To The Mountains and Back Again: Part 2

Over the past week I've done a lot of thinking about my time in the mountains, but I also read an amazing book titled Three Cups of Tea. It is a true story about an average guy, he lived out of his car for a good portion of the book, who quite literally is changing the world. Greg Mortenson wandered upon Korphe village in a remote region of Pakistan after failing to summit K2. Greg was touched by the people there and promised to build the children a school. He then embarks on an epic adventure, not only building the children of Korphe a school, but building over 55 schools in the next decade right in the middle of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

What struck me the most about this book was the way Greg described the childrens' lives. Growing up in severe poverty surrounded by war, without ever being given an opportunity for something more through a quality education, they would be taken in by extreme Islamic madrassas. Here they would be taught violence and extremism through a mob mentality. Yet for these children it was three meals a day and more than they could ever have hoped for by staying at home. Given their living conditions of course they would go and do whatever was asked of them.

As I was reading this I couldn't help but think of my new friends in Chamisal, New Mexico. A place where children also grow up in the shadow of the awe inspiring beauty of the mountains, yet are caught in the middle of war. An area consumed by poverty, drugs, gangs, and where few outsiders question the status quo. The Taliban may not be recruiting these kids to attend madrassas, but local gangs are recruiting them to do, sell, and smuggle drugs. They are desensitizing them to violence and stripping them of hope for a better future. They promise them little, but it is still more than the hope they have for escaping what seems to be perpetual poverty. We talk about securing our borders and national security, imagining that putting up walls and defeating the Taliban will fix these issues. But what about the wars being fought and people that are being overlooked right here in America?

Today's children are the leaders and decision makers of tomorrow. If we don't provide American children with education and the opportunity to truly partake of it, then we have much greater problems looming in the future. Let us all strive to be a Greg Mortenson to the hurting and searching around us, because it is bold acts like his that are changing the world as we speak.