THERE ARE MANY unorthodox aspects to Mortenson's operation, but perhaps the oddest is his preference for hiring inexperienced, underqualified, often uneducated locals from whom he somehow extracts amazing results.

Take Sarfraz, who manages CAI programs in the Wakhan and Azad Kashmir. "Without Greg, I would be nothing more than a guy who trades yak butter," he says. But Mortenson seems convinced he got the better end of the deal. "I've learned so much from this guy—the way he goes into the most rugged areas, unarmed and without fear, to meet with military commanders, warlords, and very shady tribal leaders," he says. "Sarfraz is constantly moving, he's culturally savvy, he's smart and wily, he's firm when he needs to be. Plus he's got some humor and some charisma going for him, too. When it really comes down to it, I am a donkey, but Sarfraz is a king."

Altogether, the CAI's staff in Pakistan and Afghanistan totals about a dozen men. The roster includes a mountaineering porter, a devout Shiite scholar, a farmer who's the son of a Balti poet, a taxi driver, a man who grew up in an Afghan refugee camp, a base-camp cook, and two former members of the Taliban. A quarter of them cannot read or write. Crucially, they are evenly divided among the regional subsects of Islam: Sunni, Shia, and Ismaili (a liberal offshoot of the Shia whose majority-recognized spiritual imam, the Aga Khan, is based in Paris).

"If it weren't for Greg, you probably wouldn't even find these guys in the same room sharing a cup of tea," says Genevieve Chabot, part of the CAI's American staff, "but with little pay and almost no supervision, they've somehow found a way to make it work."

Whenever Mortenson is on the road, he travels with at least two or three of these men at all times. In Pakistan, they spend weeks racing about in the CAI's battered green Land Cruiser with a box of dynamite stashed under the passenger seat—where Mortenson usually sits—so they can blast through rockslides and avalanches without having to wait for government road crews. In Afghanistan, they'll travel for 30 hours at a stretch, pushing vehicles to the point of breakdown. In the spring and fall, they'll hydroplane through the mud—which can be three feet deep in the Wakhan—until the axles get buried. While the drivers schlep off to find a yak team, they take off their shoes, and sometimes their pants, and start walking.

When Mortenson and his men arrive at their destination, the first thing they do is inspect the school, often surrounded by a scrum of children tugging them by the hands. Then they convene with the village heavyweights for a jirga, or council session. Jirgas are solemn gatherings that feature long speeches and dense deliberation; they usually extend through dinner and last long into the night. Toward dawn, Mortenson and company cram into an empty room or bunk down on the floor of the school. Two hours later, the circus packs up and heads off to the next project.

"Sometimes we don't stop for five or six days," says Sarfraz. "This is the only way to get to all the projects and to see all the people we need to see."

"I think of these guys as the Dirty Dozen," says Mortenson. "Most of them are renegades or misfits, but over the years we've empowered them to make a difference in their communities. And in response, they're now running around doing a job that it would take a dozen organizations to match. It's hard to explain, but I don't really do much over here anymore except travel, drink tea, and watch them work. To these men, schools are everything. They would lay down their lives for girls' education."