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Thursday, November 15, 2007

Thoughts on the past, and friends we have yet to meet!

This is Shyam, the son of man who lives with friends in New Orleans I met on a plane, who is waiting to meet us in Nepal!



We are hoping to write a book about this at some point, which I want to call "The world is full of good people" but Clara thinks this name is long and lame. She is probably right, but it really is the point of this trip. I think it vitally important in this Global age, for people to really make friends Globally. If I ever become Mayor of Boston I want each public school in the City to have a sister school in a different country to foster dialogue and friendship, sharing and learning.

Imagine if 300 schoolchildren in Boston had 300 friends in Baghdad. Or Tehran. We enlightened adults might have to explain to our children why our country finds it so important to bomb them into submission or death. Of course, this same concept needs to be implemented at the local level to get kids from Roxbury to make friends with kids in West Roxbury. The concept of busing was supposed to do that, but the reality has been much different.

We have many, many stories we haven't told yet about the trip including some of the best. The world's greatest marketer selling cornhusks to children in Mexico, my ongoing Yankee-Red Sox feud with wearers of NY caps around the world, our day in Transdniestr, my night sleeping in subzero temperatures in my sleeping bag on the ground in Bolivia, we slowly are trying to get to them as already our minds fade.

But we look to the future, to meet Shyam who is eager to show us his village in the Himalyas as we are eager to meet him and share smiles and friendship.