Ahh!

Mid-February events

• Friday the 13th
• Valentine's Day
• President's Day
• birthdays, etc

With the number of things going on in the middle of February, I had a feeling that this past weekend was gonna be amazing... in that kind of 'people are buzzing' sort of way. But instead, fun stuff to do (for a single person) was hard to come by. In short, I felt pretty Ahh! and Blah! this weekend.

After two days of watching TV - broken up only by a couple hours of disc sports each afternoon - I decided to spend Monday cleaning and reading. And what I was reading is sort of echoed in Kate's blog over at kawilson830.blogspot.com. 

Three Cups of Tea, written by the central figure of the book Greg Mortensen and his friend David Oliver Relin, is billed as 'one man's mission to promote peace... one school at a time.' And although I don't think Mortensen began his humanitarian work in Pakistan and Afghanistan with the inspiration of peacemaking, I do think his work has great diplomatic effects. 

And I'm proud that an American like Mortensen, originally a climber and only later a non-profit director, has put his whole life into his Central Asia Institute work. A couple weeks ago, Mortensen came through Atlanta on his speaking tour; just the other day, I believe, my sister saw him speak in New York. So he's getting the word out. And I'm happy to do the same.

The reason why I thought this was echoed in kawilson's blog is cause she talks about a pot of tea. And the American value placed on perpetual busy-ness, as opposed to relationship-building and patience. We grow up admiring people that never stop moving; people who think that doing something slow, or even slower, is as valuable as not doing anything at all. 

At about the midpoint in Three Cups of tea, the mayor of the first town Mortensen helps build a school in takes the American aside. Mortensen was at the time working people too hard and focused too much on finishing construction by a certain date. Since procuring all the materials and breaking ground, he had spent little time at understanding the people and processes involved. The mayor, Haji Ali, says to encourage Mortensen to ease up:

The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die.”

Kate, you are in the sometimes fortunate and other times unfortunate position of having free time where no one is going to force you to either speed up or slow down. Whereas Mortensen had someone to counsel him at the appropriate pace of life, its really your issue to grapple with. I like seeing that you're concsious of the issue and that you're spending time with a wide variety of characters, including yourself and your pot of tea.

Lei Out (2006 I think) with kawilson. Sometimes ultimate is our pot of tea.