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In Review: Three Cups of Tea – One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
As Reveiwed by Macy Walsh
Three Cups of Tea is not just the title of an inspiring book. It’s code for a phenomenon that began with the unlikely collaboration of a lost American mountain climber and a wise elder in a small Himalayan village, and it chronicles one man’s Herculean efforts to leave the world a better place for his passing.
Greg Mortenson was born in Minnesota in 1957, but he grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where his father, Dempsey, co-founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, and his mother, Jerene, founded the International School Moshi. In July of 1992, Mortenson’s sister, Christa, died from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy. To honor her memory, in 1993 Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram Himalaya.
That attempt fell 600 meters short of the summit due to weather conditions, and during the descent, Greg became separated from his companions. Lost and alone, he endured unimaginable conditions as he worked his way down to the highest base camp, where he was found by a Sherpa guide named Mouzafer. As fate would have it though, nearing the end of their descent, Mortenson again managed to take a wrong turn and wound up in Korphe, a small, impoverished village perched on a shelf 800 feet above the Braldu River.
Mortenson remained in Korphe, having found something rare in the hardy, self-reliant and devout people of the village. He formed a life-long bond with Haji Ali, the village chief, and Mouzafer, his rescuer. In living among the people of the region that gave birth to the Taliban and gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda, he realized that the only way to fight ignorance and poverty was through education. Believing that providing their sons and daughters with a balanced, non-extremist education would make them much less vulnerable to the extremist madrassas, he vowed to build a school in Korphe. From that rash promise has grown a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promoting education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
With scant resources, the project began. Mortenson was reduced at the start, trying to save money out of his meager wages as a nurse in California and sending out literally hundreds of letters soliciting donations. And the work has been fraught with difficulties that would have defeated most mere mortals. He survived an eight day armed kidnapping by the Taliban in Pakistan in 1996, and escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides. He has overcome fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured CIA investigations and received threats from fellow Americans after 9/11 for helping Muslim children with education.
Greg Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs from his tireless efforts to champion education. He is one of few foreigners who has worked extensively in rural villages where few foreigners ever go.
Today Greg Mortenson is the director of the Central Asia Institute and has established or significantly supports 131 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, including 44,000 girls. TV newscaster Tom Brokaw calls Mortenson, “one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, who is really changing the world.” Congresswoman Mary Bono says, “I’ve learned more from Greg Mortenson about the causes of terrorism than I did during all our briefings on Capitol Hill. He is a true hero whose courage and compassion exemplify the true ideals of the American spirit.”
