Banff Mountain Book Festival 2006
Thursday, November 2, 7:30 p.m.;
Eric Harvie Theatre
Greg Mortenson — Three Cups of Tea
Greg Mortenson’s lifelong interest in mountaineering led to a 1993 climb on Pakistan’s formidable K2. His attempt was unsuccessful and he found himself an exhausted survivor, alone and dangerously ill in an impoverished Pakistani village.
Out of gratitude for the villagers’ assistance in providing him care and shelter for seven weeks, Mortenson vowed to build the town’s first school. From this promise grew a great humanitarian project, his non-profit Central Asia Institute. Mortenson ’s dedication to promoting education in remote, often volatile villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan has resulted in the birth of 55 new schools and brought literacy and education to over 20,000 children.
Mortenson will be speaking about his book Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations… One School at a Time, a collaboration with award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin. Tom Brokaw says, “Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.”
When he is not overseas, Mortenson lives in Montana with his wife and two young children.