This is the tale of the most remote of all our projects, the flower in the farthest corner of the garden. No project has ever taken us so long or required such complex logistics as the little school we built next to the old Kirghiz burial grounds in the heart of the Afghan Pamir's Bam- I-Dunya, the ''Rooftop of the World.'' And next to Korphe itself, no school is closer to my heart, because, in ways both large and small, it was the most miraculous.

Greg Mortenson's new book, Stones into Schools, piercingly portrays both the physical and the psychic landscapes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Following up on Three Cups of Tea, his phenomenally successful first book, Mortenson focuses on the triumphs and setbacks in his subsequent efforts to build schools, especially girls' schools, in those rugged and ravaged regions. Infused on every page with an extraordinarily detailed and attuned appreciation of the nuances of life and land in these areas, Mortenson's account is a humble and inspiring triumph. Here we excerpt his Introduction to the book.

The book that you are holding in your hands picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003 and is partly a chronicle of how that process has continued to unfold in Pakistan during the last several years. Mostly, however, this new book traces our efforts to take our work into a whole new region, the remote northeastern corner of Afghanistan. It is a place that has proved even more challenging than Pakistan, and the saga of what my staff sometimes calls our ''Afghan adventure'' is framed loosely in the context of a single school.

 

If Three Cups of Tea lays out the narrative of our first school — the seed with which we started our planting — then this is the tale of the most remote of all our projects, the flower in the farthest corner of the garden. No project has ever taken us so long or required such complex logistics as the little school we built next to the old Kirghiz burial grounds in the heart of the Afghan Pamir's Bam- I-Dunya, the ''Rooftop of the World.'' And next to Korphe itself, no school is closer to my heart, because, in ways both large and small, it was the most miraculous. It arose out of a promise made in 1999 during an unlikely meeting that seemed lifted from the pages of a novel set in the thirteenth century, when the horsemen of Genghis Khan roamed the steppes of central Asia. And it drew us into the land of the Afghans, the only place that has ever threatened to usurp the affection and the love I harbor for Pakistan.

 

Part of what has made this school such a surprise is that so many other urgent projects were demanding our attention during the ten years it took to make good on our promise. The fact that we refused to let it go, even amid an earthquake in Kashmir in 2005 and other challenges that are recounted in the pages that follow, is a testament less to me than to the vision and the persistence of the Central Asia Institute's staff, and in particular to a group of twelve men whom I affectionately call the Dirty Dozen. If there are any heroes here, it is they; and for the most part this book is their story, because without these men, none of it would have happened. If the daughters who flock to our schools represent the fire we've lit, then these men are the fuel that sustains the flames. They have guided, pushed, and inspired me in more ways than I can recount, and their commitment and sacrifices run so deep that whatever we achieve will ultimately belong not to me but to them. Without their example and their resourcefulness, I would still be nothing more than a dirt bag mountaineer subsisting on ramen noodles and living in the back of his car.

 

As you'll see, the story of the little gem of a school that we built in the most remote corner of central Asia is a roundabout tale — a thread that like the twisting roads we ply in our battered Land Cruiser through the passes of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush can sometimes get lost amid the unexpected detours and the landslide of complications that cascade down upon anyone who ventures into that harsh and wondrous part of the world. But these digressions and dead ends may also provide something that readers of Three Cups of Tea have been requesting from me for years. What they've wanted, more than anything else, is a window into the day-to-day mechanics and rhythms of the Central Asia Institute. A sense of what it feels like to lay the physical and emotional foundation for girls' education, book by book and brick by brick, in the middle of Taliban country. If nothing else, this new work should fulfill that request.

 

I should also note that the first part of this story will cover some ground that may already be familiar to readers of Three Cups of Tea. I thought this was necessary and important because several of these early events began to shape themselves into a meaningful pattern only over time. Back when they took place, I did not understand the full significance of these experiences and lessons they imparted, nor did I realize where they fit into the larger story that it is my privilege to tell here.

 

In short, it was only after having moved forward a considerable distance that I was fully able to comprehend where we had been — a phenomenon that would not have surprised Haji Ali, who, to my sadness, passed away in 2001. Haji Ali never learned to read or write, and over the course of seven decades he left his home village only once, to perform a pilgrimage to Mecca. Nevertheless, he understood that hope resides in the future, while perspective and wisdom are almost always found by looking to the past.

 

Sometimes, it seems like everything I've ever learned traces back to that irascible old man I first met in the barley fields of Korphe.

 

— Greg Mortenson, Baharak, Afghanistan, August 2009