THREE CUPS OF TEA is the true story of one of the most extraordinary humanitarian missions of our time. In 1993, a young American mountain climber named Greg Mortenson stumbled into a tiny village high in Pakistan's beautiful and desperately poor Karakoram Himalaya region. Sick, exhausted, and depressed after failing to scale the summit of K2, Mortenson regained his strength and his will to live thanks to the generosity of the people of the village of Korphe. Before he left, Mortenson made a vow that would profoundly change both the villagers' lives and his own-he would return and build them a school.
The book traces how Mortenson kept this promise (and many more) in the high country of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson was up against considerable odds. The region is remote and dangerous, a notorious breeding ground for Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists. In the course of his work, Mortenson was kidnapped and threatened with death. He endured local rivalries, deep misunderstandings, jealousy, and corruption, not to mention treacherous roads and epic weather. But he believed passionately that balanced, non-extremist education, for boys and girls alike, is the most effective way to combat the violent intolerance that breeds terrorism. To date, Mortenson's Central Asia Institute has constructed more than sixty schools, and his work continues.
Mortenson initially approached Karakoram as a climber and he never lost the mountaineer's appreciation for the region's austere beauty and incredible physical challenges. His coauthor David Oliver Relin deftly evokes high-altitude landscapes haunted by glaciers, snow leopards, and the deaths of scores of climbers. As Mortenson transformed himself from down-and-out climbing bum to the director of a humanitarian enterprise, he came to appreciate more and more deeply the struggles that people of the region endure every day-struggles that have intensified with the recent explosion of war and sectarian violence.
In the course of this narrative, readers come to know Mortenson as a friend, a husband and father, a traveling companion, a son and brother, and also as a flawed human being. Mortenson made enemies along the way and frustrated his friends and family. Relin does not shy away from depicting the man's exasperating qualities-his restlessness, disorganization, sleeplessness, and utter disregard for punctuality. But Mortenson never asks others to make sacrifices that he has not already made himself time and time again.
The war-torn mountains of Pakistan
and Afghanistan appear in the news as the breeding grounds of
terrorist training camps, Al Qaeda hide-outs, and fierce religious
extremism. In THREE CUPS OF TEA, Mortenson and Relin take readers
behind the headlines to reveal the true heart and soul of this
explosive region and to show how one man's promise might be enough
to change the world.
Reproduced with permission from Penguin Group (USA)
Booklists:
