Greg Mortenson’s first book Three Cups of Tea, written with professional writer David Oliver Relin, tells how he got started building schools in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is about an organization — the Central Asia Institute (CAI) — taking its first steps, learning how to succeed at building schools in remote mountainous areas of Pakistan. The schools are open to all children, but the CAI’s focus is on educating girls because they believe that benefits the local community more than educating boys does.
Mortenson’s second book, Stones into Schools, apparently written by Mortenson himself, tells a different story. It portrays the Central Asia Institute as a more mature and financially secure organization that, having developed a successful approach for constructing schools in remote areas, is replicating its success and expanding its operations beyond the Karakoram mountains into other areas of Pakistan and into Afghanistan (as well as rebuilding collapsed schools in an emergency response to a massive earthquake in Kashmir in 2005). More importantly, it describes an organization in which in-country staff assume ever-increasing responsibility for the CAI’s work. Mortenson is still the head guy, but increasingly his role is that of a CEO/manager/spokesperson.
Another difference between the two books is that Three Cups of Tea is inspiring, but Stones into Schools is exciting as well as inspiring. In places it reads like an adventure novel: it is difficult to stop reading due to wanting to find out what happens. At times, the excitement is almost too much: I found myself thinking “Sheesh! Mortenson and some of his cohorts are adrenaline junkies.” They run around on absurdly frantic schedules, sleep under trucks, take huge risks, travel through conflict zones, make deals with warlords and other shady local characters, change plans in mid-stride, carry large wads of cash in their socks, keep themselves moving with ibuprofen, etc.
Despite all the excitement, one thing is clear: the Central Asia Institute is astoundingly good at building schools. They build schools in the most remote places imaginable — places in which one would barely expect there to be any children to attend a school. For example, if you look at a map of Afghanistan, you will see at the north-east a small tongue wedged between Tajikistan and Pakistan. Almost no one lives there. The few hardy souls who do live there wanted a school, so the CAI built them one. It took many years and incredible logistical feats — such as driving a supply truck hundreds of miles off-road along the Chinese border — but they got it done.
At the end of Stones into Schools, the heart-pumping story-telling falls away, and Mortenson muses about the importance of the book’s main point: to listen with humility. This point — the need to check your own plans, cultural biases, and expectations at the door and listen to what the locals want and believe — comes up throughout the book, but the book’s closing chapter focuses on it. Not only does following this credo make it possible for the Central Asia Institute to build schools in forbidding places against formidable obstacles, it also creates a local sense of ownership in the schools that helps shield them against opposition (most notably, the Taliban).
As I have said before, the sort of activity described in this book is how the US should be spending its resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
March 8, 2010 at 10:24 am |
Well said, Jeff. In particular, I strongly agree with you statement about the author’s main point: listen with humility. Then act (passionately) on what you hear.
Amen and amen.