Relationship-Building

"So once again, an illiterate old Balti taught a Westerner how to best go about developing his 'backward' area," Mortenson says. "Ever since then, with all the schools I've built, I've remembered Haji Ali's advice and expanded slowly, from village to village and valley to valley, going where we'd already built relationships, instead of trying to hopscotch to places I had no contacts, like Waziristan." (Mortenson and Relin, Three Cups of Tea, 177)