Stones Into Schools

So, I'm reading Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Education in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the new book by Greg Mortenson. Greg is the founder of the Central Asia Institute, a charity devoted to building secular, co-educational schools in Central Asia. This includes such garden spots as the tribal regions of Pakistan and Taliban-infested southern Afghanistan.

Greg's mission is daunting, especially since he tends to build schools "at the end of the road." Literally, in many cases, as for example his first work in Afghanistan, which focused on the Wahkan Corridor, a 120-mile long panhandle on eastern Afghanistan. The problem (or a problem) with the Wakhan is that the road is only 60 miles long. It's also just a dirt road. But Greg got schools running there - schools untouched during the anti-American riots of the "Koran flushed at Gitmo" era.

Greg was also working with the LTC Chris Kolenda in the Kunar Valley of Afghanistan. The people there are unusual. They use tables and chairs, spoke a language unintelligible to their neighbors, worshiped pagan gods and drank wine. The also looked like Greeks.

Because they were Greeks - stragglers from Alexander the Great's army who settled there in 326 B. C. These folks were forcibly converted to Islam in 1895, making them probably the last people in the world to worship the ancient Greek gods. Thanks to Greg Mortenson, Colonel Kolenda and Greg's Afghan staff, these people got secular schools. The Taliban didn't like that, and threatened to burn the schools, until the local Mullah (literally) put the fear of God in them.

I encourage you to read the book. I also encourage you to donate to the Central Asia Institute. Schools are a hell of a lot cheaper than bombs.