Boulder Daily Camera
Tuesday, January 15, 2008

A quest for knowledge
Mountain man Mortenson brings inspiring tales of charity to Boulder
By Zak Brown

Greg Mortenson has helped build more than 60 schools in poor Central Asian communities. The best-selling author will be in Boulder on Wednesday.

Workers haul lumber to build a school in remote Pakistan, where the Central Asia Institute builds schools to educate poor children.

Dirtbag rock climbers don't often attempt to save the world.

Greg Mortenson isn't exactly trying to save the world, but he's hoping his work could help stabilize it. Still, he refers to himself as a "dirtbag climber," even if that description doesn't really fit. It hasn't fit since he staggered out of the Himalayas and dedicated his life to building schools in one of the planet's most-volatile regions.

Mortenson is executive director of the Central Asia Institute, an organization he started to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan with an emphasis on girls' education. Mortenson's project has grown from one promise made to children in a Pakistani village to more than 60 schools, and he has grown into a cultural expert and an unlikely go-to guy for the U.S. military.

He recently returned from a harrowing trip to Central Asia and will be in Boulder on Wednesday for a sold-out presentation at Macky Auditorium.

"I remember being in Boulder when I was traveling around the West, living out of my car, just doing whatever I could to be a climber," Mortenson said from his home in Bozeman, Mont. "We have had a lot of support from there and the rest of Colorado, and I think it's because mountain people can relate to mountain people. There is a connection there."

Mortenson was inspired to start the project after climbing K2, the world's second-highest mountain, in 1993. His trip down the mountain was more difficult than expected, and fatigue forced him to recover in a Pakistani village near the peak.

He found what would be his life's calling there. During his stay in the town, called Korphe, he saw children sitting in the dirt, writing with sticks. Mortenson -- whose parents ran a school in Tanzania for much of his childhood -- promised to help the children build a school and went back to the United States to work toward that goal.

As a mountain man, Mortenson had virtually no computer skills. But he returned from Korphe and went to the Bozeman library to look up contact information for celebrities.

He typed letters to them about his quest to build schools for children in Central Asia, hoping the rich and powerful would donate money. He sent more than 100 letters. One person -- Tom Brokaw -- made a donation. Mortenson refused to give up and eventually raised money from the public.

The Central Asia Institute has now developed 64 schools.

Mortenson's book about his experiences, "Three Cups of Tea," is now No. 3 on the New York Times' non-fiction paperback best-seller list. He has received numerous awards, including the Jeanette Rankin Peace Award from the Institute for Peace and Peacemaker of the Year from the Benedictine Monks of Santa Fe, N.M. He has also made appearances on television shows such as "Today" and "Good Morning America." Still, he remains grounded in his goals.

"His mother tells a story when he was 2 years old and she couldn't find him. She looked out the window and saw Greg with the cookie jar talking to a beggar," said Christiane Leitinger, a longtime friend of Mortenson and director of the institute's Pennies for Peace program. "And he wasn't just handing him cookies. He was actually having a conversation. To me, that shows he has always been concerned with humanity, and he is still like that. He is for real."

The Central Asia Institute works to help educate all children, but Mortenson is especially concerned with helping girls. That wasn't easy while Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, which restricted freedoms of women and girls. Being an American who wanted to educate girls was a quick way to make enemies. It was essential for Mortenson, though.

"You can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won't change," he said.

Mortenson has survived numerous deadly situations, including an eight-day armed kidnapping in the tribal areas of Pakistan in 1996. He was also in Islamabad, Pakistan, when former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December. He hunkered down in a hotel room and was able to escape the ensuing violence.

As a victim of the area's violence and beneficiary of its kindness, Mortenson has a unique perspective on Central Asia. The region is an epicenter of the war on terror, and Mortenson has developed a better understanding of its culture than most Westerners. His insight has been deemed so valuable that military leaders have made his book required reading at the U.S. Army War College.

"His knowledge on the area is encyclopedic. He could be a professor at Harvard on the subject," said Leitinger, who lives in Evergreen.

Not bad for a dirtbag climber.

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