"Three Cups of Tea"

Cafe Society
1

It’s about Greg Mortenson, an American mountain climber who, after failing to summit K2, wandered, nearly dead, into a tiny Balti village in Pakistan, where no Westerner had ever been. After observing the village children taking lessons in an open field by scratching with sticks in the dirt, he spent the next three years raising money and building a school in the village.

The story of that one school is remarkable, relying as it does on his building relationships all over India and Pakistan with people, primarily Shi’ite Muslims, who were and are predisposed to hate infidels, and especially Americans.

Mortenson’s work began in the mid-90’s, and he somehow managed to continue it during the rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, the recent India/Kashmir standoff, the aftermath of 9/11, and it continues even now.

One of the most eye-opening aspects of the book is the look inside Muslim society in the Karakoram Himalaya. Tending strongly toward conservatism and even fundamentalism, they nonetheless welcomed Mortenson with open arms and respect. He counts as one of his closest personal friends Syed Abbas, the supreme religious leader of all Shi’ites in northern Pakistan. He even has the written blessing of the ultra-conservative High Shi’ite Mullahs of Iran, who have called him “Compassionate of the Poor”, and concluded their official statement to him with “You have our permission, our blessings, and our prayers.”

This, of course, is a far fucking cry from their usual policies toward American interlopers.

Thus far, he has constructed over 130 schools, 25 water treatment plants, many vocational centers for women, as well as countless other projects, including a bridge over the Braldu River to Korphe (the original village he wandered into) so that construction materials for the school could be brought to the village.

It really makes you think. This guy is changing things the right way. He’s using the Magic Bullet, education, to divert children away from the fundamentalist madrassas, and toward a true, secular education. He’s particularly concerned with educating women, which you would think would be explosively dangerous in conservative Muslim societies. In fact, however, local religious leaders are falling all over themselves to help him educate their daughters. They love him. They, like all fathers, are desperately concerned about the well-being and the futures of their children.

These are the Muslim moderates. These are the people we need to be most concerned with winning over.

It’s a very eye-opening book, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone, but especially to the cadre of “nuke 'em all and let God sort 'em out” right-wing chickenhawks we seem to breed in the US lately.

Greg Mortenson’s website: http://www.gregmortenson.com/

Central Asia Institute (the organization he founded to help pay for his work): https://www.ikat.org/

2

How in the world has he managed to survive I wonder? You’d think the Taliban would brand him a major enemy to Sharia for accepting female students alone, let alone the de-fundamentalization of the students.

Something that always struck me is that Mullah Muhammad Omar (many different spellings), the one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban (and by some accounts both the father-in-law and the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden) is illiterate. A Mullah is by definition a scholar- the title connotes education at least as much as ‘rabbi’, and yet he cannot read the Q’uran (though supposedly he has memorized much of it).

3

This book and his story is simply inspiring.

4

It’s a really interesting and amazing book, though it bogs down in the story of his first girlfriend. Be sure to get past that before you make a judgement on it.

There is now a children’s version as well, for those of you with kids.

5

I listened to an abridged version of it that was broadcast on BBC radio, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It’s an excellent reminder that most people, anywhere in the world, are just regular people who just want to live their lives.

6

I discovered it last summer in the lobby of a hospital (I was staying as a guest for a relative), and didn’t expect it to be as interesting as it was. As others have said, it’s a truly inspiring story of a brave and caring individual.

7

My son, age 9, is now reading the kids’ version but, alas, isn’t thrilled with it. My book club read the big book a few years ago and loved it.

I have to say, though, for as much as Mortenson goes on and on about not wanting to be affiliated with the U.S. government, why on earth would he name his organization so that it has the acronym “CAI”? :smack:

8

As much as I liked the book, and admired his altruistic nature of building schools, Greg Mortenson drove me to distraction with his idiocy. There were so many times I just wanted to slap him upside the head.
It has been awhile since I read it, but he went about so many things ass backwards, he blew many opportunities, he walked blithely into situations that any sane person would have avoided and he constantly stumbled his way through the process.
If he had just once sat down with (and actually listened to) somebody who knew what the fuck what they were doing, things might have moved along more smoothly, with better results - both financially and in achieving his goals.
Yes - he has done some great work - but a good 90% of that was sheer luck, and not the actions of a visionary; more like the actions of somebody with a vague notion and nothing else to do.

9

Waste of time that book. Patent nonscense most of it. “No westerner has ever been seen in that area?” Gilgit-Baltistan lives and dies by tourism, especially mountain climbers. The land of the Taliban? The idiot need a geography lesson, Northern Areas are to the North-East, while the Talibs are in the South-West.

10

No. You misunderstand. Apparently, no Westerner had ever been in Korphe, not in that entire area. It was made perfectly clear that mountain climbers were a major source of income for the region.

11

I’ve added Three Cups to my reading list, but I’ve also just bought The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind after seeing the author interviewed on Jon Stewart the other night. Here again is a case of education (through a U.S. owned and operated library) being the answer. William Kamkwamba was a kid in Malawi (one of the nations most affected by AIDS) with very little education who used old books from the library to electrify his village by building a windmill out of scraps and a circuit breaker from a “science projects” book; he wasn’t even aware of Google’s existence when he did this.

Of course the finest universities on Earth in the late 19th/early 20th century were in Germany, so it’s not the sole answer.

12

I loved that interview. I was cheering when he mentioned the library and I laughed when he said he was busy studying for his SATs!

I’d like to read 3 Cups of Tea.

13

Coincidentally, here’s a CNN spot on Greg Mortenson and his work in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

14

Imagine what the guy could have done with the money from, say, the Nobel Peace Prize.

15

Yeah, true. I’m not an expert on it, but from my reading of his book, I’d have to say that, at the very least, he’d be a better candidate than Obama.

16

Did you read the book?
Greg would have taken the money and invested half of it in a Ponzi scheme, and the other half he would have invested in General Motors.

17

Uh, what? What in the book makes you think he would have done anything like this? He took his first $12,000 and jealously budgeted every penny of it toward the school. He even went without food himself so he could meet his obligations.

18

Well, it’s important that he’s not an agent of a foreign government. Devout Muslims, in every reference I’ve seen, are generally reasonably low on the xenophobia scale. (Except for maybe some Iranian nationalist-Muslims. Maybe. Some.)

19

I apologize - I really should stop ragging on this book, as it most certainly is a worthwhile read, and Greg has done some good work.
I guess I was mostly pissed off as, having worked for a large charity, I read the book and kept thinking how many missed opportunities he had for making far more money, and how many things he did were without the use of basic computer knowledge and other simple things that could have brought him far more success.

All the same, for those of you who have yet to read the book - I strongly suggest doing so. You might agree with me that he could have done things differently, but you will see that he certainly tried, as best he could, to accomplish some simple goals. And for the most part, he succeeded in his modest goals quite nicely.

20

Just…wow.