Stones Into School (32 page)

Then one evening at about 7:30 P.M., the phone rang in Bozeman. Tara was outside sitting on the front porch with our dog Tashi on her lap, Khyber was practicing the piano in the living room, and Amira was doing her math homework on the kitchen table.

“So?” I asked.

“No problem, sir--the school is finished.”

I glanced at the calendar on my desk that sits next to the photograph of Abdul, the orphan mechanic who had repaired our radiator hose on the way to Badakshan during one of our first trips into northern Afganistan. It was Monday, September 28.

Nearly a decade after the original promise had been made to Abdul Rashid Khan's horsemen, the covenant had finally been fulfilled.

I am told that in the heart of a vast, bowl-shaped valley deep inside the High Pamir where the sheep and the goats spend their summers grazing by the hundreds as far as the eye can see, there is a cold blue stream that meanders through emerald meadows until it spills into a small lake that carries the color of the sky, and that the surface of this lake and the surrounding grasslands shiver in unison beneath the movement of a wind that never stops blowing.

About two hundred yards from the edge of that lake, I am told that the ground rises gently and that on the south-facing slope of this incline, positioned at an angle that enables it to absorb as much sunshine as possible, there stands a four-room schoolhouse with an earthen floor and walls that are made of stone. The windows and door frame have been neatly painted in red, and if you stand in that doorway and stare into the distance, apparently you can see the tops of Pakistan's Hindu Kush to the south and China's Tien Shan range to the east, and if you walk around to the back of the school, the slopes of Tajikistan's Big Pamir range will dominate the horizon line to the north.

As I write these lines at the beginning of October, I am told that we will have no further news of Abdul Rashid Khan's condition--whether he lived or whether he died--until next spring, when the passes through the Hindu Kush reopen and when Sarfraz, who must now saddle up Kazil and return over the Irshad to a family in the Charpurson that has not seen him in nine months, can once again ride north to the Pamir. In the meantime--during the six months when the grasslands lie buried beneath the snow and all connection between the Kirghiz and the outside world has been severed--I am told that there will be roughly 200 children who will study at the school; and that the skills they will learn and the ideas to which they will be exposed may usher in changes--some good, others bad--which no one can foresee.

I'm told that Abdul Rashid Khan's people have accepted this uncertainty because they understand that the mind of a child is like the surface of the lake beside the school--and because they know that trying to contain the flames that are lit by literacy can be as futile as dropping a stone onto the surface of that lake and attempting to hold back the ripples with one's hands.

I'm told all of these things, mostly by Sarfraz, because I have never been able to complete the journey to Bozai Gumbaz and see this spot with my own eyes--although a part of me is hopeful that this may be possible someday. It would be enormously gratifying for me to finally stand in the center of the world, at the crux of the old Silk Road, and see how the flower that was planted in the furthest corner of our Afghan garden is faring. Among the range of emotional possibilities, I imagine that I might find myself bathed in a deeply satisfying sense of vindication and pride over what has been achieved. And that is also why another part of me suspects that it might actually be best if I never wind up getting to visit the place at all.

Like it or not, you see, my reasons for wanting to get a first-hand glimpse of that gem of a school in the High Pamir are probably not compatible with the role that I played in its completion. Because when it really comes down to it, aside from the service that I performed as a kind of one-man yak train that faithfully transported the donations of ordinary Americans to the far side of the world, what was accomplished at Bozai Gumbaz had nothing whatsoever to do with me. A fact that for a time, I must now admit, was not easy for me to accept.

When I first received the news that a helicopter mission to evacuate Abdul Rashid Khan and ferry the remaining building supplies to Bozai Gumbaz would not be going forward, I was so terribly dismayed at the way things had worked out. After all, I had tried so hard to reach the Kirghiz not once but twice, and on both occasions had failed. Now the military had done the same. And it was undoubtedly my disappointment over these events that blinded me to the rather inconvenient truth that as important as it may have been for us to try, it was even more important for us to fail.

