Want to be more like Angelina Jolie, but you don’t have enough money to adopt needy orphans, Brad Pitt won’t return your calls and no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to get your lips big enough? There’s still one option available to you thanks to some recent photos taken on the set of Jolie’s latest movie Salt.
In the photos Angelina can be seen toting a hardcover copy of Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson. The book is a follow-up to Mortensen’s debut Three Cups of Tea and chronicles the author’s failed attempt to climb K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain located on the border of China and Pakistan.
After his failed attempt to reach the K2 summit, Mortensen was in poor physical health and recuperated for 7 weeks in the care of the villagers of Korphe in Pakistan. In return for their care-taking, he promised to build them a school. Those efforts would eventually lead to the formation of the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed well over 50 schools in impoverished areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mortensen, and his co-author David Oliver Relin, use his experiences to promote the notion that the US efforts to stabilize those troubled regions of the Middle East would greatly benefit by focusing on educating the poor and underprivileged citizens of the region, especially the female population.
The title comes from a Baltistan proverb that says, “The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger,” a villager tells Greg Mortenson. “The second time, you are an honored guest. The third time you become family.”
Stones Into Schools picks up where Thre Cups of Tea left off, further chronicling Mortensen’s and the Central Asia Institute’s efforts to promote peace through education and literacy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including his negotiations with Islamic clerics, surviving shootouts between feuding landlords and his eight-day armed abduction by the Taliban.
Here are a couple videos during which Mortensen answers questions about Stones Into Schools and the efforts of the Central Asia Institute:
Sounds right up Angelina Jolie’s alley! So, if you want to be more like Angelina by becoming more aware of folks desperately trying to make the world a better place for those less fortunate, then you better get to reading!
Angelina struck a lot of poses for photographers with book in hand. Click thumbnails for larger images in the gallery:
(All literary references aside, Angelina looks great! She’s smiling big and sporting a mighty fine jet black $25 wig. I have no idea why her thumb and forefinger are bloody and any attempt at a joke would almost certainly get me into trouble, so I will just leave that alone.)
Here’s a parting shot of the always-lovely Angelina:
Photos: AAR/Fame Pictures and CWNY/Fame Pictures
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