Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
In 1993 Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer, drifted into an impoverished Pakistani village in the Karakoram mountains after a failed attempt to climb K2. Moved by the inhabitants' kindness that saved his life, he promised to return and build a school. "Three Cups of Tea" chronicles the adventure of that promise and its remarkable outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools - many specifically for girls - in the forbidding terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.
Mortenson meets people in Pakistan and Afghanistan that became his confidants, body guards, second family, and eventually his professional board of colleagues. His dedication to education as a way to improve the world is astounding, and shared widely among those assumed by many to be against educating young girls. His experiences and reflections expressed in this book should serve as models for us all in that one person really can make a fundamental difference that spans generations.
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"A congressman from California interrupted Mortenson in mid-sentence, challenging him. 'Building schools for kids is just fine and dandy... But our primary need as a nation [post 9/11] is security. Without security, what does all this matter?' Mortenson... felt an ember of the anger he'd carried all the way from Kabul. 'I don't do what I'm doing to fight terror... I do it because I care about kids. Fighting terror is maybe seventh or eighth on my list of priorities. But working over there, I've learned... that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.' [p 292]"
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"Mortenson grinned at the girl's pluck. The first graduate of his first school's first class had obviously learned the lesson he'd hoped all of his female students would absorb eventually - not to take a backseat to men. 'It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my life... Here comes this teenage girl, in the center of a conservative Islamic village, waltzing into a circle of men. breaking through about sixteen layers of traditions at once: She had graduated from school and was the first educated woman in the village of three thousand people. She didn't defer to anyone, sat down right in front of Greg, and handed him the product of the revolutionary skills she'd acquired - a proposal, in English, to better herself, and improve the life of her village.' [p 300]"
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Comments
Reflections while reading this book
I'm in the middle of this book right now, and my initial reaction was: this man is truly inspiring. The more I reflect on this story however, the more I start to reflect on the implications of Mortenson's actions. I know the thought is well intentioned, but I think many times, we don't analyze the implications of our "developmental" work as thoroughly as we should. What is the purpose of education? Will education in this village lead to job prospects? If not, what will it lead to? Will it shift the cultural and social dynamics of this village? Just some things to think about.
3 cups of tea
I agree that analysis of the implications is necessary. But one of the things that I like about what he's doing: the local community is providing the education and determining the curriculum. His schools provide an alternative for boys to fundamentalist schools and often the only option for girls. Greg's organization CAI provide the space, sometimes resources and salary. They don't seem to be doing any curriculum development. (Not that curriculum development is a bad thing...)
Education may not lead directly to job prospects, but it may lead to critical thinking skills, literacy and math skills, all of which give the students an edge in life, whether they're in a structured job or not. These skills are especially valuable in a politically changeable environment. Being able to read and analyze different view points is critical to political empowerment.
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