About the Book

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson is a book about Mortenson's journey from being a man who had a dream to climb a mountain to a man who realized that his dream all along was to build schools and help children receive an education. Through this story, Greg was able to display the message; that sometimes you need to get lost to truly discover what you were actually looking for. Greg originally decided to travel to Pakistan after his sister passed away and what he wanted was to reach the summit of K2 and place her necklace on the top in her honor. However Greg wasn't able to make it to the top because of harsh weather conditions and this almost cost him his life but the people of Korphe took him in and helped him recover. While in the city of Korphe, Mortenson discovered that children there had no school and no teachers and none of them were getting an education. Before going back to America he promised Haji Ali, a man who was not only kind to Greg but welcomed him into his town, that he would come back to Korphe and build a school for the children. Greg went back home to raise money for the school and after a year, he went back to Pakistan and bought all the supplies needed to build the school. Later he realized that there was no way to get the supplies across a river separated from Korphe. Instead, Haji Ali told Greg that before a school could be built, a bridge is a much more important necessity, so instead Greg got more money to build the bridge. After spending some time in Korphe, Mortenson started creating a bond with the Korphe people by going hunting with the men and learning how to pray and once the bridge was built, he returned back to California and it was on this trip back home that he would meet his wife, Tara Bishop and would marry just after a few days of knowing each other.

On this trip, Greg also meets Jean Hoerni for the first time. He used to be a mountain climber and he was the person who donated the money to Greg to build the school. Hoerni and Mortenson created a strong friendship together that lasted until the day Hoerni died. Jean helps Mortenson create his charity called the Central Asia Institute, where they can build more schools throughout Pakistan. As of 2010, Central Asia Institute has built over 171 schools and over 64,000 kids are recieving education because of them.

After returning back to Pakistan to start building the school, Greg travels by himself to Waziristan to look for more locations to build schools, where he gets kidnapped by the Taliban but after several days was released with no harm. After the first school constructed by the Central Asia Institute is compeleted, Hoerni passes away. Greg continues to build more schools and on of his last trips of Korphe, he learns that Haji Ali has also passed away. Later, Greg was inspired to expand his charity into Afghanistan. Mortenson's journey to Afganistan is the entry way to his sequal where him and a very influential man named Sadhar Khan decide to turn these stones into schools.