Three Cups of Tea

Three cups of tea: one man's mission to fight terrorism and build nations-- one school at a time / Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin; read by Patrick Lawlor.— [Old Saybrook] : Tantor Media, 2006.

11 sound discs (ca. 13.5 hr.) ; digital ; 4 3/4 in.

ISBN: 1400102510

Compact discs

Unabridged edition

1. Girls' schools -- Pakistan. 2. Girls' schools -- Afghanistan. 3. Humanitarian assistance, American -- Pakistan. 4. Humanitarian assistance, American -- Afghanistan.

371.822

Following an unsuccessful attempt to scale K2, the world’s second highest peak, a dispirited and disoriented mountaineer got lost during his decent. After a night alone in the Karakoram of northern Pakistan Greg Mortenson was found by a local guide and put on the right path down towards human habitation, but he lost his way again and arrived exhausted in the small village of Korphe in Baltistan the remote and beautiful area of north-east Pakistan where he was taken in by the inhabitants and nursed back to health.

Shocked when he found the village children scratching arithmetic problems in the ground, because they could not afford a school or a teacher he vowed to return and build them a school. Back in the United States he worked a nurse and hand typed hundreds of fundraising requests, before the local copy shop owner, a Pakistani, offered to teach him word processing. Eventually he caught the attention of irascible silicon chip developer Jean Hoerni, who funded the Korphe school on the condition that Mortenson send him a picture when it was done. So successful was the school that Hoerni started the Central Asia Institute to carry on the work of school building, and appointed Mortenson its director.

In addition to its hopeful message of education, especially educating girls, in this remote part of the world, it’s an exciting tale of mountaineering, political maneuvering to squelch a fatwa, kidnapping and blazing machinegun battles between rival opium smugglers. Lawlor does an admirable job of giving voice to the excitement. Tantor Media is also to be commended for adding end of the disc announcements in another voice—a great help to listeners who are simultaneously maneuvering motor vehicles.