Yes, I was detained for eight days in Waziristan in 1996. It was against my will, and my passport and money were taken from me. I was not mistreated or harmed, but I was also not allowed to leave.

When ordinary human beings perform extraordinary acts of generosity, endurance or compassion, we are all made richer by their example. Like the rivers that flow out of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, the inspiration they generate washes down to the rest of us. It waters everyone's fields.

We all sat there laughing and sipping tea peacefully, an infidel and representatives from three warring sects of Islam. And I thought if we can get along this well, we can accomplish anything. The British policy was ‘divide and conquer.’ But I say ‘unite and conquer.

Once I started the first school, I realized this is what my life is meant to be, is to promote education and help kids go to school and that's very clear.

It is my vision that we all will dedicate the next decade to achieve universal literacy and education for all children, especially for girls. More than 145 million of the world's children are deprived of education due to poverty, exploitation, slavery, gender discrimination, religious extremism, and corrupt governments. May Three Cups of Tea be a catalyst to bring the gift of literacy to each of those children who deserves a chance to go to school.

A wise man from my home once told me that these mountains have seen far too much suffering and killing, and that each rock and every boulder you see represents a mujahadeen who died fighting either the Russians or the Taliban. Then the man went on to say that now that the fighting is finished, it is time to build a new era of peace-and the first step in that process is to take up the stones and start turning them into schools.

If you teach a boy, you educate an individual; but if you teach a girl, you educate a community.