Sunday, December 28, 2008

52 Book in 2009 - Book 1 Down.

I had considered doing the 9/9/9 reading challenge (9 books in 9 different categories in 09') but decided that at more than 1 book a week either washing dishes, cooking or the kids would suffer.

Plan 2- 52 books in 09. Knowing myself as a reader -think addict- I keep telling myself, and the concerned good Doctor who checks in on me once or twice after 11 p.m., that I can stop after just this paragraph or one more chapter. We both know better. So, in hopes of fulfilling my obligations this year I'm starting early and limiting myself to a book a week.

Since we're on school vacation- 'round here anyway-I read a book yesterday, Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez. The author describes post Taliban Afghanistan as the country works towards some semblance of modernity. Sex trafficking is common, the enslavement and brutalization of women is a way of life. There's a lot of raunch. I mean it's irl but disturbing because it's so foreign and sickening and sad.

The woman writing the book starts a beauty school in Kabul and her goal is to give women there a trade by which they can purchase the most basic necessities, food, dignity, perhaps respect.

I read Afghanistan by Michener way back in high school and was struck by how hidden women were. Apparently that is still mostly the case. We read Bruchko many years ago, too, and what struck me most as the villagers encountered the One True Living God is how the lives of the women changed. The men began to care for them, to love them, to nourish them, physically with food, and emotionally with love. The Sacred Romance. How He changes things. I hurt for those sisters who disappear figuratively, and sometimes literally; hidden behind burkas, and governments and men who are creepy and savage, and at times by other women who are creepy and savage, too.

Kabul Beauty School is a good read. My take-away is so much gratitude for the opportunities I have as a woman- education, a husband who loves me, joy at the births of my sons and my daughters, choices. A renewed sense of purpose as I pray for those who lives are more desperate and harsh. A deeper vision for the importance and value of education. Relief that my life contains hope and joy on a daily basis.
I was going to delve right into 3 Cups of Tea- set, interestingly enough, in about the same location and with the same theme of the importance of education but I need a breather. I'm off to try to wrest one of Feche boy's Lawhead books away from him.

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