The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat etc” is the US Postal Service Creed. They vow to deliver despite the weather. Not so Big Sandy Book Club. We caved last Tuesday. We were to have met October 3 in Havre. As everyone knows we got that terrible snowstorm. Not only were we snowed in but our hostess was without power. However, last night, October 10 , we gathered in Havre’s old post office building for our meeting.

Megan, Barb and Helen were our hostesses and as usual they did an amazing job! Our long meeting table was decorated with garlands of leaves and pine cones, with fall themed plates and napkins continuing the fall decorations. We were greeted with an amazing array of treats. Mini cheesecakes, chocolates, cranberry loaf, crackers and three cheeses, herbed tomato rounds on Bretons, bowls of nuts and bolts etc but no partridge in a pear tree. Maybe for December?? We had our choice of wine, water or iced tea. When we first arrived ,we nibbled our way around the table and best of all visited and met new friends. Barb and Megan had encouraged three friends from Havre to attend and it was a real pleasure meeting them and having them join in the discussion.

For October, we read ”The Lovers”, by Rod Nordland. Karen Moes suggested the book so very ably led the discussion. She had an actual video to watch of the couple about whom the book was written. She had then written to the author for material for our discussion and he sent a transcript of an interview with him concerning the book. ”The Lovers” was a true story of an Afghan couple Ali and Zakia who married despite opposition from both families. Ali is Hazara, and Zakia is Tajik. After Rod Nordland began reporting about their plight other news writers labelled them the Afghanistan Romeo and Juliet. The book was written in 2015, so this is a relatively new story, not something from the far past as you might first guess.

The book provides you with the background where all the persecution of the couple begins. It delves into Afghan beliefs that women are owned by their fathers and brothers and then their husbands. We read about honor killings, forcible marriages, child marriages and baad, which is the sale of girls to settle moral debts.

Ali and Zakia were illiterate and we could see as their story continued how this disability greatly affected their story. Zakia’s family was so enraged that she married into another tribe that they left their farm and moved to Kabul so they could ensnare the young couple whom they believed were hiding there. They made no secret that they would kill Zakia once she was found.

This was a hard book to read. It , however, was a good book to debate. We discussed if we thought the situation could have been better handled by Rod Nordland, Afghan beliefs and how it’s affecting their country and many more thoughts that surfaced for us while reading this book. The young couple did escape and are now in the United States. How they will fare here is another question given their lack of English or even literacy. I think we all were confounded at what small steps have been taken , even to this day, for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

We decided on meeting November the 7th in Big Sandy Library at 7:00. The November book is “The Winter Sea”, by Susanna Kearsley. We also chose the books for January and February. We missed seeing a lot of familiar Big Sandy faces at the October meeting so here’s hoping we see you in November! Please come or with 6 women coming from Havre, we will soon be forced to rename it the Havre Book Club!