Climber’s wrong turn lifts poor By Lee Benson Deseret Morning News The irony that underlies the improbable height-scaling life of Greg Mortenson is that it didn’t get started until he made a wrong turn after a big failure. He was exhausted, emaciated and emotionally spent in the summer of 1993 as he staggered out of the shadow of K2, the world’s second tallest mountain, its magnificence taunting him in his retreat. After 78 days on the mountain, he had come within 600 feet of the top before fate and the elements conspired to send him and his dreams crashing back down the hill. Making it all the worse was the unfulfilled tribute to his sister, Christa, an epilepsy sufferer who had died at the age of 23 from a massive seizure the year previous. “At the time I was a dirtbag climber and I picked a big bad mountain to climb to honor my sister,” remembered Greg. “I spent a year to get ready and then I didn’t make it to the top for Christa.” All alone and mired in disappointment, when Mortenson came to a fork in the trail, he went the wrong way. “I was supposed to go right at a yak bridge,” he said, “and I took a left.” And as Frost would say, that made all the difference. The wrong turn led Mortenson to the small Pakistani village of Korphe, where the villagers nurtured him back to health. If the village hadn’t been there, Mortenson might not have made it. Five people, all of whom had summited, died that summer while descending K2. As he rested, he watched the children of Korphe go to school, such as it was. “I noticed 84 children — 79 boys, five girls — sitting in the dirt doing their school lessons,” said Greg. “They shared eight slate boards among them; most of them wrote with sticks in the sand.” Overwhelmed by both the village’s hospitality and its poverty, Mortenson vowed that he would return and build a school. The promise was genuine but also rash, given the status at the time of the 34-year-old dirtbag climber’s assets, which consisted of a 1978 Buick and his climbing gear. Back home in San Francisco, he started writing letters seeking contributions. He wrote 580 of them to anyone and everyone he could think of who might help, from Oprah to Sylvester Stallone. He got one response — from Tom Brokaw, the NBC newscaster, who sent him $100. He sold the Buick and his climbing gear to augment Brokaw’s $100, but it wasn’t until he went to Westside Elementary School in River Falls, Wis., where his mother was the principal, that the tide turned. Appropriately enough, it was turned by schoolkids. “After I talked to the kids about what I was trying to do,” said Greg, “a fourth-grader named Jeffrey said he had a piggy bank at home and he’d like to help.” Other kids followed with more pennies — 62,340 of them to be exact. “Without those pennies,” said Greg, “we wouldn’t be here.” Here is 55 schools that have been built in remote locations in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan over the past 13 years, with more to come. The school in Korphe turned out to be just the beginning of a life’s work to educate children in an area that, despite its isolation, has become a focal point for the world condition. The same place that spawned Greg Mortenson’s philanthropy spawned the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the 9/11 terrorist attack on America. Building schools there has meant more than supplying bricks and dodging debt. Mortenson has been shot at, had his life threatened and been kidnapped. Still, he has endured, emboldened by his cause. “Education is the key to peace,” he said. “When a young (Muslim) man goes on jihad — and a jihad could be a noble quest such as getting a good job or a college degree — he has to get permission from his mother. If he doesn’t get that permission, it’s very shameful. If a mother is educated, she’s much less likely to approve of her son going into terrorism as jihad. The fruitful recruiting grounds for terrorists are the illiterate, poverty-stricken areas.” Under the direction of Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute, numerous schools have been established — or are projected — in areas that directly compete with Islamic extremism for the hearts and minds of the Afghan and Pakistani young. What especially lightens Mortenson’s step is seeing girls heading off to school. “Sometimes it takes years,” he said, “but when I see that first girl walking toward school it’s like man’s first step on the moon. That’s the first step, but there’s a lot behind it.” You can hear Mortenson talk about his experiences tonight at 7 p.m. at the Salt Lake Library as he discusses his new book, “Three Cups of Tea,” which was released March 6 and is already No. 14 on the New York Times best-seller list. That might seem like a rapid climb for a book, but not after you’ve met the author.
Lee Benson’s column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
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