January - The Camel Bookmobile

Thanks to the weather, we had to reschedule our January meeting which was disappointing because there would have been nine of us, including a new member, at the originally scheduled meeting. Still, we had six of us and all but one of us had read the book.

For Ann, this one was a slow build but she ended up really liking it. Cheryl found it predictable. While it was tough to keep us on topic (what else is new?!), we had a good discussion about the motivations behind both Fiona and the group that set up the book mobile - was everyone really trying to make life better for the nomadic people of Kenya or were they doing it more for personal (corporate) good? What might they have done better to help the people of the village - books that were more helpful, other donations? Would those changes have been better accepted by the village elders? All of that brought up the discussion of whether or not you can truly retain the old ways while bringing in the new.

We had fun talking about how we would have liked the book to end or what we would have written if we had written an epilogue for the book. The book brought up some personal examples of ways family members and friends have served in other countries.

Perhaps the best part of the discussion was our ability to acknowledge other people's opinions and thoughts. It's one of the best things about this group of ladies - we may not always agree about a book or a character or a topic but we're always respectful and open to new thoughts.