Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson’s memoir written with David Oliver Relin, was first published in 2006; I read the paperback, published in 2007, which includes two detailed maps, an extensive index, and about two dozen photographs.  The memoir details Mortenson’s transformation from a recreational mountaineer to a visionary who with single-minded determination pulls together the funding, equipment and labor to build a school in a remote village of Baltistan, Pakistan. 

Compassion seems to come naturally to Mortenson; he was raised in Tanzania, the son of missionaries.  Back in the United States as an adult, he worked as a nurse in between climbing excursions.  In 1993 he started out on an expedition to climb the famous K2 in the Himalayas, a climb he dedicated to his sister Christa, who had passed away after suffering ill health since childhood.  The empathy and understanding he shows to the Baltis during his extended stay inspire them to call him “Dr. Greg”, an apt misnomer that sticks.  

Wandering after his failed attempt at K2, Mortenson approached the remote village of Korphe, where he was welcomed by the local people and allowed to recuperate from his climb.  To repay their hospitality, Mortenson graciously promised to build a school for the village, so their children will no longer tackle their studies only when the elements allowed, scratching figures in the dirt.  Fully the first half of the book details Mortenson’s struggles to fulfill this promise, with much detail given to the literal and figurative roadblocks he encountered – including financing issues, stolen material, heavy winter snows, monsoons and kidnapping. 

He learns from the local leaders that often before a school can be built, more basic needs, such as a bridge for communication, or fresh water to eliminate disease, must be provided.  Mortenson learns to build relationships with the local leaders and to allow them to make introductions to the people who will be able to help him. To this end, Mortenson employs local men as “fixers” for the inevitable problems that crop up and can be smoothed over with the right words spoken by the right person.  He advocates “building relationships and getting a community to invest its own land and labor”

The second half of the book covers Mortenson’s next several years in the region, as Director of the newly formed Central Asia Institute (CAI).  The cause of the CAI is without a doubt a noble one.  A central theme, echoed by many of the people interviewed for the book, is that education is the basis for promoting peace.  Brigadier General Bashir Baz of Pakistan said, “The enemy is ignorance.  The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business.”

There were two obstacles in my way as I tried to enjoy reading Three Cups of Tea, both involve the way the story is conveyed, not the underlying message.  The first lies in the almost hero-like worship Relin bestows upon Mortenson , allowing perhaps a generous amount of artistic license taken with the details, which Relin acknowledges fully in the opening pages, confirming for example that Mortenson seems to work with a very fluid sense of time.  Suspension of disbelief is usually reserved for works of fiction;  I was unable to comprehend how in 1993, a nurse working in a US hospital with computer technology for storing patient records was “amazed” by the use of a computer to speed up his letter-writing, after individually hand-typing 300 letters with a rented typewriter.

 The second phenomena that interrupted the flow of my reading were the melodramatic metaphors which distract from Mortenson’s story.  Relin shows an unusual affinity for food-related similes: “… the rising sun iced the hanging glaciers of Masherbrum pale pink, like a gargantuan pastry dangling above them at breakfast time …” and “… a young, bearded employee, whose blond dreadlocks, stuffed up into a silver wool hat, made his head look like a package of cooked Jiffy Pop Popcorn.”  This style of writing crushes the impact of Mortenson’s work, which stands strongly without being propped up by such wordy descriptions.

I admire the work that Mortenson has done in Pakistan and Afghanistan, bringing not only schools, but other much-needed basics like bridges, clean water and vocational centers to these areas.  I do recommend Three Cups of Tea for anyone who would like to learn more about how this type of work promotes peace; my criticism is of the way the message is conveyed, not the message itself.  More information on the project is available at Pennies for Peace, Three Cups of Tea, and the Central Asia Institute.