Three Cups of Tea

I finished Three Cups of Tea a few days ago and thought I should write about it before I completely forget. I was trying to recommend books to a friend last night and, even if I knew I had read the books not that long ago, I couldn't remember for the life of me how the story ended. I really have problems with memory lately (I've posted about this before).

So, Three Cups of Tea. This book was lent to me by my good friend who is a high school teacher. It tells the story of a climber in his thirties who sets out to climb K2, near Mount Everest, fails, and then finds himself in a remote village in Pakistan where the children are teaching themselves, writing in the sand, outside, in the elements, because they have no teacher and no school. He vows to come back and build them a school.

The man didn't really know what he wanted to do with his life (even if he had a good job as a nurse) and found his calling with this project to build a school. He manages to raise money and build that school, fostering life-long relationships with that community, and then goes on to build school after school for remote villages in Pakistan (and later Afghanistan as well).

The book struck a chord with me not because of Greg's work, but because of his lifestyle: his family consists of a husband with a passion who leaves for weeks (sometimes months) at a time, and a wife who supports him in this passion. They raise two children together and seem to have a happy life. Which just goes to show that suburbia, with both parents working 9-to-5 jobs, isn't the only way to live a happy life. I don't really want that to happen to us - a family member we know moved to the suburbs after getting married and is now expecting a first child. We jokingly said that's what would happen to us too. But I don't think it has to.

Another aside in this book is the way Greg met his wife: chance meeting at a fundraising gala, they hit it off right away, talk all night, and the next morning decide to spend the rest of their lives together. They're that sure they've found the right match. They get married four days later, and as of the book's printing, were still married 15 years later.

Who says you have to be conventional?