Author Greg Mortenson uses a slide presentation to engage local elementary students in global education issues.
By Rachael Rifkin
Memoirist
“The story behind the three cups of tea in the Balti part of Pakistan is this. The first time you share tea you are a stranger. The second time you are an honored guest. And if you share a third cup you become family. Sadly, many of us do not take the time for even that first cup.”
—Greg Mortenson
The 2009 Long Beach Read One Book program (March 6—14) kicked off last Friday with a flurry of talks given by author Greg Mortenson, the humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize nominee who, along with co-author David Oliver Relin, penned this year’s selection, Three Cups of Tea. The Read One Book program, a community-focused initiative that encourages Long Beach residents to read the same book at the same time, chose Mortenson’s book for its inspiring content and themes of perseverance, global awareness and education.
Mortenson, who recently adapted his bestseller book for kids, spent the majority of March 6 talking to students. In the morning, he met with children from Lincoln Elementary School and Los Cerritos Elementary at the Mark Twain Library on Anaheim Street. Several of the Los Cerritos Elementary students had participated in his fundraising effort Pennies for Peace. The program raises funds for children seeking an education in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Three Cups of Tea charts Mortenson’s journey from mountain climber to humanitarian. In 1993, his sister’s recent epilepsy-related death prompted him to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world. When he grew ill, the small Pakistani village of Korphe took him in and saved his life. While he was there, he saw children writing their school lessons in the dirt with sticks. He vowed to return and build them a school.
In the subsequent years that followed, he formed the Central Asia Institute and has since created more than 78 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In a part of the world where girls are often not allowed to go to school, these 78 schools have educated more than 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls.
Mortenson hadn’t originally planned on creating a book to chronicle his experiences. “All kinds of people— think tanks, universities, the pentagon, average people— kept asking me to write a book about what I was doing. I’m not a writer, so I dictated the book,” said Mortenson. “Then when I was speaking to a fourth-grade class in Houston, Texas, two years ago, I saw all these poor fourth graders trying to read the book. I called my wife and she said, ‘You have to do a children’s book.’ So we abbreviated down 50 percent of the original book and added a glossary, timeline, diagrams, more photos, more charts and 20 pages that my daughter wrote.”
From the beginning, children have been Mortenson’s biggest supporters. When he first attempted to raise money, kids were the first ones to step up to the challenge.
“Children reached out first. It wasn’t celebrities, it wasn’t adults. Children started collecting pennies at their school and in the end they raised over $600 in pennies. That was my first big donation,” said Mortenson. “Today, over 3,500 schools in 19 countries participate in the Pennies for Peace program, and next year we project that that number will increase to 15,000. It’s very humbling. It’s great to become a role model for kids, to inspire them.”
And if anyone’s interested, Mortenson’s tea of choice is green tea with no sugar and a sprig of mint.
For more information on Mortenson, Pennies for Peace or the Central Asia Institute, log on to www.gregmortenson.com.
