khawab (= dream, in urdu)

Bismillah..

just finished reading the sequel book. 

..tears just came streaming at every 5 pages

I don't know.. of loss, of hope.

I've read the first book two years ago..

I'm just going to say..it's imperfection makes it more human.

deeply human..because this isn't a novel.

it's a compellingly true story

..and am continuously to be in love with this Haji Ali, who died in 2001. 

This man who was illiterate, yet humbly and patiently said to Greg...

whilst he was in haste to get the construction going as soon as possible, to make true of his promise to build Korphe's first-ever school to this elder. 

He showed Greg a safe, in which he took out a battered Qur'an, apparently worn from constant turning of pages, as if..every night a wrinkled hand would lovingly stroke each sheaf of paper...

 Yet...he said these,

 that this Quran was his most prized possession..

and yet, he was unable to read it. 

He hope his grandchildren can.

"The first time you share tea with us, you are a stranger.

The second cup, you are a friend. 

but with the third cup, you become family - and for our families we are willing to do anything, even die."

- Haji Ali

On October afternoon in 1999, Kirghiz horseman rode out of the Wakhan, Afghanistan. The place is so remote, so desolate..it's called Bam-I-Dunya (Rooftop of the World), specifically in Bozai Gumbaz.

They rode out for months through chains of mountains to meet this American kind soul, with a request to build a school. This journey is met with difficulties and challenges that it took almost a decade to fulfill..and the wait is really worth it.

A dying man's wishes...so that a little four-room structure would be built, the highest school in Afghanistan, in the land that people almost forget, or ceased to value. A message of raw hope and empowerment.

"If I could somehow have found a way to share the story of the tiny four-room schoolhouse that was nailed together upon the Roof of the World with my old mentor and friend, Haji Ali - a man who never learned to read or write, and who now lies in his grave under the apricot trees next to the barley fields of Korphe - I believe he would have nodded with approval.

He was a man who understood the virtue of small things." 

-Greg Morteson

---

my life,

my pride,

all in the cause of Allah SWT.

my dream

Your Redha

I'm taking my life in stride

to embrace who I am

my strength

and my weakness

O Allah, forgive me if I strained their patience

but You gave me this heart and head

to judge

my destiny, my fate

is Yours alone

- -