#greg mortenson

[librarybookquotes]

“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.”

[theoffingmag]

I clenched my teeth, seething at this age-old American innocence, the belief that at the end of the day, Americans meant well and, really, that ought to be enough.

“American Smile,” Dur e Aziz Amna

[bookmarkquotes]

'Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.' -Greg Mortenson | Click here for more inspirational quotes.

[lahore2toronto]

Haji Ali spoke. ‘If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways. 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. Doctor Greg, you must take 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.’ That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life. We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly…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.

Greg Mortenson, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time

[books-wine-and-something-clever]

“Three Cups of Tea” Review

Hello, hello. Trying to get as many reviews done, since I totally failed on daily posting. Hopefully will be getting a majority of the outstanding ones done as I really want to embark on a special trip to a very familiar place with you guys. I’ll talk more about that later though. On with the review!

Three Cups of Tea was another one of those books that was given to me by a friend and she told me that it was really, really good. Generally, I don’t read more modern memoirs but since my friend and I do have similar tastes in books, I was more than willing to give it a shot. Overall, this story is about Greg Mortenson, who began his life as an adventurer, a climber in particular, who found a second home in the deserts Pakistan after he failed to make the summit of K2. He meets all of these people and learns the culture and falls a little bit in love, for lack of a better summary. He notices the lack of schools and learning opportunities, especially for girls, and he promises that he will bring schools to Pakistan. And he does.

When I first read this book, I found it super engaging and super interesting. I tore it up, actually breezing through it, in spite of the fact that I rarely do that with memoirs or non-fiction. I found Greg Mortenson to be incredible and tenacious and charitable and just so many different adjectives, it’s hard to describe. Like, I don’t think I can express how much I really, really enjoyed this book upon first viewing.

My opinion of it has quieted since then.

When I was doing a little bit of background research on Greg Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea (I just really found the subject matter interesting and when I find a subject that clicks like that for me, my first stop is Google so I can learn more about it), I found a lot of articles about lawsuits and falsifying parts of the stories. Of course, being the person that I am, I read them. There is one scene in the book, where Mortenson is taken hostage by the Taliban—like, my first thought was holy sh** when I read that—and the lawsuits claimed that he had made it up. And, for me, if one thing was made up, was everything else made up? I don’t know, it didn’t stop it from being a good book for me, but I definitely give it the side-eye now and it does make me wonder what else might have been… sensationalized for lack of a better term.

What are your thoughts and opinions on this book for those who have read it? Comment and submit!

Happy reading!

[wowmagazine2016]

Proving your social justice chops to get into Gonzaga

Gonzaga University: Another college application and another dispiriting slog through the dreary social justice universe of American higher education.

The college application process continues. All the colleges demand essays that subtly invite the student to explain that he, she, or it was “born a poor black child,” or “born a gender mislabeled child.” When we got to the application for Gonzaga, a…

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[thisisafoundation-blog]

The book that inspires me.

[theblogoflav]

What we are trying to do may just be a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

Greg Mortenson