Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Mortensen's Changing Perspective

In chapter 7 of Three Cups of Tea, the authors Mortensen and Relin recount the beginning of Greg Mortensen’s trip back to Korphe with his school supplies. Seated in the back of a truck atop all of his precious supplies, Mortensen and his truck driver, Mohammed, and two assistants, began the treacherous drive along the Karakoram Highway. “Though this lunar rockscape in the western Karakoram has to be one of the most forbidding on Earth,” the authors state on page 80, “Mortenson felt he had come home. The dusty murk along the depths of the gorge and the high-altitude sun brushing the tips of these granite towers felt more like his natural habitat than the pastel stucco bungalows of Berkeley.”

I found this quote meaningful because it made note of the change Mortensen had undergone since his attempt to climb K2. It shows his growing attachment to this “new world” and how he relates much better to it than to the hustle and bustle of America. It is an expansion of the earlier theme in this book that started when Mortensen realized he wasn’t being treated as an outsider in Pakistan. I feel his growing kinship with these people is an important step toward being able to help them and even learn from them in the process.

4 comments:

  1. I had a similar interpretation to this section of the book. I thought it was interesting how he said it was the first time since Tanzania that he wasn't lonely. I thought he would've adapted well to the American lifestyle because of how driven he was but I guess not.

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  2. I agree! This was something that Mortenson experienced that was a feeling he had not had in a long time. He had not felt at home for a long time and this reminded him of the places and people associated with those places who are important to him.

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  3. I agree with that as well! Although I did not pick up on it until I read your post. I see how in the book he describes America as being busy and congested all the time. He always has bad things to say about America but while he is in the other country it seems to me that he feels that he had finally come home. It is very obvious by the way he always speaks so highly of such a poverty stricken place.

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  4. I too feel that Greg felt more at home because of his bond with these people and how they started to treat him like a family member rather than just another American or foreigner.

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