Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

"Loyal" donkeys better than wives, says India book"

A textbook used at schools in the Indian state of Rajasthan compares housewives to donkeys, and suggests the animals make better companions as they complain less and are more loyal to their "masters", The Times of India reported on Tuesday.

"A donkey is like a housewife ... In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master," the newspaper reported, quoting a Hindi-language primer meant for 14-year-olds.

Unbelievable. Why is it no matter where you look there are men so afraid of women that they have to put them down to somehow feel superior to them? Why? Like I said , I think men keep women down because they fear them. What are they so afraid of? I don't understand. Explain please.

We only understand that which already within us. Henri Frederic Amiel

I warn you, this story is so tragic that it's almost hard to belive. What members of the human race do to one another I find more and more amazing the older I get.

Child Bride

Eleven-year old Gulsoma lay in a heap on the ground in front of her father-in-law. He told her that if she didn't find a missing watch by the next morning he would kill her. He almost had already.

Enraged about the missing watch, Gulsoma's father-in-law had beaten her repeatedly with a stick. She was bleeding from wounds all over her body and her right arm and right foot had been broken.

She knew at that moment that if she didn't get away, he would make good on his promise to kill her.

You have to read the whole story to feel the impact of the abuse this "child bride" redived at the hands of her "husband" and "father-in-law." If it doesn't sicken you, you have a serious problem, seek mental help.

If this is humanity, I want no part of it.

There is one really amazing thing that really strikes me about this. It would be so easy for this girl to hate and hate. What is her view on things though?

Yet she continues to smile. She doesn't ask for pity. She seems more concerned about us as she reads the shock on our faces.

"I feel better now," she says. "I have friends at the orphanage. But every night I'm still afraid the family will come here and pick me up."

Gulsoma also says that when the sun goes down, she sometimes begins to shiver involuntarily � a reaction to the seven years of sleeping outdoors, sometimes in the bitter cold of the desert night.

She says she believes there are other girls like her in Kandahar, maybe elsewhere in Afghanistan, and that she wants to study human rights and one day go back to help them.

As we walk outside to take some pictures, I ask her if, after all she's been through, she thinks it will be harder to trust, to believe that there are actually good people in the world.

"No," she says, quickly.

"I didn't expect anyone would help me but God. I was really surprised that there were also nice people: the neighbor, the rickshaw driver, the police," she says. "I pray for those who helped release me."

Looking directly into the camera, she smiles as if nothing bad had ever happened to her in her entire life.

"I think that all people are good people," she says, "except for those that hurt me."

"I think that all people are good people," she says, "except for those that hurt me." If this is humanity, I guess I will stick with it. If the "good people" stick together I guess we can make a difference. To have this kind of faith in humanity after what she has been through is amazing.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings. Albert Einstein