,which then gets smashed by the downdraft from a low flying helicopter made me want to weep.
I'm going to write to the head of the dds school to ask if they will do some fundraising for his project,it costs 1p for a pencil for a child and $1 to educate a child for a month.We really don't realize how lucky we are.