Three Cups of Tea

Speechless. That’s my first reaction after finishing this very touching book.

This is a true story about Greg Mortenson, a remarkable guy who is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute and this book has been a New York Times bestsellers since its January 2007 release and was Time Magazine Asia Book of the Year.

The story started in 1993 when Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram range. This mission was made to honor his sister’s memory, Christa, died in 1992 after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy.

Instead of succeed, Mortenson failed to reach the top of the mountain. He was sick, disoriented and his body lost 15 kilos. After walking for 7 days, finally Mortenson arrived in a local village called Korphe where he met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand and made him promised to himself to build a school there.

From that promise, grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As of 2008, Mortenson has established over 78 schools in rural, which provide education to over 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.

His work also full of difficulties. In 1996, he survived an eight day armed kidnapping in the Nortwest Frontier Province tribal areas of Pakistan, escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlord by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides in a truck going to a leather-tanning factory and also received hate mail and death threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education.

On August 14th, 2008, Pakistan’s government announced on its Independence Day, that Greg Mortenson will receive Pakistan’s highest civil award , Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) for his courage and humanitarian effort to promote education and literacy in rural areas for the last 15 years.

Mortenson is a living hero for all of us. This is a must-read-book. Very inspiring. Turn you to feel as the luckiest person in the world compared with the Pakistan and Afghanistan children. We must be grateful for all God blessing.

This book already translated in Bahasa Indonesia by Dian Guci (Penerbit Hikmah, September 2008). The translation is also good.

I quote the term ‘three cups of tea” derives from:
“…(di Pakistan & Afghanistan), kami minum tiga cangkir teh saat membicarakan bisnis; pertama engkau masih orang asing; cangkir kedua, engkau teman; dan pada cangkir ketiga, engkau bergabung dengan keluarga kami. Sebuah keluarga yang siap untuk berbuat apapun-bahkan untuk mati.”
Haji Ali, Kepala Desa Korphe, Pegunungan Karakoram, Pakistan