ALAS, THE MEETING'S IMPACT will be negated in three days, when Musharraf resigns from office. But as Mortenson sits and listens to his staff that afternoon, he isn't thinking so much about the future. Instead, he's reflecting on something that took place 37 years ago.

"When it came time for my dad to open the hospital in Africa back in 1971," he tells me later, "he got up and gave a speech in which he predicted that, within ten years, the heads of all the departments would be locals from Tanzania. 'It's your country, it's your hospital,' he said—and when he did, there was this collective gasp from the expat audience. This was a community, you see, who assumed that getting anything done required a mzungu—a white man—wielding a kiboko, a hippo-hide whip.

"But you know what? That's exactly what happened. My dad died of cancer in 1980, and two years later, when we got the annual report from the hospital for 1981, my mom showed it to me with tears in her eyes. Every single department head was from Tanzania, just as he'd predicted."

I ask Mortenson if he has any similar predictions to make.

"My hope," he says, "is that, in 15 years, the Dirty Dozen will all be women."