Three Cups of Tea is the true story of an extraordinary humanitarian mission that shows how one person has the power to bring about tremendous change. In 1993, a young mountain climber by the name of Greg Mortenson became ill and was separated from the others in his climbing expedition. He found himself in a small, poverty-stricken village in Pakistan. While the villagers were nursing him back to health, he noticed the children there were scratching their lessons in the sand. Once he regained his strength, he returned to the United States and was determined to find a way to express his gratitude. He had witnessed tremendous need, and decided to build a school there.
This book tells the story of how he overcame considerable odds, and how he brought the gift of education to a part of the world where education isn’t always possible. To date, Mr. Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute has changed the life of thousands of children with the construction of nearly 80 schools in the region.
By selecting this book for the 2009 One Book One Lexington program, it is our hope that you read it and find inspiration, that you share it with your families and friends, that you go behind the headlines to the people of this region, and that you see how just one person can make a world of difference.
One Book One Lexington is supported by the Friends of the Lexington Public Library.
Greg Mortenson is the founder of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute (www.ikat.org), founder of Pennies For Peace (www.penniesforpeace.org), and co-author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time which has been a New York Times bestseller since its January 2007 release. It also was the Time Magazine Asia Book of The Year.
Mortenson was born in Minnesota in 1957. He grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania from 1958 to 1973. His father Dempsey co-founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, a teaching hospital, and his mother Jerene founded the International School at Moshi.
Mortenson served in the U.S. Army in Germany during the Cold War from 1977 to 1979, where he received the Army Commendation Medal. He later graduated from the University of South Dakota, and pursued graduate studies in neurophysiology.
A 1993 attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second largest mountain, ended in near death for Mortenson. Rescued and nursed back to health by villagers of remote and impoverished Korphe, Mortenson was struck by the sight of children writing lessons in the sand with sticks. Mortenson vowed to build a school for the village of Korphe. From that promise grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign. Mortenson has dedicated his life to promoting education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As of 2008, Mortenson has established almost 80 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan where few education opportunities existed before. The schools provide education to more than 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls in rural and often volatile regions.
His work has not been without difficulty. In 1996, he survived an eight-day armed kidnapping in the Northwest Frontier Province tribal area of Pakistan. In 2003 Mortenson escaped a fire fight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides in a truck going to a leather-tanning factory. He has endured CIA investigations and also received hate mail and death threats from fellow Americans after 9/11 for helping Muslim children with education.
Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials, and tribal chiefs from his tireless effort to champion education.
On August 14th, 2008, Pakistan’s government announced, on its Independence Day, that Greg Mortenson would receive Pakistan’s highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) for his courage and humanitarian effort to promote education and literacy in rural areas for the last fifteen years. Pakistan’s president was to confer the award, on March 23, 2009, in a ceremony in Islamabad.
For more information, or to find out how you can support Greg Mortenson's efforts in Central Asia, please visit the website for the Central Asia Institute: https://www.ikat.org/
David Oliver Relin is co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time, which was named nonfiction winner of the 2007 Kiriyama Prize, 2007 Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Book Of The Year, Time Magazine Asia Book Of The Year, People Magazine Critic’s Choice, and a BookSense Notable Title.
Relin is a graduate of Vassar College and was awarded the prestigious Teaching/Writing Fellowship at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. After Iowa, he received a Michener Fellowship to support his groundbreaking 1992 bicycle trip the length of Vietnam. He spent two additional years reporting about Vietnam opening to the world, while he was based in Hue, Vietnam’s former imperial capital. In addition to Vietnam and Pakistan, he has traveled to and reported from much of East Asia.
For two decades, Relin has focused on reporting about social issues and their effect on children, both in the United States, and around the world. He is currently a contributing editor for Parade. For his work as both an editor and investigative reporter, he has won dozens of national awards. His interviews with child soldiers (including a profile of teenager Ishmael Beah, who would later write the bestseller A Long Way Gone) have been included in Amnesty International reports. And his investigation into the way the Immigration and Naturalization Service abused children in its custody contributed to the reorganization of that agency.
There is a telling passage about Mortenson's change of direction at the start of the book: "One evening, he went to bed by a yak dung fire a mountaineer who'd lost his way, and one morning, by the time he'd shared a pot of butter tea with his hosts and laced up his boots, he'd become a humanitarian who'd found a meaningful path to follow for the rest of his life." What made Mortenson particularly ripe for such a transformation? Has anything similar happened in your own life?
Relin gives a "warts and all" portrait of Mortenson, showing him as a hero but also as a flawed human being with some exasperating traits. Talk about the methods Relin chose to write about Mortenson's character - his choice of details, his perspective, the way he constructs scenes. Is Mortenson someone you'd like to get to know, work with, have as a neighbor or friend?
At the heart of the book is a powerful but simple political message: we each as individuals have the power to change the world, one cup of tea at a time. Yet the book powerfully dramatizes the obstacles in the way of this philosophy: bloody wars waged by huge armies, prejudice, religious extremism, cultural barriers. What do you think of the "one cup of tea at a time" philosophy? Do you think Mortenson's vision can work for lasting and meaningful change?
Have you ever known anyone like Mortenson? Have you ever had the experience of making a difference yourself through acts of generosity, aid, or leadership?
The Balti people are fierce yet extremely hospitable, kind yet rigid, determined to better themselves yet stuck in the past. Discuss your reactions to them and other groups that Mortenson tries to help.
After Haji Ali's family saves Mortenson's life, he reflects that he could never "imagine discharging the debt he felt to his hosts in Korphe." Discuss this sense of indebtedness as key to Mortenson's character. Why was Mortenson compelled to return to the region again and again? In you opinion, does he repay his debt by the end of the book?
References to paradise run throughout the book - Mortenson's childhood home in Tanzania, the mountain scenery, even Berkeley, California are all referred to as "paradise." Discuss the concept of paradise, lost and regained, and how it influences Mortenson's mission.
Mortenson's transition from climbing bum to humanitarian hero seems very abrupt. However, looking back, it's clear that his sense of mission is rooted in his childhood, the values of his parents, and his relationship with his sister Christa. Discuss the various facets of Mortenson's character - the freewheeling mountain climber, the ER nurse, the devoted son and brother, and the leader of a humanitarian cause. Do you view him as continuing the work his father began?
"I expected something like this from an ignorant village mullah, but to get those kinds of letters from my fellow Americans made me wonder whether I should just give up," Mortenson remarked after he started getting hate mail in the wake of September 11. What were your reactions to the letters Mortenson received?
Mortenson hits many bumps in the road - he's broke, his girlfriend dumps him, he is forced to build a bridge before he can build the school, he puts on weight and drives his family crazy. Discuss his repeated brushes with failure and how they influenced your opinion of Mortenson and his efforts.
The authors write that "the Balti held the key to a kind of uncomplicated process happiness that was disappearing in the developing world." This peaceful simplicity of life seems to be part of what attracts Mortenson to the villagers. Discuss the pros and cons of bringing "civilization" to the mountain community.
A lot of the book is about fitting into a foreign culture. Discuss your own experiences with foreign cultures - things you have learned, mistakes you have made, misunderstandings you have endured.
Enjoy many exciting programs related to our 2009 One Book One Lexington selection: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
The Lexington Public Library is encouraging all Lexington residents to read and discuss the same book before and during National Library Week in April. The One Book One Lexington program gives emphasis to the importance of basic literacy and lifelong reading.
Three Cups Of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
2008: The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
2007:
The Watsons Go To Birmingham – 1963
by Christopher Paul Curtis
2006:
The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Book cover used courtesy of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
2005:
Clay’s Quilt
by Silas House