Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson is an extraordinary story about one man’s quest to make the world a better place, working on one child’s future at a time.
After a failed attempt to climb K2, the harshest mountain in the world, Greg Mortenson made a promise to the villagers who saved his life: he would return to help build a school in their isolated and impoverished mountain village. Without money or resources, with only his personal drive and dedication, Mortenson worked to make good on that promise, and has done so many times over.
Written by journalist David Oliver Relin with Mortenson’s participation, Three Cups of Tea chronicles this story, from the formidable slopes of K2 where he barely escaped death, to the people who befriended him and helped him back to health, to his fundraising efforts in the United States, through his incredible and often frightening journeys through Afghanistan and Pakistan, building schools in places where no one thought such a thing was possible, including the people who live there.
Over the next ten years, from witnessing children sitting in the dirt, writing multiplication tables with sticks in the sand, and without a teacher to guide them, Mortenson went on to build 78 schools in the most volatile regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today, over 28,000 children benefit from the promise he made in 1993, including 18,000 girls.
In 1996, Mortenson was kidnapped and held hostage for eight days in Pakistan. In 2003, he barely escaped being in the center of two feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under rotting animal hides. He has survived two execution orders from Islamic mullahs. Mortenson himself is a fascinating man. His doubts, his foibles, and many mistakes along the way, make him even more compelling.
This book is a marvelous reminder that that we should never discount what is possible from the efforts of a single person.
As well, through his accounts of his interactions in this poorly understood region of the world, I was delighted to meet the faces, minds and hearts of the people there. It is a reminder that anything can be possible when one’s focus is on the children, and not on politics or ideaology.
All in all, this is a fascinating read for anyone who has ever wanted to help make this world a better place.
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Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Published by The Penguin Group (Viking)
338 pp.,
ISBN 9780670034826
{ 2 comments }
This is great book. Nice review David. Hope to see more.
I really enjoyed this review, David. Sounds like an interesting book that allows a glimpse into the good that can be done in areas of the world that are, as you said, poorly understood.
Thanks for sharing this!
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