In between reading about love triangles with vampires and werewolves and petite computer hackers with eidetic memories, U.S. readers have chosen to love a certain nonfiction book called Three Cups of Tea.  You may now the story.  The book is the co-written memoir of Greg Mortenson, who was an average K2 mountain climber who made a rash promise to an isolated village in Pakistan after they nursed him back to health following a near-fatal climbing incident.  Since he made good on that first promise, he has built over 140 schools in Pakistan, and now Afghanistan. 

I actually avoided reading the book for awhile.  I had just come back from Malawi, where my group had made a promise to build a school.  I didn't need to read some popular trade paperback about building schools.  Then one day, I picked it up and I didn't put it down until I finished it.  The whole book rang true for me.  How engaging with families in a developing country makes you come back home and think "For the cost of this Chai with Skim Milk a few times a week, I could send a child to secondary school" or "For the cost of this Cole Haan shoes, I could pay nursing school tuition."  Greg went to a whole different level:  Instead of paying rent, he lived in his car to save money to build his first school.  I was able to use my powers of rationalization to avoid that stark trade-off.  The other thing that rang true was the difficulties in transplanting a U.S. "git r done" attitude to a different culture that thinks in centuries, not nanoseconds.

But unlike other books dominating the booklists, Three Cups of Tea is required reading for U.S. officers in Afghanistan.  Lately, the war in Afghanistan news is all about Greg Mortenson.  NYT article here, Nicholas Kristof op-ed here.  The theory being that money on education, particularly secular education, in Afghanistan will be money well spent if it provides young people opportunities beyond joining the Taliban.

By the way, my husband just returned with our group from Malawi.  Here's a picture of the school under construction.  Below that, a picture of where class is currently held.

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