Truly Amazing Endeavor

I've had the link to the Afghan Girls Fund Charity Slog up since my site launched, but they just started their blog today so I wanted to bring as much attention to it as possible.

This site is truly remarkable on three levels:

1. It supports National Geographic's Afghan Girls Fund - a incredibly worthwhile cause.
2. The page will chart the progress of 10 people (one of which who is my roommate) who will begin a 200 mile, 10 day hike with nothing but the clothes on their backs and one tea-bag on June 1. That's right - 20 miles/day with no food, for 10 days. These are all better women and men than I.
3. The site's blogger, Madeline, is a immensely talented writer for any age. But she also happens to be 13 and her father will be partaking in the slog. Her first entry, contemplates how her love for reading might have been different if she grew up under Taliban rule. This should be required reading for all. An excerpt:

Just as I sat there on a cheery Beatrix Potter-patterned child-sized chair at the Borders Bookstore in the heart of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1997, the Taliban militia had recently come to power in Afghanistan, installing a reactionary policy of gender apartheid. My short sleeved T-shirt and cotton patterned shorts would have been considered indecent, as I would be required to wear the all-covering burqa in public. My future would have been dim, as secondary schooling was prohibited for females. Independence was not a possibility, since driving vehicles was not permitted without male escorts.