Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Finding your life’s purpose and changing the lives of nearly 24,000 children and their parents in the process is sometimes less about running after defined dreams and sometimes more about listening to the wind. Three Cups of Tea is the story of Greg Mortenson, an extreme mountain climber, who in failing to conquer the second highest mountain in the world, stumbled across his life’s work, changing the future of 24,000 impoverished children and their families in the process.

The book was written by Mortenson and writer David Oliver Relin and published by Penguin in 2006. It was a New York Times best seller and 2007 winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize for Nonfiction. It’s easy to understand the book’s popularity given the region which Mortenson’s work finds him in. The mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan are now at the heart of the war on terror and central to winning that war, says Mortenson, is educating the children, especially the girls.

Mortenson’s story is vividly detailed in this well written book which provides and understanding of village life high in the mountains of the Karakoram Mountain range located in Pakistan and bordered by China to the east and India to the south. The strongly Christian Mortenson is taken care of by a village of strangers after losing his way on an expedition in the mountains. He is cared for with kindness by the residents of the Korphe village and eventually comes to see their leader Haji Ali as his mentor. Through Ali’s eyes, Mortenson begins to realize how inaccessible education is in this part of the world. He also begins to understand that the inhabitants of the area would give anything to have a school and makes a fateful promise to help the village build a school, and in so doing sets his future in motion.

As a precursor to understanding the war on terror and its root causes, this book is invaluable. Throughout the book we see first hand how brutal poverty and lack of access to the essentials of life make them easy targets for Islamic extremists who provide food, clothing and an extremist education that fuels the war on terror. By educating the girls, not just boys, Mortenson believes that the society will in turn become more educated.

Throughout the book we watch as Mortenson is kidnapped, swindled, caught in firefights and even has local Muslim leaders issue religious pronouncements, Fatwas, against him and his work. The journey is an inspiring story that displays how one person’s promise and determination can change the fate of a nation and indeed,the world.

The writing style is fluid and quick. There are some gaps in the writing, for instance the time he initially spends in Korphe is abbreviated and we miss understanding some of the passion that fuels his initial promise. But at 336 pages, the adventure and the rich characters more than make up for it.

Another interesting subtext for this book is religious tolerance and respect for other cultures. As a Christian, Mortenson is primarily educating Muslim children. Rather than providing a Christian based indoctrination, Mortenson strove to provide the children with a balanced education that could save them from the extremism that was popping up everywhere in the country. As an infidel, the Muslim word for a non-Muslim, his mission was that much harder and that much more improbable. When asked if he was a Muslim while in the region, his response was that he was a Christian, but that he respected Islam. That respect ultimately allowed him to go in places and meet people the U.S. military could only hope to know.

Dr. Greg, as he came to be known, was more popular than the president in the region as he served the needs of the poor in exemplary fashion. For Christians called to serve and for those interested in understanding exactly why there is a war on terror and for those daring to be inspired, I highly recommend Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

View all my reviews >>

No two ways about it, staring is impolite. So, with great pleasure, I bestowed a wide-eyed Mike Singletary stare on four Australian teenagers eating a meal on the other side of a glass McDonald’s door in a restroom waiting area. For good measure, I pointed at them and feigned a whisper to my 11-year-old son blatantly daring the impolite teenagers to respond to my childish actions. Yes, I’m 40 and I still haven’t learned to always take the high road.

As a 40-year-old black American, I’ve grown accustomed to stares. My parents made sacrifices early in my life and moved us to the regular dinner times and bedtime stories that haunted predominately white suburbs with schools that would fill my childhood and adolescence with rich experiences and naked ugliness. Somewhere in between those two extremes, lurked the stares of unfamiliar friends and familiar enemies. I came to know the unwitting power of seemingly benign stares.

I was surprised to come across a book on the subject, Staring: How We Look, by Rosemarie Garland Thomson. She clinically dissects the peculiar nature of staring and fine tunes the murky details of the age old, unavoidable attraction it wields over our eyes:

We stare when ordinary seeing fails, when we want to know more. So staring is an interrogative gesture that asks what’s going on and demands the story. The eyes hang on, working to recognize what seems illegible, order what seems unruly, know what seems strange. Staring begins as an impulse that curiosity can carry forward into engagement.

Curiosity can be at the heart of staring, but my experiences also knew that staring was a silent segregator, dividing those who belong from those who do not. The teenager’s stares reminded me of those experiences. Their furtive glances and stiffled giggles fired up emotions long ignored, relegated to obsolescence. Anger and rage were normally inappropriate responses to the primary motivator for staring, curiosity.

The problem is, the stare automatically betrays the starers understanding of what is normal, casting the object of the stare, the staree as abnormal in some shape fashion or form.

“Staring offers an occasion to rethink the status quo. Who we are can shift into focus by staring at who we think we are not,” Thomson writes.  This creates the power struggle inherent in the stare that we feel but don’t understand. The staree is defined against a fictional backdrop created by the starer. In the case of two people attracted to each other, the backdrop is mutually beneficial for both the starer and the staree. “Staring encounters nonetheless draft starees into a story of the starer’s making, whatever that story might be, whether they like it or not,” concludes Thomson.

