So many quotables I'd like to post, but that might spoil your enjoyment of the book! I'll just include one:
Life has legs and continuously walks. We must walk with it or we will be left behind.
After a "teaser" episode and a brief sketch of Molly Melching's background, the book jumps into her early years in Senegal--how she grew to love the people and the culture, to learn Wolof, the language of the people, and develop schools for children--schools that taught them to read and write in their native language. Imagine learning to read in French when you don't even speak French? Pretty useless.
She even wrote and illustrated her own childrens' books, in the beginning. Children learned the magic of the written language, and soon she continued the process with adults in adult education programs called Tostan. Tostan means, "breakthrough"--it taught the basics of sanitation, science, medicine, reproduction, and above all, human rights to people who'd been hung up in the constant struggle for basic survival. Once the people started getting this basic education, they empowered themselves to make change--one village lobbied for a water line; another a health center and exercise class.
Later she was (unwillingly) dragged into the movement to end female genital cutting. Not that she didn't hate the practice--she did--but because she knew that any attempt to impose "foreign ways" on a proud and ancient culture was doomed to failure. Change must come from within--always.
And did it? Read the book. Find out for yourself.
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