Three Cups of Tea (2006) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

Summary edit see section history

People edit see section history

• Greg Mortenson: Mountaineer, unassuming builder of schools for children; especially for girls in remote villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Co-founder of the Central Asia Institute and founder of Pennies for Peace.
• Haji Ali: Chief of Korphe village in Baltistan, hospitable, caring, practical, visionary, responsible for the first school built by efforts of Mortenson and Korphe village, approving of girls' education.
• Jean Hoerni: Scientist, businessman, wealthy, mountain climber, philanthropist, founder and first donor of Central Asia Institute, practical, dreamer
• Twaha: Son of Haji Ali the chief of Korphe
• Mouzafer Ali: The Balti porter who helped Mortenson when he was lost, carrying some of his supplies. He is also a Shiite Muslim
• Tara Bishop: Greg Mortenson's wife.
• George McCown: Husband of Karen McCown and a member of the American Himalayan Foundation
• Faisal Baig: Self appointed protector of Mortenson in Pakistan
• Changazi: Businessman in Skardu who stole half of supplies for the first school built by Mortenson for Korphe village, shrewd, cheating, domineering, visionary demanding a school for poor and girls for his own village Kuardu
• Christa: Greg Mortenson's handicapped sister who died before he set out to climb K2 in the Himaalayas. Reason he did climb it
• Ghulam Parvi: Chief arbitrator for Mortenson and problem solver in the region, diplomat, regional chief of CAI, helper in solving fatwa problems and others
• Greg Mortenson: Add a description of this character.
• Sakina: Wife of Haji Ali
• Sardhar Khan
• Syed Abbas
• Hussein: Hussein is a common name amongst Muslims, one presumes this shelfari added name refers to the first school teacher appointed by Mortenson in the first school he built, that in Korphe. Hussein had been to school in a larger town and hence was the perfect bridge between the two worlds, and hence the perfect teacher for his school, Mortenson reasoned.
• Kais
• Dempsey Mortenson: Father of Greg Mortenson, builder of hospital in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), teacher in Tanganyika, brought up his children in Tanganyika in close contact with local and other cosmopolitan social circle, lived there with his wife and children for nearly fourteen years
• Scott Darsney: Mountaineer who went to climb K2 along with Mortenson and others and was taken ill in effort to bring back another mountaineer back alive from K2
• Haji Mehdi
• Aslam
• Fatima: A girl from the village of Gultori Alley which was bombed during the war between Pakistan and India
• Mother Teresa: The nun born in Albania who taught school for two decades in Calcutta and went on to found her own mission to care for the poor dying alone
• Suleman
• Marina: Mortenson's previous girlfriend, a doctor in San Fransisco area.
• Yakub
• Mohammed
• Bashir Baz: An advisor of President Mousharaff
• Bozeman: Bozeman is the town where Mortensons settled after their first child was born near the mother, Mrs Bishop, of Tara Bishop.
• Julia Bergman: A first cousin of wife of Jean Hoerni, part of Central Asia Institute, unafraid, traveled in Pakistan and Afghanistan in difficult situations in war times.
• Hillary
• Manzoor
• Massoud: Lion of Panjshir who fought off various intruders in Afghanistan from his little corner in Panjshir valley until he was murdered by Taliban using a camera to explode bombs and suicide bombers posing as journalists from Belgium arrived to interview Massoud.
• Akhmalu
• Ibrahim: A construction crew member for the Korphe school and husband of the wife Mortenson saved from septic shock
• Vera

Quotes edit see section history

• “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest”

• “There are millions of land mines buried all over Afghanistan, left there by armies after years and years of war”

• “Well, you're thirty-one and you've kissed a lot of toads”

• “"With all respect, Sahib, you have little to teach us in strength and toughness. And we don't envy you your restless spirits. Perhaps we are happier than you? But we would like our children to go to school. Of all the things you have, learning is the one we most desire for our children."”

  Urkien Sherpa

• “<Edmund> Hillary downplayed his first ascent, saying many others might have beaten him and Tenzing Norgay to Everest's summit. "I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities who was willing to work quite hard and had the necessary imagination and determination," he told the hushed crowd. "I was just an average bloke. It was the media that tried to transform me into a heroic figure. But I've learned through the years, as long as you don't believe all that rubbish about yourself, you can't come to much harm."..."I don't know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything," he heard Hillary say. "I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest. But my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics. That has given me more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain."”

• “The Balti had a history, a rich tradition, Mortenson realized. The fact that it wasn't written down didn't make it any less real. These faces ringing the fire didn't need to be taught so much as they needed help. And the school was a place where they could help themselves....He might not accomplish much more before returning home to Tara, but during that night of dancing, the school reached critical mass in his mind--it became real to him. He could see the completed building standing before him as clearly as Korphe K2, lit by the waxing moon.”

