Greg Mortenson Interview (page: 4 / 6) Best-Selling Author, Three Cups of Tea	Print Interview

You mentioned your childhood in Africa. Can you tell us about that?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Greg Mortenson: I went to East Africa, Tanzania, when I was three months... six months old in 1958. We grew up on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My father started a hospital and my mother started a school. It was an incredible place to grow up. It was post-colonial, it was a new democracy, the game parks were just starting to come into being. I got to go to school with children from two dozen different countries. My friends were Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs. I call it a paradise. I think it was the most incredible place to grow up. Also, it didn't have television, we didn't have a phone, no library. So my window to the world, like Google or the Internet today, was the Encyclopedia Britannica and National Geographic magazine. And I would pore over the Encyclopedia Britannica in my bed at night with a little flashlight. And that was kind of how I got to learn about the outside world. When my father got the hospital, Kilimanjaro Medical Center, built in '72, we came back to the States. I was 15. My first day in high school, St. Paul, Minnesota, I got beat up. Because the kids... I said, "I'm an African." And there was some confusion about that. But you know, it's the first time in my life that I learned what the word "racism" meant. It was the first time I learned about prejudice, and it wasn't in Africa, it was here in America. And four days after high school -- we were completely broke -- so I joined the U.S. Army, not only to serve my country, but to get the GI Bill. It was actually in the Army where I met men and women from all across America and I realized that this is a great country, not because of our commonality, but because of our great diversity. So I was very fortunate to grow up in a very cosmopolitan kind of global community in Africa.

What kind of student were you?

Greg Mortenson: School was hard for me. I had to work hard. I did fairly well. One thing that I really enjoyed was learning other languages as a child. My father was also very gifted in languages. He had a hard time in school. He was an athlete. He worked his way through college, but it was mainly through sports. I struggled with school, but I also worked very hard at it. I can empathize with people who move to this country. Coming back to the States was actually a very difficult transition, not so much academically, but socially, and adapting to a culture of such abundance and wealth. The opportunities in this country are kind of overwhelming in some ways.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. One of my childhood heroes was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who was a medical missionary in the Congo. And he wrote about the sacred. He very much believed in that all life is sacred, plants, animals, all beings are sacred. And also, Mother Theresa was somebody who I really admired. And later on, as I grew older, President Julius Nyerere, who was a very visionary leader of Tanzania. He was a very bold man who was not afraid to take risks. And he was a very big advocate of education. In Africa, where I grew up, I learned a proverb as a child. It says, "If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community." And that somewhat sets the backdrop for all the work I've been doing. But I learned as a child how important it is that girls are also given the opportunity to have an education.

What was your family doing in Africa? Were they missionaries?

Greg Mortenson: Yeah. They're described as missionaries. Basically, they were involved in humanitarian efforts to build a hospital, and my mother started schools.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. From my early childhood, I grew up watching my parents live a life of service. And to me, I think it's a noble calling, that some people can dedicate their lives to serving humanity or helping other people. There's been a recent trend, more in the '80s and '90s, to think more about our own selves and to aspire to become prosperous. But what's exciting though, that's happened after 9/11, is that I've read now that there's more interest in people, when they graduate, to go out and do something good to change the world, and really make a difference, whether it's education or business or health care. It's very inspiring.

Were you a big reader? Did you have favorite subjects in school?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Greg Mortenson: Since my father used to read bedtime stories to me every night -- just as I do when I'm home with my children -- I'm a voracious reader. I love books. I didn't have movies or TV to distract me as a child, so books were really my window to the world, and some books in particular I remember. One is called Territorial Imperative, but it talks about the relationships of animals to each other. That kind of sparked my interest in science. I'm kind of a dull reader. I like non-fiction, and I rarely read a fiction book. If I had more time, I would. But I love to learn and explore, when I hear about new things, whether it's history or music or the arts or anthropology or global geopolitical developments. I always like to delve into books. Because I find a lot of wisdom in gleaning from what other people think and deduce from what's going on in the world.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Greg Mortenson: I have three sisters, and I'm the oldest. We're a very close family. Growing up in Africa, we had a lot of freedom. I often felt as if I needed more boundary or structure put around my life, but my parents pretty much let us do what we wanted. But if we goofed up or we made mistakes, then we were obviously responsible. That sense of responsibility but also autonomy, and that those two go hand-in-hand, was something that I really respect about my parents. As a parent now, it's always a fine balance deciding how much structure, rules or regulations you want to put around your children, how much autonomy to give them. Also, my father was significant in sparking a desire for curiosity. He always would try and get us to think about how things work or why things happen. We got to meet a lot of leaders in Tanzania and East Africa at a very young age, and talk to them about political problems and social problems and the demographic problem about exploding populations. So even as a child, I learned about the relationship of education to reduction of population growth. So I guess I'm really curious. That can be both a blessing and a curse, because sometimes you're so busy wanting to learn so many things. You need sometimes to focus on one thing.

When was your sister Christa born?

Greg Mortenson: My youngest sister was Christa Eliana. Eliana means "Gift of God" in the Chagga language of Africa. She was born in '69.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Christa was a very special sister, but it was because she suffered from severe epilepsy. When she was three years old, she got a smallpox vaccine which was a botched batch of vaccines. So she subsequently had meningitis which triggered off high fever. So she had very severe epilepsy nearly all her life. And she had to take a lot of medication, so it really suppressed her, but she never once complained. She was always very inspiring. She loved to sing. From the time she was three or four years old, she would sing in the church choir. She was a very joyful person. It would take her a long time the night before school to get ready. She would spend an hour. She would do her homework. She would pack her lunch. She would pack, get her clothes ready. I'm kind of the five-minute bed-to-bus kind of guy. I'm out the door and trying to get to school in five minutes. And it was really Christa who taught me about what it is to have courage and to be persistent. And little things for her -- there was such great joy -- she could master taking the public bus system. I remember her getting through some of her first books. We got her a checking account -- and the first check she wrote, she ordered pizza -- and how proud she was to just write a check for the pizza delivery guy. Those things were very meaningful to her.

We were very close with her. Every year I took time off from whatever I was doing, in grad school or working, to spend a month with my sister. I would take her to these wonderful places like Yosemite or Disney World or the Indy 500. Take her down to Padre Island or go to the ocean. Those are very special moments. I'm so happy that I did that. She saw the baseball movie Field of Dreams, which takes place in a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa. She was very inspired by it. So for her 23rd birthday, she was going to drive with my mother from Minneapolis down to Iowa to see the place where the baseball movie was filmed. She packed her bags.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. When my mother went to wake up Christa on July 24th, '92, Christa had died in her sleep from a massive seizure. And we were very devastated by it. For her funeral, many of her handicapped friends came, and the choir. It was just beautiful. We called it "The Joy of Going Home." And I decided at the time to climb K2, the world's second highest mountain, in honor of my sister Christa. I had a passion for mountaineering, and K2 is considered one of the more difficult, dangerous mountains to climb. Christa had an amber necklace that she had gotten in Africa, and I was going to put that necklace on top of K2 to honor her memory. So in '93, after a year of getting ready financially, physically, I went to K2, the world's second highest mountain. We spent 78 days on the mountain with a group of 12 international climbers. I didn't quite make it to the top. I worked really hard to get to the top because of Christa. We spent 78 days on the mountain. It's way past the normal window of opportunity. After about five or six weeks, your body starts deteriorating. So coming down the mountain, I kept putting my hand in my pocket and feeling that amber necklace. And I felt as if I had failed.

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