Greg Mortenson

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan n Humanitarian Greg Mortenson’s staff and supporters showered him with rose petals, hung garlands of fresh flowers around his neck and cheered in Urdu Monday night.

The cheerful celebration came hours after Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari presented the 51-year-old Bozemanite with the Sitarai-i-Pakistan medal, or Star of Pakistan, in a formal midday ceremony here in the nation’s capital.

“This award is an honor, a big honor, not only for Greg but for Greg’s family and for all of Central Asia Institute – from America to Pakistan and Afghanistan,” said Sarfraz Khan, CAI’s operations manager.

Mortenson founded Central Asia Institute in the mid-1990s to support his efforts to build schools and promote education, especially for girls, in neglected and isolated mountain villages in Pakistan. His work has since expanded to Afghanistan and now includes nearly 80 schools benefiting more than 33,000 students.

“The Sitara award is a great achievement because there are so many much bigger (non-governmental organizations) and nobody else has received this award,” project manager Saidullah Baig said Monday night.

Mortenson n wearing a tailored and pressed black shairwani, or tunic, in place of the baggy shalwar kameez and well-worn vest he typically wears while in Pakistan n was characteristically humble about the honor.

“This comes from the people of Pakistan,” Mortenson, 51, said in a rare quiet moment Monday night. “I realize I have to uphold myself to the highest standards. But I have always thought of myself as a person trying to do a little good in a little corner of the world. And I still feel like I am the same shy, reserved person with a big heart as I was when I started.”

But his work has touched countless people since he began building schools in the western Himalayas after a failed attempt in 1993 to climb K2, the world’s second-highest mountain on the border of Pakistan and China. A decade later, Mortenson coauthored a book entitled “Three Cups of Tea,” which has sold more than 2 million copies and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 109 weeks.

One of Mortenson’s biggest fans is Pakistan Army Col. Tariq Javed, a technical liaison officer and assistant military attaché at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C. He said Monday that he believes Mortenson’s work helps to “create respect for the Western world in Pakistan, not with words, but with deeds.”

“I believe what Greg is doing for my countrymen and women is the correct approach to countering terrorism in the region,” Javed said. “The only solution to this menace lies in promoting education. He is truly the Sir Syed Ahmed Khan of the Northern Areas of Pakistan.”

The venerated “Sir Syed” was the 19th century pioneer of modern education for Muslims in what was then pre-Pakistan India. The comparison with Mortenson was also made at the official ceremony.

“He is an American who played an extraordinary role in promoting education” in Pakistan, a state official said in introducing him to the nearly 500 military, diplomatic and political leaders seated beneath chandeliers in a two-story ballroom in the president’s house. “He motivated the people … to boost education as a tool for combating poverty.”

Mortenson has built schools, published workbooks and grammar books in local languages, built libraries and playgrounds and initiated women’s development projects, clean drinking-water projects and scholarship programs, the announcer said.

“In view of his relentless efforts for the cause of education, he has been rightly described as the Sir Syed of the Northern Areas of Pakistan,” the announcer said.

The Sitara-i-Pakistan award was one of nearly 80 presidential awards given to officers and soldiers in the Pakistan Army, Air Force and Navy, artists, scientists and policemen. Several widows and mothers whose husbands and sons had died in service to the country also received awards.

Late Monday night, after the celebrations had ended, Mortenson said those women had particularly inspired him.

“Today what struck me were those few-dozen widows whose husbands had been killed in Swat and Bajaur valleys who received medals for shaheeds (martyrs),” he said. “Many of them were really young, in their late teens and early 20s. And there were some mothers of soldiers, too.

“They very bravely went up there to collect the medals and coming back down, they were trying to hold back tears. They were being very courageous, but I was thinking, ‘What does war really do?’ I was glad that they were being acknowledged or honored, and I was touched by their quiet acceptance of the medals.

“But I was thinking they are going to go back to their homes and they will have the medals, but that will never be the same as a son or a husband to kiss and laugh and hold. What the widows and the mothers of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan tell me is that they want to honor their sacrifice with education and make that sacrifice mean something in the long run.”

(c) Bozeman Daily Chronicle 2009

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