Three Cups of Tea

Written by a mountaineer who in 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, drifted cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. It tells how moved by the inhabitants' kindness, he promised to return and build a school. It tells the story of that promise and its outcome. ‘Here we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die. ’Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram mountains, Pakistan In 1993, after a terrifying and disastrous attempt to climb K2, a mountaineer called Greg Mortenson drifted, cold and dehydrated, into an impoverished Pakistan village in the Karakoram Mountains. Moved by the inhabitants’ kindness, he promised to return and build a school. Three Cups of Tea is the story of that promise and its extraordinary outcome. Over the next decade Mortenson built not just one but fifty-five schools – especially for girls – in remote villages across the forbidding and breathtaking landscape of Pakistan and Afghanistan, just as the Taliban rose to power. His story is at once a riveting adventure and a testament to the power of the humanitarian spirit.