Three Cups of Tea
Brief Chapter Overviews*

Chapter 1: This chapter provides details of Mortenson’s failed attempt to climb K2 in 1993. It includes vivid description of the brutal yet beautiful landscape.

Chapter 2: This chapter describes Mortenson’s wandering into the village of Korphe and his meeting with the village leader, Hajii Ali.

Chapter 3: This chapter provides more details about poverty in Korphe. While in the village, Mortenson witnesses the many needs of the people—a school and a bridge, for instance (villagers used a cable car to carry people and goods precariously across a deep ravine). He also was able to use his training as a trauma nurse to help a number of the villagers by providing splints, antibiotic ointment, painkillers, etc.  This chapter also introduces the unique economic and political difficulties faced in remote areas of Pakistan. Due to geographical distance from Islamabad, the people of remote areas such as Korphe were largely not protected by the country’s military and received less money from the country’s government. This situation allowed extremists to gain influence in the area.

Chapter 4: In this chapter, background details about Mortenson (previous education, romances, etc.) are provided.  The chapter centers on the items in a storage unit where Mortenson has kept materials related to climbing.

Chapter 5: This chapter details Mortenson’s attempt to raise money for the school in Korphe. While living in his car, Mortenson wrote 580 letters in search of funding, all with minimal results. On the advice of a fellow climber, he called Dr. Jean Hoerni--a Swiss-born physicist who made a fortune in the semiconductor industry--who sent him $12,000 to build the school in Korphe.  That $12,000 covered the cost of the school building itself, but Mortenson’s subsistence money came from him selling his climbing gear and his car.

Chapter 6: This chapter discusses Mortenson’s return to Pakistan with the money, literally in hand, to buy supplies and build the school. Many details are provided about the difficulties of negotiating the unspoken rules of the local economy (what is said and not said, what is proper or not proper, how bargaining works, etc.). Mortenson tries to gain trust of local people by learning how to dress as they do (the chapter provides details about the names, appearances and ways of wearing Pakistani garments) and to pray in the manner of a Muslim.

Chapter 7: The seventh chapter provides an account of Mortenson’s traveling through the steep, narrow, and rocky roadways of northern Pakistan in a WWII-era Bedford truck loaded with building supplies. A brief history of the main thoroughfare-- the Karakoram Highway--is provided. There are also details about the popularity of Bollywood and cricket in the country (photos of Bollywood and cricket stars adorn the Pakistani commercial vehicles Mortenson encounters during the trip). We also read about a group of militants blocking a bridge on the highway until they are given money by the Pakistani army.

Chapter 8:  This chapter describes the efforts of various men who to get Mortenson to build a school in their villages rather than in Korphe. These men take Mortenson to competing feasts in his honor in an attempt to get his favor and the school supplies. Moretenson, while wishing to help all of the villages, declines these requests and is finally able to get the supplies to Korphe. Once outside of Korphe, he realizes that a bridge will need to be built in order to get the supplies across the deep gorge between the village and the road. 

Chapter 9: In this chapter, Mortenson returns to the US to raise money for the bridge. We also learn in this chapter of the end of his serious relationship with a long-time girlfriend who is not able to withstand the long distance relationship.

Chapter 10: As the title of this chapter (“Building Bridges”) suggests, this is the story of how the bridge was designed and constructed. The chapter is also about building cultural bridges as Mortenson learns about courtship practices and gender roles in Korphe during his stay with the head family.

Chapter 11: This chapter chronicles Mortenson’s return to the US to raise more money to pay the people who will build the school. While back in the states he meets his wife, Tara, at a fundraising dinner at which Sir Edmund Hillary was speaking. The chapter tells of their six-day courtship and marriage.

Chapter 12: Mortenson, in this chapter, discovers that some of his building supplies have been taken from a storage area. He then is disappointed to discover that the Korphe villagers have not completed  the preparatory work he had expected. “I thank all merciful Allah for all you [Mortenson] have done. But the people of Korphe have been here without a school for siz hundred years…What is one winter more?” Haji Ali, the village leader, explains. Through this event, Mortenson realizes that patience is one of the most important things for this culture. He then returns home to the US and becomes the Director of the Central Asia Institution, a foundation endowed by his original donor, Jean Hoerni. Mortenson’s wife becomes pregnant. He heads back to Pakistan with the promise to return in time for the baby’s birth. While in Pakistan this time, Mortenson is confronted by a local religious leader who accuses him of building a school to poison the minds of Muslim children. While the villagers of Korphe are able to convince this particular leader that such is not their purpose, this conflict hints at the struggles to come.  We also learn in this chapter that Haji Ali, the wise and kind leader of Korphe, cannot read and that this inability puts him, to some degree, at the mercy of local religious leaders who can.

