Three Cups of Tea

"Do you see how beautiful this Koran is?" Haji Ali asked.

"Yes."

"I can't read it," he said.  "I can't read anything.  This is the greatest sadness in my life.  I'll do anything so the children of my village never have to know this feeling.  I'll pay any price so they have the education they deserve."

"Sitting there beside him," Mortenson says, "I realized that everything, all the difficulties I'd gone through, from the time I'd promised to build the school, through the long struggle to complete it, was nothing compared to the sacrifices he was prepared to make for his people.  Here was this illiterate man, who'd hardly ever left his little village in the Karakoram," Mortenson says.  "Yet he was the wisest man I've ever met."

If you haven't yet heard of this book, and I actually hadn't before reading it, this is the story of American climber-turned-humanitarian Greg Mortenson and how he managed to provide schooling for thousands of Pakistani and Afghan children, before, during and after 9/11.  Mortenson argues that education is the best assurance of the world's safety when it comes to a difference between literacy - and subsequent empowerment of young women - and the Muslim extremism children are pushed into without it.  Why women? - partly because boys are already given more educational attention in these villages, but mostly because once the girls are educated they will likely stay in their home villages, pulling their own people out of the poverty they've known their whole lives.  It's just like boys to take their education and run with it, isn't it?

This is not my usual fare, granted, it was a gift for Christmas I think.  I'm glad I read it, there were some really moving parts where Greg, or co-author, David Oliver Relin really nails down the beauty of the culture of these people in a forgotten, poverty-stricken area of the world, and the potential of his movement to "promote peace" (as the title suggests) where there seldom is any.  I could have lived without the first half of the book and it's ultra-slow beginning, and the authors describe the climbing life (of which I have no interest) of Mortenson and other climbers.  Just before the picture-section, which is great, the story picks up as Greg begins to realize the direction his life (and this book) is meant to go in.  The main idea, as mentioned in my first paragraph, is convincing and I'm ashamed I haven't thought before of the potential of middle eastern women's education.  Of course, I knew (and know still) very little about the middle east - and yet this book made an interesting and powerful read, as it chronicles Greg's experiences as well as those of many beneficiaries of his work.  I would've loved to read on about how the girls continue to pursue their dreams, and wish there could've been less climbing-talk to accommodate this.  I also really enjoyed how Mortenson integrates into the various situations he encounters, without resorting to the stereotypical American forcefulness and attempts at cultural genocide that may be expected of us evil Americans.  This was a breath of fresh air, especially in contrast to the US government's way of handling things.

All in all, recommended for anyone who values worldwide literacy, middle eastern-American politics, an end to poverty, the power of education and/or women's studies.