Three Cups of Tea

One of the things I really enjoy is reading and discussing books, so I've participated in our office book club. Participants democratically vote for one of several books, and then discuss it over a potluck lunch. Many of these books I would have never read if not for the book club, and many books deal with other cultures, which is reflected in our potluck lunch. Previous books included The Zookeeper's Wife (Diane Ackerman), Loving Frank (Nancy Horan), Unaccoustomed Earth (Jhumpa Lahiri), and Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Barack Obama). I didn't actually read the last book because during the elections, I believe in keeping politics separate from the workplace. However, the elections were over when the book discussion occured and I was piqued.

In search of an uplifting book with a happy ending, our book club chose Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. I read parts of this book while I was sick over Thanksgiving, and was inspired to sip tea while reading. I later bought Chai tea, which is often mentioned in the book.

Greg Mortenson was born in Minnesota to parents who were Lutheran missionaries and spent the first 15 years of his life near the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. He is fluent in Swahili, English, Pashtu, and Urdu. His father co-founded the Kilimajaro Christian Medical Center, a teaching hospital, and his mother, Jerene, founded the International School Moshi.

On July 24, 1992, Mortenson’s younger sister, Christa, died from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy. To honor his sister, Mortenson climbed K2, the world's second highest mountain on the Karakoram range, which sits between Pakistan and China. There, at the 28,250 ft summit, he planned to bury his sister's necklace.

But Mortenson never reached the summit. After spending 70 days on the mountain, Greg and three other climbers interrupted their ascent to complete a 75-hour lifesaving rescue of another climber. The rescue depleted Mortenson's strength, and exhausted and weakend, he mistakenly wandered into the village of Korphe, where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering, Mortenson asked to see the village school and was shown a meeting place where children wrote out their lessons in the dirt with sticks. Mortenson made a vow that would prove to be a turning point in his life when he promised to return the the village with funds to build a school.

So, Mortenson returned to California and took a job in his profession as an emergency room nurse, living out of his car and pounding out more than 500 letters, first on a typewriter and then on a computer, to raise money for a school. I never could make sense of Mortenson's desperate financial situation from reading the book, as nursing has been a shortage profession for quite some time, and as such, is a financially rewarding profession. Mortenson's luck turned when he met Jean Hoerni, a former mountain climber and Silicon Valley pioneer, who funded that first school.

Much of the book details the challenges in building that first school. Unlike other books that describe humanitarian efforts, such as Josh Swiller's The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa about his work with the Peace Corps, one of the crucial underpinnings of Mortenson's success is his willingness to learn about other cultures and adopt their practices without foisting information about American culture. In the Muslim culture of Pakistan, Mortenson communicates his respect for Islam and kneels toward Mecca to pray alongside his hosts.

Another crticial factor in his favors is his ability to identify "culture brokers" along his journey who sympathize with his goals and help him navigate the local culture and customs to help Mortenson achieve his objectives. In Rwalpindi, his host patientely and skillfully barters for building supplies for his first school while Mortenson sits through endless cups of tea needed to conduct business. It is only when he lacks a "culture broker" that trouble ensues, such as a kidnapping in the Northwest Frontier Province tribal areas of Pakistan.

Another strength is Mortenson's willingness to work with local tribal leaders within the customs of their society. He accepts a setback when the village leaders announce that they must first build a bridge instead of a school. Mortenson is forced to return to California with nothing concrete accomplished to engage in another round of fundraising.

The success of that first school in Korphe ultimately led to the founding of the non-profit Central Asia Institute with its mission to build schools in the remote, rural regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where few opportunities for education exist, especially for girls.

In my own mind, one litmus test of a biographical/autobiographical novel is its honesty. It is human nature to want to project successes, while glossing over unflattering aspects of our characters and our lives. Unlike Michael Phelp's Beneath the Surface which puts a creative spin on unflattering chapters of his life like his DUI, Three Cups of Tea presents an honest—and balanced—view of Mortenson's accomplishments and his character. I was often in awe of his everyday acts of bravery: crossing a tightrope bridge with rushing water below and three heavy people wobbling the rope behind him; going on a hunt for an ibex mountain goat over glaciars while wearing only tennis shoes stuffed with straw; traveling on the back of bumpy truck rides while practically boucing off the truck, over the edge of the mountain below. Yet it also presents a view of his homelife and the sascraficial amount of time he poured into CAI at the expense of his wife, children -- and even regular sleep.

Mortenson’s approach hinges on a simple idea: that by building schools and helping to promote education—particularly for girls—support for the Taliban and other extremists eventually will dry up. While this goal is laudable and I fully support his efforts to promote education, I feel that Mortenson softpedals the cultural forces particularly in Pakistan's rural and remote areas that leave girls without an education, without the opprtunity to exercise choice and determination in their lives, and even without the chance to live.

This is a culture in which male children are favored over female children and from birth, boys are given more food than their sisters. A girl's father and later her husband exercise control over her, and spousal abuse is common. Tribal customs include arranged marriage and honor killings. It is telling when a young woman approaches Mortenson to ask for tuition for higher education, that Mortenson hands the tuition money to the girl's father. The village elders think it odd that Mortenson asks girls their dreams, which shows their support for the education of girls.

The $3.7 million non-profit 501(c)3 CAI organization is still largely the work of Mortenson, with only eight U.S. staff members. None of the schools founded by CAI are self-supporting, and according to the organization's 2006 tax statements, a handful of schools had no girls enrolled. Although the effort is still young, I would have liked to have a better sense of the results that his organization has achieved in educating girls beyond anecdotal reports in the book. How many female students went on to higher education? How long did girls remain in school compared to boys? What did these students accomplish with their education?

It is a fascinating book to read and offers a great deal of insight into world events. I'm looking forward to the shape and direction our book discussion takes and its effect on my own views. The next book we'll read is The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. I've read Lamb's two previous novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True and I'm looking forward to beginning his recently released 752-page novel.