Only a few days later did I begin to comprehend that what the Kirghiz needed was something infinitely more precious and indispensible than whatever assistance might have been rendered by me, the American military, or anyone else who was not part of their community. In place of our help, what they needed most was the sense of empowerment that comes from knowing that they had done it on their own.

And by God's grace, they had achieved that in spades.

Of the 131 central Asia Institute schools that are now scattered throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, not a single one of them is more remote or stands upon higher ground than the little four-room structure that the Wakhan Kirghiz, in partnership with Sarfraz Khan, erected on the grassy slope next to the shallow lake in the center of the Bam-I-Dunya at 12,480 feet. And aside from our very first project in Korphe, no school is closer to my heart than the one in Bozai Gumbaz, because none was carved so directly and so indisputably from the bedrock of human dignity and self-worth.

By succeeding at an endeavor in which a government, an army, and an NGO had failed, a band of impoverished nomads were able to construct, on the loftiest and most distant corner of their republic, something even greater than a school. They had raised a beacon of hope that called out not only to the Kirghiz themselves, but also to every village and town in Afghanistan where children yearn for education, and where fathers and mothers dream of building a school whose doors will open not only to their sons but also to their daughters. Including--and perhaps especially--those places that are surrounded by a ring of men with Kalashnikovs who help to sustain the grotesque lie that flinging battery acid into the face of a girl who longs to study arithmetic is somehow in keeping with the teachings of the Koran.

Thanks to what the Kirghiz managed to pull off, no citizen of Afghanistan can now look toward the High Pamir without pondering the legend of the ragged company of horsemen who rode over a chain of mountains in search of someone who could build them a school--and who winded up fulfilling the promise that they had been given by finishing that school with their own hands.

Today that legend is inscribed on the stones that were used to build the walls of the school, and as the water falls out of the sky and over those stones, the words of the legend are carried down from the mountains and into the fields and gardens and orchards of Afghanistan. And as the water and the words rush past, who can fail to turn to his neighbor and whisper, with humility and awe--if this is what the weakest, the least valued, the most neglected among us are capable of achieving, truly is there anything we cannot do?

Despite everything that has befallen us, do we not continue to hold the destiny of this shattered and magnificent nation, together with the future of all our children--girls and boys alike--in the palm of our hands?

And knowing all of this, is it not time to reclaim the things that have been taken from us?

The answer to those questions reveals the power that a legend can wield--and no one is haunted by this truth more profoundly or with greater anguish, perhaps, than those to whom the privileges of education and literacy have been denied.

If I could somehow have found a way to share the story of the tiny four-room schoolhouse that was nailed together upon the Roof of the World with my old mentor and friend, Haji Ali--a man who never learned to read or write, and who now lies in his grave under the apricot trees next to the barley fields of Korphe--I believe he would have nodded with approval.

He was a man who understood the virtue of small things.

T
oday, there are over 120 million school-aged children on this planet who remain illiterate and are deprived of education due to gender discrimination, poverty, exploitation, religious extremism, and corrupt governments.

It is my hope and prayer that over the next decade we will do everything in our power to achieve universal literacy and provide education for all these children, two-thirds of whom are girls. Nothing would make me more pleased than if Stones into Schools became a catalyst to reach this goal.

It would take another book of the same length as this one to properly acknowledge the thousands of good people who were a vital part of this phenomenal journey over the last sixteen years. I regret that I cannot acknowledge each one of you in this limited space.

Two dedicated writers put in literally thousands of hours to help me bring Stones into Schools into the world. Thank you, Mike Bryan, for your perseverance in working nearly every day for an entire year to research and lay the groundwork for this book. And thank you, Kevin Fedarko, for helping me find the most compelling way to construct this narrative, and for your marathon efforts over one hundred consecutive sixteen-hour days to bring this book to the finish line in time for a December 2009 publication. What is most impressive about both of you is your absolute lack of ego and your humility and grace as you passionately steered this story into print. Without your dogged efforts and brilliant skills, Stones into Schools never would have happened. I toast you with a cup of the rancid yak-butter salt tea that we shared in the Wakhan and Baltistan. Baf!