I can remember one of my earliest memories as a child was a staring incident in which I, the starer concocted a story for my staring subject. I couldn’t have been older than five and I was on a trip with my mother to the supermarket. The American era of free love was drawing to an end in the seventies and hippies were everywhere. Following close behind my mother, I rounded the corner in what I believed to be the dairy section. Riveted by what I saw my hand rose with a pointed finger singling out the focus of my youthful attention. I spoke loudly, to my mother’s eventual mortification.

“Momma,” I shouted in semi-joy, amazement, and curiosity. “Is that Jesus?”
My mother’s lowered head and aggressive tugging gave me the sneaking suspicion my answer was, “oh my gosh no, you are such an embarrassing child, please stop staring and didn’t I teach you not to point at people?”
In that moment, I created a world for the anonymous grocery store patron to fit into. Even children have the power to create a world into which adults conform.

So, I grew up practiced in the silent art of staring as most of us do. The suburbs prepared me well to become invisible to the stares that I would so often get. When we notice we are the subject of staring, we are forced to respond in some way. Even the choice to ignore is an initiated action. I recently spoke with a friend, the child of a military officer stationed overseas. While stationed in Japan, he vividly remembers an incident in which children walked up to him and began rubbing his brown skin, which they clearly had never seen before. They stared and touched in stunning amazement.

“I pulled my arm back,” he said, “but my father stopped me and told me to hold my hand out.” As his father explained to him, even if he didn’t understand, he was representing a whole new realm of understanding for those children enamored by his skin and his appearance. His father taught him to smile at the stares; his very presence was educational. He still remembers that lesson to this day.

I can understand this perspective, but the teenagers who had been eying my family, whispering amongst themselves as they gawked at our existence was proving to be unsettling. I had traveled across the world to enjoy the Australian culture and, as a veteran of the staring game, I was seldom unsettled. But the nature of the stares surpassed even my appalling experience on a South Korean bus in 1987. After coming to a complete stop, the bus driver turned to me and stared me up and down the entire time the light was red. His uncomfortable and obtrusive gaze never wandered from my 18-year-old frame. Only the anxious honking of horns from the cars behind him, who clearly had no idea of the wonder he had found, jarred him to unfix his uncomfortable stare and drive the damn bus.

The stare wields the power to render a person’s being, accomplishments, shortcomings and heroics obsolete. Inherent in the stare is the ability to reduce a person to a shell of their real self, substituting perceived stereotypes, notions of value, and worthlessness. In this ocular transaction, there is the potential for tension. My pointing display was evidence of my desire to ratchet up the tension; return the favor to the starer. It hadn’t worked, they continued to take unwanted glances, smirking and joking with each turn back to their table of peers.

In that moment, I was thankful I had talked with my children before they ever arrived in Australia. We talked about standing up for ourselves and never allowing anyone’s words, fingers or eyes make us feel uncomfortable. I communicated to them how important it was to understand people stare because they seldom see black Americans here and as my friend’s father taught him, smiling and educating the curious about who we are allows everyone to win. We talked about ignoring the stares and never internalizing them.

I was satisfied when my daughter came home laughing because a little Australian child around the age of five ran to her mother, pointing at my children, “Mum, look at their faces!!!” My daughter got it, she knew she was complete whole and beautiful and the child was simply amazed by her. Her laughter warmed, she could protect herself from the pressure of the stares. But, there is a point, where curiosity becomes blatant rudeness. I was now there. Question was, what was I going to do about it.

We were in the town of Gimpy, Queensland eating at a McDonald’s after being on the road for six hours. My grump factor was up as I was tired and hungry. The gawking teenagers had tested my patience and it was time to put an end to it, they clearly hadn’t gotten my impolite warning.

As my family walked out of the restroom waiting area toward the cashier and past the teenagers, they looked down at their food and a wave of patience came over me. I stared at their table, no one stared back. Thankful for my second wind of patience, I was happy to put the moment behind me, but as I passed their table preparing to get into the long line to order, I saw at least six other faces from all ages staring blankly at myself and my family. Would it always be like this? My second wind of anger filled me.

Unable to control myself, a smile came across my face as I stepped back to the table of giggling teenagers. Pausing momentarily, as I towered over their table my mouth opened, I didn’t know what was about to slide past my tongue. They had stopped giggling, and were now looking at the black man leaning into their table, their space of private jokes and shared conversation.

“I’m just curious, did you all want to ask me something,” I courteously questioned, distributing an even stare to each of the starees seated at the table? They all quickly said no, hoping to diffuse the awkward situation that was now unfolding. I paused again.

“Are you sure,” I asked again, staring ever more deeply into their eyes. They all again said no.
“Well, let me know if you do,” I offered as I left the table. They didn’t seem as curious as I thought they might, but no matter. I was no longer angry, no longer grumpy, only hungry.

You have to love colloquialisms. But man is there a downside to using them. A colloquialism is more or less a regional saying or phrase. Though it may give color to expressions it can often create confusion. Take for instance an experience that my wife and I had. It literally took us years to “get it“.

