Stones into Schools: (Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan)
Greg Mortenson, 2009
Penguin Group USA
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670021154
Summary
Just as Three Cups of Tea began with a promise—to build a school in Korphe, Pakistan—so too does Mortenson's new book. In 1999, Kirghiz horsemen from Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor rode into Pakistan and secured a promise from Mortenson to construct a school in an isolated pocket of the Pamir Mountains known as Bozai Gumbaz. Mortenson could not build that school before constructing many others, and that is the story he tells in this dramatic new book.
Picking up where Three Cups of Tea left off in late 2003, Stones into Schools traces the CAI's efforts to work in a whole new country, the secluded northeast corner of Afghanistan. Mortenson describes how he and his intrepid manager, Sarfraz Khan, barnstormed around Badakshan Province and the Wakhan Corridor, moving for weeks without sleep, to establish the first schools there. Those efforts were diverted in October 2005 when a devastating earthquake hit the Azad Kashmir region of Pakistan. Under Sarfraz's watch the CAI helped with relief efforts by setting up temporary tent schools and eventually several earthquakeproof schools.
The action then returns to Afghanistan in 2007, as the CAI launches schools in the heart of Taliban country and as Mortenson helps the U.S. military formulate new strategic plans in the region.
Stones into Schools brings to life both the heroic efforts of the CAI's fixers on the ground—renegade men of unrecognized and untapped talent who became galvanized by the importance of girls' education—and the triumphs of the young women who are now graduating from the schools. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 27, 1957
• Reared—in Tanzania, Africa
• Education—A.A., B.A., University of South Dakota (USA)
• Awards—numerous humanitarian awards (see below)
• Currently—lives in Bozeman, Montana, USA
Greg Mortenson is an American humanitarian, writer, and former mountaineer. Mortenson is the co-founder (with Dr. Jean Hoerni) and director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute, and founder of the educational charity Pennies For Peace. He is the protagonist and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission To Promote Peace... One School At A Time (2007). He published a a sequel, Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009.
From 1958-1973, Mortenson grew up in Africa near Mount Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania. His father, Irvin "Dempsey" Mortenson, was the founder/development director of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, Tanzania's first teaching hospital. His mother, Dr. Jerene Mortenson, founded the International School Moshi.
Mortenson served in the U.S. Army in Germany from 1975 to 1977 as a medic, and received the Commendation Medal. He attended Concordia College, Moorhead, from 1977 to 1979, and later graduated from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota, in 1983 with an Associate Degree in Nursing and a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry.
In July 1992, Mortenson's young sister, Christa Mortenson, died from a life-long struggle with severe epilepsy on the morning she had planned to visit the cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa, where the iconic baseball movie Field of Dreams was filmed.
In 1993, to honor his deceased sister's memory, Mortenson went to climb K2, the world's second highest mountain, in the Karakoram range of northern Pakistan. After more than 70 days on the mountain, Mortenson and three other climbers completed a life-saving rescue of a fifth climber that took more than 75 hours. The time and energy devoted to this rescue prevented him from attempting to reach the summit. After the rescue, he began his descent of the mountain and became weak and exhausted. Mortenson set out with one local Balti porter by the name of Mouzafer Ali to the nearest city, but he took a wrong turn along the way and ended up in Korphe, a small village, where Mortenson was cared for by the villagers while he recovered.
To pay the remote community back for their compassion, Mortenson said he would build a school for the village. After a frustrating time trying to raise money, Mortenson convinced Jean Hoerni, a Silicon Valley pioneer, to fund the Central Asia Institute. The mission of CAI—a non-profit organization—is to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote mountain regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hoerni named Mortenson as CAI's first Executive Director.
In the process of building schools, Mortenson has survived an eight-day armed 1996 kidnapping in the tribal areas of Waziristan, in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province; escaped a 2003 firefight between Afghan opium warlords; endured two fatwās by angry Islamic clerics for educating girls; and received hate mail and threats from fellow Americans for helping educate Muslim children.
Mortenson believes that education and literacy for girls globally is the most important investment all countries can make to create stability, bring socio-economic reform, decrease infant mortality, decrease the population explosion, and improve health, hygiene, and sanitation standards globally. Mortenson believes that "fighting terrorism" only perpetuates a cycle of violence and that there should be a global priority to "promote peace" through education and literacy, with an emphasis on girls' education. "You can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads or put in electricity, but unless the girls are educated, a society won't change," is an often-quoted statement made by Mortenson. Because of community "buy-in," which involves getting villages to donate land, subsidized or free labor ("sweat equity"), wood and resources, the schools have local support and have been able to avoid retribution by the Taliban or other groups opposed to girls' education.
Extras
• Mortenson and David Oliver Relin are co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book Three Cups of Tea.
• The Government of Pakistan announced on its Independence Day of August 14, 2008, that Mortenson will receive Pakistan’s highest civilian award, the Sitara-e-Pakistan (The Star of Pakistan), in a Islamabad civil ceremony during Pakistan Day on March 23, 2009.
• In August 2008, Mortenson met with then-President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf over tea, and in March 2009, Mortenson met with new President Asif Zardari for a cup of tea, upon receiving the Sitara-e-Pakistan award.