To the eight incredible women who make up the backbone of our U.S. Central Asia Institute home team--Jennifer Sipes (operations director), Laura Anderson, Michelle Laxson, Lynsie Gettel, Lindsay Glick, Christine Leitinger, Sadia Ashraf, and Genevieve Chabot--there are no adequate words to express my gratitude for your quiet, patient support in running a grassroots organization that has grown exponentially over the last three years. Thanks must also be given to Karin Ronnow, Joel Kaleva, Stefani Freese, CPA, Doug Chabot, Teru Kuwayama, Gretchen Breuner, Shannon Gannon, Billy Durney, Tauheed Ashraf, and the many others who keep CAI afloat when we need to reach out beyond our capacity.

Thank you to the authors who have been a big help and inspiration over the years. These include Khaled Hosseini (and his wife Roya), author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, who wrote the foreword to this book and is a fellow humanitarian helping refugees with his Khaled Hosseini Foundation (www.khaledhosseinifoundation.org); Jane Good-all, author of Reason for Hope, who is a dear friend and has and inspired millions of kids with her Roots & Shoots program (www.rootsandshoots.org); Thomas Friedman, the author and New York Times columnist who has taken a strong interest in our work; Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, authors of the recently published book Half the Sky, who share a belief that the empowerment of women can change the world; Fareed Zakaria, author of The Post-American World, who believes that education is the most powerful weapon for peace; Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban and Descent into Chaos, for sharing his encyclopedic knowledge from madrassas to mujahadeen; Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between, who helps the Afghan people with his Turquoise Mountain charity (www.turquoisemountain.org); Doug Stanton, author of Horse Soldiers; Nazif Shahrani, author of The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan; and Kathy Gannon, author of I Is for Infidel.

Thank you to the hundreds of public and private schools and universities that I have had the privilege of visiting over the last decade, many of which have adopted Three Cups of Tea as a first-year experience, honors program, or common read. Some of the most rewarding experiences of my life have been the enlightening exchanges I've had with the students from these institutions and their teachers. You are my real heroes!

To the dozens of young adults and children who have gone out on their own and started incredible nonprofits, you are an inspiration. These include Garret and Kyle Weiss (www.fundafield.com), Ashley Shuyler (www.africaid.org), Zach Bonner (www.littleredwagonfoundation.com), Anna Dodson (www.peruvianhearts.org), Cambridge (Mass.) elementary-school students (www.cambcamb.org), and Farmington (Mich.) and Danbury (Conn.) students (www.schoolinsudan.org).

Thank you also to the dedicated soldiers who serve our country, often at great risk and for extended periods of time away from their families. Over the last two years, it's been a priviledge to visit and speak at dozens of military bases and institutions and all the military academies. Thank you to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who took time out to inaugurate one of our girls' schools in Afghanistan--and to his wife, Deborah, who first put Three Cups of Tea in his hands.

A salute also to the following military commanders and their wives, for sharing a cup (and more) of tea, and for inspiring me: General David Petraeus, CENTCOM commander; Admiral Eric Olson, SOCOM commander; General Stanley McChrystal, ISAF/ U.S. commander in Afghanistan; Naval Vice Admiral Thomas Kilcline, Naval Aviation commander; Major General Mastin Robe-son, MARSOC commander; General James Conway, U.S. Marine Corps commandant; Colonel Stephen Davis, MARSOC deputy commander; Major Jason Nicholson, Foreign Area Officer--Africa; Captain Richard Butler, chief of staff, Naval Air Forces; Major General John Macdonald and Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, both commanders in Afghanistan; and all the officers, NCOs, and enlisted men and women who serve under their leadership.

I also want to especially thank Captain John Kirby at the Pentagon for his encouragement and last but not least, Colonel Christopher Kolenda, who had the foresight to forge ahead and first reach out to the elders of Afghanistan.