BOOK REVIEW
Three Cups of Tea
‘Three Cups of Tea:
one Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and build
Nations… one school at a Time’
Authors: Greg
Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Printers:Viking (Penguin Publishing Group), 2006
Hard Cover. 338 Pages
Price: US $ 25.95; Cand $ 36.00
ISBN 0-670-03482-7
Review by Dr. Rizwana Rahim
Chicago, IL
Most international problems are far too complex
and intractable to be resolved, much less eradicated,
by just one approach and in one clean sweep. There’s
just no one way to deal with any such situation,
and there’s no guarantee, in any case, of
good or quick results no matter how carefully we
plan, how flawlessly these plans are executed, or
how much resources we dedicate to the effort.
This also applies to terrorism, its causes, its
manifestations, its devastating effects, regionally
and globally. Quite apart from what the US and other
countries are trying to achieve since 9/11, there
are many NGO and other efforts busy dealing with
particular aspects of this problem. One personal
effort is by Greg Mortenson, former nurse and mountaineer,
and this has been detailed in ‘Three Cups
of Tea’, written with the help of a journalist
and co-author, David Oliver Relin. Mortenson believes
that the future generations of some poor Muslim
countries will be more productive and tolerant through
increased literacy and a balanced education, not
by teaching and reinforcing just religious fundamentalism
that tends to breed isolationism and distrust of
everything different. The book is billed as “one
man’s mission to fight terrorism and build
nations.” Flamboyant as this claim may be
considered, the book does describe an inspiring
adventure with a deeply humanitarian purpose.
Mortenson came to this view – more particularly,
to build schools in remote areas of Pakistan and
Afghanistan in the Karakoram -- by a most unlikely
and circuitous route, out of some strangely interesting
circumstances. One could say he may have had this
in his genes: his Minnesota-born parents were Lutheran
missionaries and teachers who, while living in Africa
with their children, had built schools and hospitals
in Tanzania. Besides that, another inspiration for
him was the tragic death of his sister, Christa,
in her early 20s from meningitis that she had contracted
when she was only three. As her big brother (12
years her senior), Mortenson had done a lot to make
her disabled sister more and more independent, but
after her death he had her amber-bead necklace as
his constant companion. Growing up in the foothills
of Mount Kilimanjaro, he took to mountaineering
with passion (this was to become a crucial part
of the story). Back in the States, he was trained
as a nurse, served in the US Army, and later led
a rather nomadic life in Berkeley, CA and elsewhere.
He first came to Pakistan for a different reason:
to climb the
28,267 ft high K2, one of the most challenging climbs,
and place his sister’s necklace (wrapped in
a Tibetan prayer flag) at its peak. That attempt
failed in 1993, rather badly for him. He was lost
in the mountains and glaciers, later rescued and
brought to Korphe, a Pakistani village of the Balti
natives, the last human habitation in the mountains,
and a virtual Shangri-la (“Tibet of the Apricots,”
named by earlier visitors of the Karakoram). There,
under the care and hospitality of Haji Ali, village
nurmadhar, and later his mentor, Mortenson recovered.
He learns, among other things, that the nearest
doctor was a week’s walk away, one in three
Korpe newborns die before their first birthday,
and there was just one school, up a steep climb
(800 ft above the Bradlu), with 82 children (only
four girls), but no regular teacher. A teacher came
just three days/week (shared with Munjung, a neighboring
village) because his salary (about US$ 1/ day) was
beyond the village’s capability and something
that the Pakistan government apparently couldn't
quite spare, despite its huge resources stationed
in the Siachen glacier facing the Indian forces.
Mortenson felt that Korphe’s children were
left to struggle for the very basic needs of life,
not much different (though worlds apart) from his
own disabled sister, Christa. That inspired Mortenson
to promise Korphe that he would return and build
a school there for balanced education and for those
have had been short-changed so far, the girls. He
not only did that, despite his many personal difficulties
and many mostly unsuccessful attempts to raise funds,
but as his efforts gained more recognition, he also
turned it into his personal mission. As the Director
of Central Asia Institute, funded by the industrialist/philanthropist
Jean Hoerni, he and his team (including many regional
natives) have so far built over 50 such schools
in some of the most deprived and grossly under-served
areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Whether this would eventually help eradicate terrorism
may be too premature to even think or hope, but
this is an unquestionably solid record of humanitarian
achievement, with a real ‘missionary’
zeal and almost single-handedly. Most other efforts
may be focused more on treating the symptoms, not
the cause -- or, one of the root-causes !
The task wasn’t easy, by any means: he had
death threats and ‘fatwas’ from local
mullah, over and above the near-impossible bureaucratic
challenges. All this described in detail, sometimes
a bit tedious, but with a trained journalistic eye
of Relin, the Mortenson collaborator for this book.
Relin himself visits the places, interviews people,
and adds his own experiences to the account. The
book is replete with local flavor – linguistic
snatches, customs and profiles, and the native view
of the rest of the world, including the rest of
their own country, their fears and problems, dreams
and aspirations.
The title of the book itself (‘Three cups
of Tea’) has an interesting ritualistic context
in Balti and other native cultures. Tea is an unhurried
ritual --not just for the British, or the Chinese
and the Japanese. The book refers to the Balti ritual:
A stranger, for the first cup of tea; a friend,
for the second; a family member for the third !
This doesn’t occur necessarily at one sitting,
but over a period of time. There are other versions
of the same theme in different countries. Eddy L.
Harris mentions one in his book (Native Stranger:
a Black American’s Journey in the Heart of
Africa, 1992): in Gambia, it has to do with love
of the mother (1st cup), friends (2nd) and the 3rd
for the love of your life. Richard Trench describes
in “Forbidden Sands: A Search in the Sahara,”
1980) another, with some elaborate rituals, among
the Saharan nomadic tribes: three brews, three glasses
for each person, huddled around open fire –
Why three “Because it has always been so,”
was the native answer.
The title reflects how warmly Mortenson feels he
has been accepted by the local populations. Mortenson
risked his life during the most arduous climb up
K2 but couldn’t reach the top or place his
sister’s necklace there. Crushed, he wandered
alone, hopeless and defenseless in the mountains
and glaciers. He was only accidentally discovered,
brought into a family of totally different but remarkably
hospitable people and nursed back to life. His story
is a reminder of how out of defeat, despair and
destruction of dreams, the determination survives,
and that determination can perform miracles and
achieve different unintended goals, and fulfill
even a seemingly far-fetched promise (“I’m
going to build you a school… I will a school…
I promise”), in face of near destitution of
the promise-maker. Admirable in all respects !
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