Toledo Blade

Toledo Blade

Monday, October 9, 2006

Book Review: Man on a mission brings hope to needy
By S. Amjad Hussain

ONE main reason for the prevailing anti-American sentiments around the world is that people fail to differentiate between the American government and American people. Working through this potentially deadly fog of confusion are some brave Americans who at great risk bring relief and comfort to millions of needy people around the world. For the most part they go unnoticed and unappreciated. Greg Mortenson is one such American.

It was by sheer accident that this lanky west coast nurse got involved in building schools in a remote area of northern Pakistan called Baltistan and also in Afghanistan. The accident in this case was a potentially fatal wrong turn he took while coming down from the base camp of K2 in 1993.

His hopes of scaling the summit were dashed when he helped rescue a sick team member at 22,000 feet. The 36-hour ordeal left him totally depleted and exhausted. After resting for a few days in the base camp, he started the seven-day trek over the Baltoro glacier to reach the town of Skardu.

The fateful wrong turn took him to the tiny village of Korphe by the edge of the glacier, which he reached by crossing a roaring river in a basket suspended from a steel wire strung between the rocky banks. While he was recuperating in the village, he inquired about the schooling of their children. Yes, there was a school, he was told, but the teacher came a few days a week and the rest of the time the kids were on their own.

The school was a flattened rocky outcrop where children sat on the icy ground under open skies. They used the ground as the slate on which they wrote with twigs. An idea was born.

The journey to build a school in Korphe turned out to be more perilous than climbing the world's second highest mountain. It would be full of frustrating twists and pleasant turns. Back in the United States, he worked as an ER nurse in the San Francisco area and saved money by sleeping in his old car. He told his story to anyone who would listen and sent 850 letters of solicitation to celebrities and well-to-do people. He received one reply, from NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, with a check for $100. Children in one school started a Pennies for Pakistan drive and raised a few thousand dollars.

In an unexpected twist, a mountaineer friend put Mr. Mortenson in contact with Jean Hoerni, a reclusive Silicon Valley physicist and a one-time trekker to the Karakorum Mountains. Once convinced of Mr. Mortenson's sincerity, the man gave him $12,000 - the amount Mr. Mortenson had chased unsuccessfully since his return from Pakistan.

The villagers had one more request when he went back. While they needed the school, they also needed a bridge over the river to get supplies into the village. The frustrated American returned to the U.S. to raise additional funds. Again the reclusive scientist, now on his deathbed, came through. He created Central Asia Institute with a gift of $1 million and asked Craig Mortenson to head the organization.

In all the organization has built 55 schools in Baltistan and Afghanistan. It has not been easy. Mr. Mortenson was once kidnapped in the Pakistani tribal areas of Wazirstan, but was released unharmed. In Baltistan he had to face the wrath of village mullahs who decried that girls' education was against the religion. A timely fatwa in support of his work from the Shia religious hierarchy in Qom, Iran, defused the situation.

The head of Mr. Mortenson's host village, an elderly grey beard, had once told him that the first time an outsider shares a cup of tea with a native in Baltistan he is considered a stranger. The second time he becomes an honored guest and the third time a family member. He had attained that status now. The account of Greg Mortenson's mission to educate the poorest of the poor is chronicled in a recently released book he co-authored with Oliver Relin. Appropriately titled Three Cups of Tea, the book is published by Viking.

Amid the cacophony of anti-American rhetoric emanating from all corners of the world, Greg Mortenson exemplifies the indomitable American spirit. As the book's subtitle says, "His is a one-man mission to fight terrorism and build nations … one school at a time."

I applaud his work and celebrate his accomplishments.

Dr. Amjad Hussain is a retired Toledo surgeon whose column appears every other week in The Blade. Contact him at: aghaji@bex.net

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