What happened next? What's happening now?

I read Three Cups of Tea a few months ago and right away I wanted to know “What happened next?” and “What’s happening now?” Almost all the events in the book took place more than five years ago.

The Central Asia Institute site (www.ikat.org) is the best resource I’ve found. Three Cups tells the story of CAI’s start in 1996. The focus today remains schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the Institute has smaller projects in Krygyzstan and Mongolia.

Check out the videos https://www.ikat.org/media-and-press/videos/ for a small glimpse of the schools, students and workers. The publication called Journey of Hope linked from the CAI front page www.ikat.org is a compilation of a series of articles published in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle in the fall of 2007. Two newspaper staff members joined Greg Mortenson on a trip in July of last year. The photographs alone make this document worth viewing. The text tells of several schools built to replace those destroyed in 2007 northern Pakistan / Kashmir earthquake, and of one school in Afghanistan that was attacked by the Taliban, who were fought off by a local militia. Journey of Hope II is due to be published in November and should provide the latest news.

Journey of Hope counts 64 schools by the end of 2007 and the CAI site (https://www.ikat.org/projects/regional-map/) lists 93 projects – 69 in Pakistan and 24 in Afghanistan.

You won’t find too much additional information at the official Greg Mortenson site www.gregmortenson.com. But Dr. Greg’s blog (http://gregmortenson.blogspot.com/) is more up to date and it lists several books that he has read or recommends.

It’s somehow refreshing to find that there isn’t a detailed page or site for every school built in Pakistan. It says something about CAI’s emphasis. With no letup in the popularity of Three Cups of Tea, the international versions, the upcoming publications of versions for young adults and kids, and the brutal Greg Mortenson travel and speaking schedule, I hope CAI can grow in a way that balances the outpouring of interest with the continuing core mission.

-- Eric Anderson