Review: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Three Cups of Tea is the account of Greg Mortenson's extraordinary and unexpected experience in Pakistan. In 1993 Mortenson attempted to climb K2 with friends but was separated from his group - and his guide. After wandering alone unwashed and unwell, Mortenson eventually found himself near the village of Korphe, Pakistan. His well-being would depend on the mercy of the people of Korphe including the chief of the village, Haji Ali. These strangers laid him near a coal hearth, covered him with luxurious quilts, fed him and nursed him. Not because they were forced to, or even asked to, but because they could and it was the right thing to do.

While regaining his strength in Korphe, Mortenson shared stories with Haji Ali - stories about Mortenson's epileptic sister Christa who had sadly passed away much too young and stories about Haji Ali's wife who had died seven years earlier giving birth to their only child, a daughter named Jahan. He learned that one out of every three children in Korphe died before their first birthday. He learned that the people there lived without modern conveniences and with little opportunity for education. Eighty-two children were schooled in the open as they knelt on the ground. Only four of the 82 were girls and a brave four at that. The Pakistani government did not provide a teacher because it would have cost the village the equivalent of one dollar a day, too expensive for the people of Korphe. The best they could do was to share a teacher with a neighboring village.

When he left Korphe, Mortenson was so grateful that he vowed to one day return to the village and build a school. Back in the states, Mortenson was restless and could not shake his promise to return to Korphe. He set about trying to save, beg and borrow the money he would need to fulfill his promise. After sending out 580 letters requesting funds, he received a $100 check from Tom Brokaw and a call from a Swiss-born physicist and fellow climber, Dr. Jean Hoerni, who after inventing a kind of integrated circuit that paved the way for the silicon chip, had amassed a sizable personal fortune. Hoerni gifted him a $12,000 check for the purpose of building the school. Mortenson then proceeded to sell his collection of first editions, his climbing gear, his car and everything of value he owned in order to purchase airfare back to Pakistan. Then the real work began.

Mortenson encountered a myriad of obstacles in Pakistan, problems with the government, suppliers, workers and more. At one point, he was kidnapped. At another, he found himself having tea with the Taliban. But he got that school, and others, built as promised. And the way he tells it, the rewards were immeasurable. Eventually, he established the Central Asia Institute whose mission is "to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Three Cups of Tea is a heartrending and inspiring story. Its very premise may defy what some readers have previously read or heard about Pakistan, its people, Afghanistan and even the Taliban, but together with reporter David Oliver Relin, Mortenson shares his experience honestly and it is very real.

Three Cups of Tea, 368 pp
Published by Penguin, January 2007
ISBN 13: 978-0143038252

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