Author relates tale of co-author who promised to build school in Pakistan
Author relates tale of co-author who promised to build school in Pakistan
Print- •
-
Share
- Share this item
-
Grab the link
Copy and paste the link:
- Blog about it
- Close
- •
-
Post a Comment
- •
Favorite- •
-
Report error
-
Thank you for your submission.Error report or correction
- Close
-
- •
Cover of "Three Cups of Tea" by David Relin and Greg Mortensen. Relin is a guest author at the Victoria College Lyceum Lecture Series on Thursday. Relin will talk about the process of reporting for his book, and current events in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
IF YOU GO
What: VC Lyceum Lecture Series. David Relin will speak about his book, and current events in Afghanistan and Pakistan
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: VC Fine Arts Auditorium
Cost: Free
Books will be available for the author ...
- SHOW ALL »
IF YOU GO
What: VC Lyceum Lecture Series. David Relin will speak about his book, and current events in Afghanistan and Pakistan
When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday
Where: VC Fine Arts Auditorium
Cost: Free
Books will be available for the author to sign
MEET THE AUTHOR
When: 9 a.m. Thursday
Where: Victoria Public Library
Cost: Free
READING ROUND TABLE
When: 10:50 a.m. Thursday
Where: VC Student Center
David Relin will lead a discussion group with VC faculty, staff and students.
AN EXCERPT
Excerpt: "Three Cups of Tea"
Introduction
In Mr. Mortenson's Orbit
The little red light had been flashing for five minutes before Bhangoo paid it any attention. "The fuel gages on these old aircraft are notoriously unreliable," Brigadier General Bhangoo, one of Pakistan's most experienced high-altitude helicopter pilots, said, tapping it. I wasn't sure if that was meant to make me feel better.
I rode next to Bhangoo, looking down past my feet through the Vietnam-era Alouette's bubble windshield. Two thousand feet below us a river twisted, hemmed in by rocky crags jutting out from both sides of the Hunza Valley. At eye level, we soared past hanging green glaciers, splintering under a tropical sun.
Bhangoo flew on unperturbed, flicking the ash of his cigarette out a vent, next to a sticker that said "No smoking." From the rear of the aircraft Greg Mortenson reached his long arm out to tap Bhangoo on the shoulder of his flight suit.
"General, sir," Mortenson shouted, "I think we're heading the wrong way."
Brigadier Bhangoo had been President Musharraf's personal pilot before retiring from the military to join a civil aviation company. He was in his late sixties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache as clipped and cultivated as the vowels he'd inherited from the private British colonial school he'd attended as boy with Musharraf and many of Pakistan's other future leaders.
The general tossed his cigarette through the vent and blew out his breath. Then he bent to compare the store-bought GPS unit he balanced on his knee with a military-grade map Mortenson folded to highlight what he thought was our position.
"I've been flying in northern Pakistan for forty years," he said, waggling his head, the subcontinent's most distinctive gesture. "How is it you know the terrain better than me?" Bhangoo banked the Alouette steeply to port, flying back the way we'd come.
The red light that had worried me before began to flash faster. The bobbing needle on the gauge showed that we had less than one hundred liters of fuel. This part of northern Pakistan was so remote and inhospitable that we'd had to have friends preposition barrels of aviation fuel at strategic sites by jeep. If we couldn't make it to our drop zone we were in a tight spot, literally, since the craggy canyon we flew through had no level areas suitable for setting the Alouette down.
Bhangoo climbed high, so he'd have the option of auto-rotating toward a more distant landing zone if we ran out of fuel, and jammed his stick forward, speeding up to ninety knots. Just as the needle hit E and the red warning light began to beep, Bhangoo settled the skids at the center of a large H, for helipad, written out in white rocks, next to our barrels of jet fuel.
"That was a lovely sortie," Bhangoo said, lighting another cigarette. "But it might not have been without Mr. Mortenson."
Later, after refueling by inserting a handpump into a rusting barrel of aviation fuel, we flew up the Braldu Valley to the village of Korphe, the last human habitation before the Baltoro Glacier begins its march up to K2 and the world's greatest concentration of twenty-thousand-foot-plus peaks.
After a failed 1993 attempt to climb K2, Mortenson arrived in Korphe, emaciated and exhausted. In this impoverished community of mud and stone huts, both Mortenson's life and the lives of northern Pakistan's children changed course.
One evening, he went to bed by a yak dung fire a mountaineer who'd lost his way, and one morning, by the time he'd shared a pot of butter tea with his hosts and laced up his boots, he'd become a humanitarian who'd found a meaningful path to follow for the rest of his life.
In his book, "Three Cups of Tea," David Relin tells the true story of co-author Greg Mortenson and his attempt to climb Pakistan's K2, the world's second highest mountain, in 1993.
Mortenson failed to ascend, and on his way down, residents of a small, remote village helped him recover. In return for their help, Mortenson promised to build them a school.
As of 2009, Mortenson has established more than 90 schools in rural and often volatile regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Tea" is a New York Times best seller, and has won numerous awards.
On Thursday, Relin will speak about his book, and current status of Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Victoria College Lyceum Lecture Series.
Q: Why is the book called "Three Cups of Tea?"
A: "Three cups of tea" is a saying in Pakistan. It's a lesson (Greg Mortenson) learned that made it possible for him to succeed doing humanitarian work. If you have a first cup of tea with them, you're a stranger. When you have the second, you're an honored guests. By time you have a third cup of tea, you're family. By really getting to know each other, you do more effective work. It's a metaphor. You just have to sit down with people, and understand what they really mean.
Q: How were you presented the opportunity to write this book about Mortenson?
A: I was at my best friend's wedding in New York City in 2003, and I got a phone call from the editor of Parade saying there's somebody in my office I really need to meet. I ran into the Parade office, and was introduced to Greg. Greg was looking for somebody to write a book about him. The editor mentioned me because I had spent 20 years writing about poverty, and humanitarian areas, particularly about Asia. I had spent quite a bit of time in Kashmir, which is just on the other side of the mountains of where he had been working. I said I can't imagine doing anything more important.
Q: As you learned about Greg Mortenson's life, what did you keep thinking to yourself?
A: What I thought was, here's somebody who is fighting terrorism the only way it can possibly be fought, which is by changing the culture and providing opportunities. I thought, here's a guy who gets it, and this is a story I want as many people as possible to hear.
Q:Can you describe how poor the education system is in Pakistan and Afghanistan 's rural areas?
A: The problem in Pakistan and Afghanistan is that there are no schools in a lot of the rural areas. People who come in and build schools in these areas are extremists. Extremists build madrassas, which means schools in Arabic. The World Bank estimates that 15 percent of madrassas are teaching weapons training and violent jihad. They prey on people who have no hope and opportunities. The most critical thing we can do is encourage the world community to build quality non-extremists schools in these areas so that kids have a balanced education. It's a lot cheaper than having to fight endless wars.
Q: In your opinion, what is at the root of terrorism?
A: What really causes terrorism is poverty and ignorance. You've got huge areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where there's no schools, no employment opportunities. You have people who would much rather have a good job that will take any job that's available to them, which is why they take jobs with the Taliban. If you offer people opportunity, schools and jobs, you dry up the pool of people who become extremists based on that poverty and ignorance.
-
Print
- •
-
Share
- Share this item
-
Grab the link
Copy and paste the link:
- Blog about it
- Close
- •
-
Post a Comment
- •
- Favorite
- •
-
Report error
-
Thank you for your submission.Error report or correction
- Close
-
- •