A couple of years back, my wife came home upset. The vibrating window resulting from the slamming of the front door let me know she was in a tizzy about something. It’s amazing how quick the brain works. Within a matter of  at most 5 seconds I had already calculated about 50 reasons why she could potentially be mad at me then eliminated them all for one reason or another. I was in the clear. Go me!!

“What’s the matter with you,” I confidently bellowed to her downstairs. So what if the kids got in trouble, that was their battle to fight.

“You’ll never guess what the fish clerk at the store just told me,” she said in disbelief. My interest piqued I rushed downstairs. “what’d he say,”I asked? Evidently, she had been shopping at the fish counter and the man behind the counter said to her, “what’s the matter, did I sleep with you last night?”

“He what!!!” I bellowed. “yesss,” she confirmed. What I love about my marriage is that my wife and I, in most situations, are  in tune and in sync. We knew what needed to be done, and we were the folks to do it. We didn’t need to talk we instinctively prepared for war.

After snatching the kids up and ensuring I had the Michael Cooper knee high socks on, we headed down to the grocery store to get all up in that dudes ish. The frigging nerve of this guy!!! No matter where you come from, that’s just bad customer service. How had they let this slime ball work for them. I was doing my best to breath. I found that breathing kept me from seeing red, and passing out. But every time the phrase, “who the heck does this guy think he is” came back into my head, I stopped breathing,  started seeing red and felt like I was about to pass out.

I believe in efficiency, so when I saw the store manager as I walked back to the fish department at the store, I flagged him down and let him know he had trouble on his hands. Like a police officer hunting down a suspect, I turned to my star witness wife and asked her to finger the perp. “Him, him right there with the beady eyes.” OK, she didn’t say that, but I tell you that’s how I remember it!!

I stepped to him. Even though there was a counter between us, he already had his hands up and was backing away as though I was about to bum rush him. “What did you say to my wife,” I inquired?  I asked the question in the tone we are all familiar with. I know what you said, I need you to confirm what you said so I can lose my mind for what you said.  He was ready for me, all he said was, “what, I didn’t say nothing to her?”

True to form, my brain went into an old In Living Color routine.

I’m thinking “ho-ho-homeboy!!! I said, ho-ho-homeboy . . . he didn’t just say what I thought he said did he?” I looked around at the gathering crowd, rhetorical mental questions simply backing one another up.  “He said nothing???? Didn’t he? Didn’t he?” The manager could see the odd look in my eyes. He caught the glimmer of a crazy man like a match, beginning to catch fire. He stepped in to diffuse the situation.

“How can I help sir?” he said. I went for the nuclear option, “I want him fired!!!” “He asked my wife if she slept with him last night” The manager successfully calmed me down with assurances that he would take care of the situation. I eventually relented, having restored my wife’s honor and left it at that.

Fast forward a year.  I walk into my brother’s house. In the course of the conversation, I didn’t respond to something and my sister-in-law says, “what’s wrong, did I sleep with you last night?” I stopped dead in my tracks, my head was the only body part turning to her and I simply said, “what did you say?”

She quizzed me, “you’ve never heard that saying?”

No,” I respond, “what does it mean?” Come to find out, the saying is meant to draw attention to someone ignoring you. It  really has no sexual connotation to it and is just a southern saying.

Oops

Now I start mentally reviewing the odd sayings that I’ve heard throughout the years. How many times have I gone ballistic over a colloquialism that I didn’t understand.

Hey folks, I’m sorry.

Jelani Cobb has an interesting conversation brewing over at his blog, American Exception – The Somali Math Problem. He posts that the Somali pirates could continue their attacks for a long time and almost never catch up to the damage done to Africa by European traders engaged in the slave trade. It raises questions of fairness and retribution while using a mirror to assist in the definition of, “evil.” Against my better judgment, he sucked me in and I couldn’t resist adding my two cents!!

There was a comment that this conversation is ultimately about how those in power paint others as evil and depraved. It was chalked to white privilege.

While I have and still do shed tears for my ancestors and the degradation and injury placed upon their shoulders, are black folks just sore losers? Although this is not my point, it’s kind of an interesting way to interpret some of the comments here. Angry that black folks are not the top dogs like the days of old (and yes there was a time when this was accurate). History is a continuum. Not a beginning and not an end.

At the end of the day, I believe that, other than geographical location, the parallels between pirates off the coast of Somali and retribution for slavery are wholly incomparable incidents.

These acts are not sanctioned by any government, there is no country from which to seek redress for grievance.

I can understand the argument’s roots, but I believe there is a sinister cynicism that plagues it, oozing through its pores. This argument has an emotional root which seeks to absolve the wrongdoing and African descendant because of the injustice of slavery. An historical wrong from Arab and European merchants to blacks in Africa and the diaspora. In essence, it’s a get out of jail free card whenever some misguided black disasporian somewhere gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

The fruits of this argument are wicked and deadly and have been sown for generations in countries such as Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, New York, LA. Anywhere that men with one good eye left seek to exact revenge for what was taken.

That’s not to say that reparations aren’t warranted, but the Somali argument weakens the case. So, I get the argument, but I’m not really feeling it.