Chapter 13: With the near-completion of the school in  Korphe school, Mortenson goes to the western town of Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to seek out additional areas to build schools through the Central Asia Institute. In Peshawar, he sees first hand the frightening life of Pakistani villagers under the harsh threat of the Taliban.  He see war-wounded children and learns for the first time of Osama bin Laden and his connection to Afghanistan‘s political and military history. Mortenson also witnesses the restricted life of Muslim women in this area. On his way to the village of Lahda in northwestern Pakistan, he is taken hostage and held for several days by a group of militants. The only reading materials the captors give Mortenson are old Time magazine stories about American hostages (from the late 1970s). After several days, Mortenson is taken to watch a soccer match then released.

Chapter 14: Chapter 14 details how Mortenson returns home for the birth of his daughter. He then goes back to Pakistan to ensure completion of the Korphe school  so that he can provide a photo of the finished school to Hoerni, who is dying of cancer. While in Korphe, Mortenson is allowed to treat a woman who is in shock after childbirth (this is a significant cultural moment for both Moretnson and the villagers).  The school is completed, and Mortenson returns to Hoerni with the photo. Hoerni wills one million dollars to the Central Asia Institute.

Chapter 15: A religious leader files a fatwa against Mortenson, creating a serious and potentially dangerous legal issue. Mortenson meets with his supporters in Pakistan to determine how to respond.  While in Pakistan, Mortenson builds several more schools and women’s centers (at the request of local women who desire a place to go to sew and socialize). He also secures books for the Korphe school through Jean Hoerni’s wife, who is a librarian, and constructs a “porter’s school” in Korphe to train local men to be guides on hiking expeditions. This will be a way for the villagers to earn additional money.  Mortenson has brought his wife and children along on this trip and, through their presence, he learns more about the rules governing gender relations in the country. A man is caught staring at Mortenson’s wife while she breastfeeds and is beaten harshly.

Chapter 16: Thanks to the work of Mortenson’s supporters, we learn in this chapter, the fatwa is rescinded. Mortenson uses CAI funds to build fresh water systems in a number of villages and constructs several more schools, including a school for refugees who have relocated in Pakistan after fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Chapter 17: This chapter describes Mortenson’s ongoing efforts to build schools and the overwhelming support local villagers, even some members of the Taliban, give for those schools. Mortenson also continue work to bring fresh water to remote villages to improve health situations.

Chapter 18: Mortenson gets a $20,000 check from a US businessman, but then runs into trouble raising money from other sources, including eccentric wealthy donors who “play with his head,” telling him that money is forthcoming but never actually supply it. This chapter on the negotiations of fundraising serves as an interesting comparison/contrast to the chapter in which Mortenson is negotiating for the building supplies in Pakistan. We also learn in this chapter that the Oregonian is the first major US newspaper to cover Mortenson’s story and that his wife is pregnant with their second child. The chapter also briefly discusses Mortenson’s meeting with Mother Theresa and the inspiration he drew from her work.

Chapter 19: In this chapter, Mortenson returns to Pakistan to find the Taliban is growing in power and setting up more madrassas to train young boys in militant Islam. He receives many requests from different villages for more schools funded by the CAI. While on this trip, the purpose of which is to investigate more possible school locations, Mortenson learns that the Twin Towers have been attacked and describes the dismay that many Muslims feel at this event.

Chapter 20: Mortenson speaks with various media outlets about the political and cultural situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When the American Embassy in Islamabad refuses to renew his passport, he travels to Nepal to ask the Consulate there for help. In Katmandu, he is interrogated.  He is asked if the parents of any of the children in any of his schools are terrorists, and he is asked if he knows where Osama bin Laden is. Following the interrogation, Mortenson is issued a one-year, temporary passport. He returns home to the US to face some hate mail for his work in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Chapter 21-23: Mortenson meets US Representative Mary Bono and becomes more involved in providing information to US lawmakers about Pakistan and Afghanistan. An article about him appears in Parade magazine, and he receives an outpouring of financial support from the American people.  With the additional support, Mortenson can now afford to pay staff and to open an office outside of his home (he had been working out of his basement). He also travels deep into Afghanistan in an attempt to build schools in the dangerous Wakhan Corridor. On the way there, his party must navigate minefields and gun battles among warring factions. Chapter 23, in particular, reads almost like an action/suspense movie. Mortenson’s party eventually reaches the Wakhan area to find that the leader of the area, Sadhar Khan, is fully supportive of this new chapter in Mortenson’s school-building efforts.

*These overviews are not intended to be comprehensive. They are meant to provide a broad-stroke overview of when things are discussed in the book.