Kidnapped and imprisoned for several days in Pakistan, caught in the middle of gunfire in Afghanistan, interrogated by US agents in Nepal, drinking tea with prominent members of the Taliban, chatting with a king on an aeroplane, getting married only a few days after meeting his future wife – these are just some of the misadventures which have befallen Greg Mortenson, as described in Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time, by David Relin.
After almost making it ot the top of K2, one of the most difficult mountains to climb in the world, Greg Mortenson became disorientated on his way down, finishing up in a town called Korphe, in Pakistan. After being treated kindly by the villagers, he promised to return and build a school for them. On returning to the US with his funds completely exhausted he started trying to raise the $12,000 he thought it would cost to build the school. After encountering many difficulties, the school was finally finished, and since then Mortenson, with the assistance of a team of locals, has managed to build many more.
The book tells a very interesting tale of how one man with not many resources but plenty of determination can make a significant difference in the lives of generations of people who are living in poverty in a distant land. Foreign aid is often unsuccessful because it tries to do too much too fast, or relies on inappropriate cultural assumptions, or creates dependency. In confining his endeavours to building schools, Mortenson seems to have found a way of providing aid which works.