The Importance Of Taking Time For Tea

"Here (in Pakistan and Afghanistan), we drink three cups of tea to do business; the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die." 

-Haji Ali

--Three Cups of Tea

Yes, I finished the book this evening. I liked it even better than Reading Lolita in Tehran, I suppose, because it dealt with the importance of educating children in rural areas. Although I really did enjoy reading about women who fought for their right to read banned Western Lit too! 

Jhaniel, I know we talked a little about this book on the phone on Sunday, but I think it's a must for you to read. Maybe not your typical read, but it's good. Check your library- I'm almost certain they would have it.

There was so much I wanted to quote from the book, but it would have taken me ages to retype, and there really was no good beginnings or endings unless I wanted to quote pages and pages at one time, so I'll leave you with just one. It's not very important to the story, but it made me smile. (And is short!) 

"The song floated up out of his childhood as it so often did, keeping pace with his steps. "Yesu ni refiki Yangu, Ah kayee Mbinguni" ("What a friend we have in Jesus, He lives in Heaven"), he sang in Swahili, the language they had used in the plain church building, with its distant view of Klilmanjaro, at services every Sunday. The tune was too ingrained for Mortenson to consider the novelty of this moment-an American, lost in Pakistan, singing a German hymn in Swahili."

--Three Cups of Tea

*This is in the very beginning, when he was wandering, half-frozen, lost on the slopes of K-2 in the Karakoram of Pakistan.*