Audio Book Description:
Over the past sixteen years, Greg Mortenson, through his nonprofit CentralAsia Institute (CAI), has worked to promotepeace through education byestablishing more than 130 schools, mostof them for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan andAfghanistan. The story of how this remarkable humanitariancampaign began was told in his bestselling 2006 book, Three Cups Of Tea. Mortenson`s philosophies about building relationships, empoweringcommunities, and educating girls have struck a powerful chord. Hundreds of communities anduniversities, as well asseveralbranches of the U.S. military,have used Three Cups Of Tea as a common read. Just as Three Cups Of Tea began with a promise--to build a school in Korphe,Pakistan--so too doesMortenson`s new book. In 1999, Kirghiz horsemen from Afghanistan`s Wakhan Corridor rode into Pakistan and secured a promise from Mortenson to constructa school in an isolated pocket of the Pamir Mountains known as Bozai Gumbaz. Mortenson couldnot build that school before constructing many others, andthat is the story he tells in this dramatic new book. Picking up where Three Cups Of Tea left off in late 2003,STONES INTO SCHOOLS traces the CAI`sefforts to work in a whole new country, the secluded northeast corner of Afghanistan. Mortenson describes how he and his intrepid manager, SarfrazKhan, barnstormed around Badakshan Province and the WakhanCorridor, movingfor weeks without sleep, to establish the first schools there. Those effortswere diverted in October 2005 when a devastating earthquake hit the Azad Kashmir region of Pakistan. Under Sarfraz`s watch the CAI helped withrelief efforts by setting up temporary tent schools and eventually several earthquakeproofschools. The action thenreturnsto Afghanistan in 2007, as theCAI launches schools in the heart of Taliban country and as Mortenson helps the U.S. military formulate new strategic plans in the region. STONESINTO SCHOOLS brings to life both the heroic efforts of the CAI`s fixers on the ground--renegade men of unrecognizedand untapped talent who becamegalvanized by the importance ofgirls` education--and the triumphs of the young women whoare now graduating from the schools. Their stories are ones youwill not soon forget.
