Achievement extraordinary!

“One man’s extraordinary journey to promote peace…..one school at a time”----this is the line from the cover of “Three cups of tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. (Viking 2006 and Penguin books 2007). This is not a review, but I hope it will encourage you to read it.

Award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin has worked closely with Mortenson to write this inspiring true account of one man’s sheer determination and incredible accomplishments, set against the backdrop of the difficult and remote terrain of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Greg Mortenson, a mountaineer, failed in an attempt to climb the K2 peak in the Karakoram mountains in 1993. Dehydrated and disoriented, he drifted away from his group into a desolate and poor village in northern Pakistan, where he was nursed back to health. One day, he noticed children using sticks to scratch their lessons in the dirt. The kindness of the inhabitants, as well as the poverty and lack of proper education in the village moved him to promise that he would build a school there. This promise was translated into not one, but 55 schools! all over the region (24,000 children will be educated this year!) It was Mortenson’s way of counteracting extremism by educating and thus empowering girls during the rise of the Taliban. His community and literacy programs are especially noteworthy because of the difficulties associated with a troubled region.

The title has an interesting history---according to a village chief in the Karakoram mountains, after the customary third cup of tea, a visitor becomes family!

The blurb on the outer jacket sums it up well: “His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit”. The style too is compelling and very “readable”.

The site www.threecupsoftea.com
poses an thought provoking question:
“Do you know anyone who would be willing to sell everything they own and live in their car just so they could save every dollar for someone else”?
Do look at the site for more information and links.

The story is truly inspirational, much like the efforts of Br.Liam O'Meary I had mentioned in the last post.