• “Fatima Batool brushes her shawl and sits up straight at her desk, to tell her visitors one thing more. "I've heard some people say Americans are bad," she says softly. "But we love Americans. They are the most kind people for us. They are the only ones who cared to help us."”

• “In times of war, you often hear leaders--Christian, Jewish, and Muslim--saying 'God is on our side.' But that isn't true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.”

• “I don't do what I'm doing to fight terror, Mortenson said, measuring his words, trying not to get himself kicked out of the Capitol. I do it because I care about kids. Fighting terror is maybe seventh or eighth on my list of priorities. But working over there, I've learned a few things. I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.”

• “But working over there, I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.”

  Greg Mortenson

• “"Listen to the wind."”

• “If you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything”

  Greg Mortenson

• “Then you getter quickly find your woman, before you grow too old and fat.”

  Twaha

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.”

  Highlighted by 1197 Kindle customers

• “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die,” he said, laying his hand warmly on Mortenson’s own. “Doctor Greg, you must make time to share three cups of tea. We may be uneducated. But we are not stupid. We have lived and survived here for a long time.”

  Highlighted by 973 Kindle customers

• 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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• If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.”

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• Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything. —Mother Teresa

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• When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. —Persian proverb

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• Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear, speak and act, as the most common man. —Shams-ud-din Muhammed Hafiz

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• Norberg-Hodge admiringly quotes the king of another Himalayan country, Bhutan, who says the true measure of a nation’s success is not gross national product, but “gross national happiness.”

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• There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you? —Rumi

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• prelapsarian paradise of Western fantasy. In every home, at least one family member suffered from goiters or cataracts. The children, whose ginger hair he had admired, owed their coloring to a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor.

  Highlighted by 130 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Pakistan
• Afghanistan
• Skardu
• Kabul
• Baltistan: Baltistan is a region of Kashmir (under Pakistan administration) among many other such regions, while Balti could either mean a person from or of Baltistan or it could mean a bucket as understood throughout India, Pakistan and other nations of the region.
• Waziristan: Waziristan is the name by which Mortenson refers to the regions in north west frontier of Pakistan including provinces of Baluchistan and what is officially known as North West Frontier Province in India until 1947 and Pakistan thereafter, while Wazir might either be a tribe of those regions or a minister or prime minister of a country.
• Montana
• Peshawar
• Hushe Valley
• Braldu Valley
• Washington
• Islamabad
• Baltoro
• Karakoram
• Berkeley
• Rawalpindi: Rawalpindi or as it is lovingly named by locals Pindi is the town where Pakistan constructed its new capital city Islamabad across the river post 1965; until then the historical city of Lahore, the cultural and educational capital of the country served as the capital. Lahore still is the first and Karachi the second city of the country.
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Nepal
• Kashmir
• Korphe village: Small village on hill above river in mountain region of Baltistan in Kashmir
• Khyber Pass: Khyber pass is the one pass in the difficult mountain ranges surrounding ancient India that was used by trade routes to enter India for trade to source the Indian manufacture, and later used by various marauders and their armies to enter India for plunder and pillage and generally attack the country. Khyber pass now is a chief route connecting what is known as North West Frontier Province (included by British in Pakistan against the wishes of the people of NWFP) and Afghanistan.

Organizations edit see section history

• Central Asia Institute: CAI is a nonprofit organization committed to promoting and providing a balanced education for rural villages in Central Asia. They also help improve public health and work on conservation in those regions.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Islam: Islam is the name of a religion, and Muslims are those that follow the religion Islam.
• Inshallah: Inshallah literally means God willing, a common exclamation or response.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Understanding and education vs. war: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Outsiders, and followed by The Other Boleyn Girl.

Preceded by The Lord of the Rings, and followed by Interview with the Vampire.

Preceded by Frankenstein, and followed by The Count of Monte Cristo.

Preceded by The Battle of the Labyrinth, and followed by Blink.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Greg Mortenson (Author)
2. David Oliver Relin (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Sarah L. Thomson

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• ALA Outstanding Books for the College Bound (2009: Social Sciences, #1)
• Kiriyama Prize (2007: Nonfiction, #1)
• Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award (2007: Nonfiction, #1)
• New York Times Bestseller (2006: Nonfiction, #1)
• Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Finalist, 2007: Nonfiction, #2)
• Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award (Finalist, 2009, Nominated)
• The Christopher Award (2010)
• Mom's Choice Award (2009)
• Montana Honor Book Award (2006)
• Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: LC2330 .M67 2006
• Dewey: 371.82209549

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Specific Groups › Women
• Books › History › Asia › Afghanistan
• Books › History › Asia › Pakistan
• Books › History › Asia › Central Asia
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Professionals & Academics › Educators
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Three Cups of Tea
• Greg Mortenson: Author's official website
• Three Cups of Deceit: Essay by John Krakauer about Mortenson's fraudulent claims.

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history