• On July 15, 2009, Admiral Mike Mullen, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff paid a visit to Pushgur school, in a remote valley of Afghanistan, to inaugurate one of Mortenson’s new schools, to highlight the military’s new strategy to advocate empowering local communities, build relationships and the significance of education to promote peace. Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, wrote about the visit in his column.
• Mortenson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 and in 2010, by several bi-partisan members of U.S. Congress. According to Norwegian odd-makers, he was believed to have been in a handful of finalists of the Peace Prize that was eventually awarded to Barack Obama on October 10, 2009.
• In November 2009, U.S. News & World Report magazine featured Greg Mortenson as one of America's Top Twenty Leaders in 2009.
• Mortenson was featured on a Bill Moyers PBS TV Journal 30-minute interview on Sunday, January 15, 2010, discussing the role of the U.S. military and Obama troop surge in Afghanistan, and significant role of girls' education as a determinant of peace. (From Wikipedia
Book Reviews
Much of Stones Into Schools hinges on the logistical challenges, but this book is also suffused with its author's unorthodox tactics and distinctive personal style.... It also colorfully describes the local sidekicks and power brokers without whom, [Mortenson] says, "I would still be nothing more than a dirtbag mountaineer subsisting on ramen noodles and living in the back of his car." And it offers some all-important insight into how, exactly, they cut through bureaucratic red tape and accomplish miracles with very little money.... As Stones Into Schools chronicles the institute's work, it captures the physical and political landscapes of Afghanistan in ways that make it exceptionally timely and compelling.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
If the first book was inspirational, the second sometimes reads like an infomercial. Mortenson recounts in detail all the good that has been done because of the notoriety and generosity inspired by the first book, and how much more money he needs to keep his remote schools going.... Mortenson may be unrealistic, but the past decade of his life has been one improbability after another.... He's on a roll, and he doesn't see why he can't carry everyone with him.
Jay Mathews - Washington Post.com
Sometimes the acts of one individual can illuminate how to confront a foreign-policy dilemma more clearly than the prattle of politicians. Such is the case with Greg Mortenson, whose work gives insights into an essential element of fighting terrorism.
Trudy Rubin - Philadelphia Inquirer
(Starred review.) To blandly call this book inspiring would be dismissive of all the hard work that has gone into the mission in Afghanistan as well as the efforts to fund it. Mortenson writes of nothing less than saving the future, and his adventure is light years beyond most attempts. Mortenson did not reach the summit of K2, but oh, the heights he has achieved. —Colleen Mondor
Booklist
A heartening follow-up to the bestselling Three Cups of Tea (2003). Mortenson and his NGO Central Asia Institute (CAI) have been committed to building schools in the most remote corners of Pakistan and Afghanistan for the last 16 years. Here he resumes where he left off in his previous book and spotlights the extraordinary efforts to make good on a promise he made in 1999 to villagers of the Wakhan Corridor, a rugged, isolated area of northeastern Afghanistan. The Wakhan is occupied by the Kirghiz, who had been forced out of their land with the coming of the Soviets before returning to restricted migratory patterns, and are cut off from basic, life-sustaining government services. For Mortenson and his well-meaning, multiethnic crew he calls his "Dirty Dozen," the village of Bozai Gumbaz proved to be "the definition of our last-place-first philosophy." By enlisting the help of the local leaders and supplying the Kirghiz with necessary building materials (hauled by yak), the CAI fulfilled one of its main goals: to get the people to build a school on their own. Based in Bozeman, Mont., Mortenson tells the remarkable story of how his group operates. He travels America giving talks, raising awareness and enormous sums of money ($900,000 poured in after a 1993 Parade article), considering proposals about where next to build a school (it must be at least 50 percent girls) and courting local commandhans, or warlords. The organization had to contend with threats of kidnapping, Taliban violence, the Kashmir earthquake of 2005 and ingrained injunctions against educating girls. In his humble, winning style, the author writes of making peace with the U.S. Army, whose bombing caused enormous civilian bloodshed. Three Cups of Tea is now required reading for counterinsurgency officers, and Mortenson effectively demonstrates the "cascade of positive changes triggered by teaching a single girl how to read and write." Inspiring evidence of the tsunami effects of a committed humanitarian.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Stones into Schools:
1. If you've read Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson's first book, how does this compare? Do you find it as inspiring or as dramatic as the first book?
2. Again, if you've read Three Cups, in what ways does Mortenson seem to have changed. Consider, for instance, the effect that becoming a celebrity has had on his efforts. How would you say Mortenson comes across in this book?
3. Mortenson talks about the Taliban as a "ring of men with Kalashnikovs who help to sustain the grotesque lie that flinging battery acid into the face of a girl who longs to study arithmetic is somehow in keeping with the teachings of the Koran." Talk about the ways in which Mortenson's schools— especially his belief in educating girls—challenges that repressive culture. Why in his view is it important to educated girls?
4. What role does the US military play in the book? How—and why—does Mortenson change his views about the US war effort in Afghanistan?
5. How has Mortenson's work affected US foreign policy and military strategy in Afghanistan and elsewhere? What have we as a nation, as a world community, learned from him?
6. Why is Mortenson angered by both Pervez Musharraf (then-president of Pakistan) and Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, when both praise his work?
7. Talk about how Mortenson and his local compeers cut through bureaucracy to accomplish their goals.
8. Although deeply inspiring, is Mortenson's vision for peace—through education and literacy—realistic or naive?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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