Latest Readings

On the trip I've been able to get quite a large amount of reading done. Thanks to long bus, train, boat, and short airplane rides and a lack of a whole lot to see at night I've flown through a number of books. Over the last five weeks I have been able to read:

A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Power of One
Three Cups of Tea
The Alchemist
The Time Travelers Wife

I thought I'd write about my reading as the Power of One and Three Cups of Tea are actually very inspiring books. The Power of One is a fictional story about a boy growing up in South Africa during the beginning of apartheid. The book has some pretty amazing stories about the small things the boy was able to do in his time in South Africa. While fiction it did make me think about the power of one and what can be done by just one individual.

Randomly the next book I picked up was Three Cups of Tea which to me is the Power of One personified. The true story is about a mountaineer who finds himself in a remote village in Pakistan after trying and failing to summit K2. After staying in the village and seeing that the children of the village did not have a school to take lessons he decided to make a promise to pay back the hospitality of the village by building them a school. For three years the guy works on the getting a school built while basically living in the back seat of his car. After he gets the school built and gets a benefactor he makes a career out of building schools in the remote villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the building of these schools he is so hands on that he with the help of the villages makes this miracle happen. It was an incredible story that is about the most inspiring thing I've ever read. I recommend the book to anyone.

While traveling in Cambodia I also got the opportunity to go to a concert in Siem Reap hosted by a Swiss doctor. This was also a hugely inspiring story. I'll probably blog a little more about this in a different post but I thought it interesting that I was reading all about the Power of One and then saw it actually happening. The Swiss doctor built six hospitals in Cambodia that provides full treatment to all of Cambodia's children absolutely free. 90% of the donations to fund the hospitals is from private donations. This one guy's ideas have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in Cambodia. Just amazing!

Reading and seeing this in action makes me wonder about all the friends of mine that have been active in the peace core at one point in their lives. I know the impact that they have had on the communities they worked at was huge and life saving. I really admire all my friends and all the others who have chosen to do such a great service to the world.

For me personally, I want eventually to spend time while traveling the world to give back and volunteer for a few monnths. It is the least I can do. The big thing is finding the right time to do this. This year it is not that time but it is one of my lifes goals to do this and to try and do it soon.