The leading character in Greg Mortenson's story is a pencil.
Which is odd, what with all the high-altitude mountaineering and the armed kidnappings and the angry mullahs issuing fatwas.
But those other parts are complicated. The pencil is not. Or, at least, it shouldn't be.
The pencil costs only a penny.
It's a penny, however, that's hard to come by in northern Pakistan. That's where Mortenson found himself, back in 1993, exhausted, disoriented, hungry, after descending deadly pitches off the world's second highest mountain.
...
Greg Mortensen, author of "Three Cups of Tea," will be in the Flathead Valley this month with his story of building schools - and hope- in the war-torn homeland of the Taliban.
He visits schools in Columbia Falls, Whitefish, and Kalispell on May 22, before speaking to the public from 7:30 to 10:00 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church. That event, sponsored by the American Association of University Women, is capped at 500, and tickets are $30, available at Books West in Kalispell.
Mortenson will speak at Bigfork Schools May 23.
For a full schedule, drop by his Central Asia Institute at http://www.ikat.org.
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian
Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2008/05/18/territory/ter74.txt