Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

Bashir pause to watch a live CNN feed from Baghdad. Staring at a small video window inset into the flight manifests scrolling down his monitor, Bashir was struck silent by the images of wailing Iraqi women carrying children’s bodies out of the rubble of a bombed building.
As he studied the screen, Bashir’s bullish shoulders slumped. “People like me are America’s best friends in the region,” Bashir said at last, shaking his head ruefully. “I’m a moderate Muslim, an educated man. But watching this, even I could become a jihadi. How can Americans say they are making themselves safer?” Bashir asked, struggling not to direct his anger toward the large American target on the other side of his desk. “Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next tow hundred years.”
“Osama had something to do with it, too,” Mortenson said.
“Osama, baah!” Bashir roared. “Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.”

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I first learned of Three Cups of Tea when I found this excerpt on my friend Ali's facebook, followed by the qualifying note: If you haven't read (this book), stop your life now, and READ IT. Please.

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Three Cups of Tea recounts the many adventures of Ted Mortenson, a Minnesotan Lutheran of whom Garrison Keillor would be all too proud. While the story dances in chronological fluidity from Tanzania to Minnesota to San Francisco/Berkley to Pakistan to Montana, the bulk of the story takes place in the Himalayan protected (and cut-off) villages of Pakistan. It is here that Mortenson, an avid mountaineer, attempts the super human feat of summiting K2, one of the world's tallest and most dangerous mountains.

Upon his descent of K2, Mortenson's entire life takes a new path. He winds up in the wrong village bewildered and exhausted, only to be welcomed with open arms by an entire village. In his attempt to thank the hospitable Baltian villagers, Mortenson distributes much of his climbing gear, and makes a promise just before he leaves. I will return to build you a school.

In the Baltian village's isolation, the children were deprived of even basic education. If a boy showed particular promise and came from a less-poor family, he may have been lucky enough to be sent away from the village to study at a young age. Girls however, had no chance of an education.

As the story develops, the reader becomes a witness to the transformational power of Mortenson's determination. What begins with his promise to the Baltian village of Korphe becomes the Central Asian Institute and schools in the most rural villages of Pakistan and Afghani refugee camps.

While the US unleashes "Shock and Awe," Greg Mortenson is receiving donations from Mujahadeen, employing a former Taliban militant, defeating fatwas proclaimed by a corrupt mullah, networking with members of the Pakistani military, and educating girls and boys in the same villages where Saudi money is funding fundamental Wahabi-Islam in the Taliban run madrassas. While the Pentagon is hemhorraging money in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mortenson and the CAI are building schools for $12,000, which are then staffed by CAI salaried teachers for the price of $8,000 for a generation. When Mortenson finds himself interrogated by US intelligence officers, besides being inanely asked if he knows where bin Laden is, he is asked how many students he is responsible for educating at that moment. Mortenson answers, "150,00 to 200,000 children."

I highly, highly recommend that all of you read this book. It is extremely well written, but more importantly it is extremely necessary for voting and future voting Americans to seriously reconsider the US' present methods of foreign diplomacy and fighting terror, or as Bahir would have you think, ignorance.

READ IT. Please.

A Box of Sunshine

Today has been one of the best days of my entire German summer. I woke up to find that a care package from my family had arrived in the mail. The contents included four books (from Jackson's very own Nomad Bookhouse), a glad-ware full of delicious oatmeal-raisin cookies that my sister Andrea baked, and a very tasteful navy blue sweater-vest and birthday card, complements of my Grandma and Grandpa Gaydos.

Not to diminish any of the other care package contents, but I was especially excited about the new reading material. I grossly underestimated my need for reading material during a summer of independence (read: isolation). While my abundance in free-time has allowed for a lot of introspection, I can only handle so much. Here are the books that came in the care package:

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver
The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer
The Exception To The Rulers by Amy Goodman (with David Goodman)
Africa on Six Wheels by Betty Levitov

I asked for the first two specifically, and the last two were complete surprises. While I want to save enough reading for my return travel, I hope to post some type of book review for Three Cups of Tea and The Ten Year Nap.

Whenever my family would do any type of traveling, I always remember stopping at my Grandma Berkemeier's house prior to departure and receiving a family care package. These packages would always be filled with treats and goodies, and were always called "Sunshine Boxes," as they always provided a little bit more sunshine for our travels. Today was definitely a day filled with sunshine. After nearly three weeks of overcast, cool, and rainy days, the weather here in Vechta finally came around. For the first time this summer, I was able to go swimming at a nearby lake and do some summer beach-reading.

Catch-up Part 5: The Last of the Catch-ups

My journey from Freiburg in the southern Bundesland (like our states) of Badden-Würtemberg to Vechta in the northern Niedersachsen took about eight hours by train; not bad considering that the train stopped at every city on the way to pick-up and drop-off passengers. The eight hours also accommodated the missed connecting train in the final leg from Osnabrück to Vechta, which would have cut my train time down to seven hours. Let the record show that this delay was entirely the fault of engine driver, as our train pulled into Osnabrück 14 minutes late and seven minutes after the hourly departing train to Vechta had left.

In the silver-lining, I was able to finish one of the books that I had picked up a week earlier at the Nomad Bookhouse in downtown Jackson. The book was The Other Side of the River by former Wall Street Journal journalist Alex Kotlowitz and told the story of a death in the St. Joseph, Michigan that reignited a history of racial segregation and injustice in the St. Joseph - Benton Harbor, twin cities relationship. The prominence of the St. Joseph River as a instrument in the segregation and injustice was highlighted by Kotlowitz, securing the book's relevance to UD River Stewards and Dayton as a whole. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

My late arrival in Vechta presented an initial challenge, as I was originally going to be met at the train station by an company employee and get a ride to my WG (pronounced 'Vay-Gay'). Not knowing about my delay, however, said employee left the station before my late arrival. Luckily, I received the address in an email from my company. Unluckily, I had never bothered to right in down on paper. So began my stroll through downtown Vechta, backpack, tote bag, and wheely-luggage and all. My first stop, a family health center, provided directions to the nearest internet cafe. After about a 10 minute walk through the bustling heart of the city and over a river, I arrived at a rather tacky internet cafe. However tacky though, I had my address as well as the GoogleMap directions to get there, which ended up being just a short walk from the cafe.

I was greeted at my apartment by my Mitbewohnerin (gender-specific-ending foreshadow) Leah. Leah was a masters in education student at the local Uni. In fact, so were my other three Mitbewohner Rene, Thomas, and Basti. All four of them spoke near-fluent English, Leah having a subtle Canadian accent. Being masters students, all four were also older than me, averaging 23. This ended being a perk, because our WG was really very nice and enhanced by a dozen or more different pieces of art that either Rene or Leah had painted, drawn, or sculpted. More important though my Mitbewohner were all very nice, too. They were very helpful with my move in and very friendly. If they had weekend plans they would invite me, which during the first weekend turned into a road trip to Hamburg for a birthday party of a former Mitbewohnerin.

So here I am, caught up to semi-present time, living and working in Vechta. My landlord, Herr Schweinefuß (not a made up name) was able to find a bike for me which I use to ride to work every morning at WELtec-BioPower, where I have been reading about industrial Anaerobic Digesters, searching for different techniques to implement into a (hopefully) sustainable method of treating the post-digested eflluent.