Three Cups of Tea

Katie D.

May 7, 2009 - 10:30 PM

Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asian Institute and co-author of Three Cups of Tea appeared at Mac Court on campus this evening. He spoke about his life: about his experiences growing up in Africa, about his sister who died of epilepsy, about his failed attempt to summit K2 (the world's second tallest mountain), and about his wife and daughters. But mostly he talked about his efforts at building peace in the world: his funding and construction of schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He told us about a battle with the publisher of his book over the subtitle. The publisher wanted the subtitle to read "one man's mission to fight terrorism...one school at a time." Mortenson preferred "One man's mission to build peace, one school at a time."

He told us there was a fundamental and deep-rooted difference between these two titles. Fighting terrorism is something that is done out of fear. Building peace comes from hope.

Mortenson's foundation began with his experience as a homeless mountaineer who wandered into an impoverished village in Pakistan, received aid, and then struggled for years to find the resources to build a school there to repay their kindness. Now he has built over seventy, and funded many pre-existing schools as well. He has literally helped thousands of children obtain education, and half of these children are girls who had generally been barred from any kind of educational opportunity.

He does not ride into towns backed by millions and bolstered by a Westerner's idea of bringing civilization to the needy. He arrives in a new village and drinks tea with the elders, offers aid, and listens to what is needed. He is essentially a humble man who has taken enormous risks to create a massive change in a part of the world that, to most Americans, is a seat of fear and danger, rather than a place of hope.

I took copious notes during his presentation, but if you really want to know what this man is all about, you should read the book. And then you should read about the organization Pennies for Peace, which includes thousands of US schools that raise money for Greg's Afghani and Pakistani schoolchildren. Last year they raised $900,000 in pennies. A school costs $12,000.

I feel so strongly that lack of educational opportunity is the root cause of so many of the world's problems. Health, education, global security, and local empowerment can all be achieved by taking elementary students out of classrooms taught in an open patch of dirt and placing them in a building with a paid teacher.

Mortenson told us that there are enough pennies in the United States to eradicate global illiteracy.

The University of Oregon student body brought Greg Mortenson to campus. His event was funded by student fees, and the ASUO organized the event. That, alone, offers me a great deal of satisfaction. But even greater is the hope that small ideas can change the world, and the radical comitment of a single person can make such a fundamental difference in so many lives. Greg Mortenson sat down in villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan and shared tea with local leaders to direct his humanitarian projects. He does not see these people as separate from himself, as potential national threats or as impossibly removed. The schoolchildren he helps are no different than children in the United States. That essential truth, applied to a well-organized foundation, can change the world.

My greatest wish in life is that I might someday have even a tiny fraction of his influence on the world.