Three Cups of Deceit (30 DPC Day 23)

Day 23: Main Mode of Communication

While brainstorming a way to depict my main mode of communication as talking without going Rocky Horror on you and posting a picture of my mouth, I learned about a gross deceit on the part of a humanitarian activist whom I once admired. Before I elaborate on that point, however, my main mode of communication is depicted in the image below:

If you’ve read this blog post you now know Brenna quite well (at least, virtually well from my perspective). This was a little party I planned for her birthday where we all went out for a meal and had a lovely time communing with one another!

And it occurred to me, while racking my brain for a deep and provocative and blog-appropriate way to display my main way of sharing my thoughts with the world how much communicating occurs over a meal. One of the big things I had to adjust to coming to college was constantly figuring out meal plans with other people. Not that I’m opposed to eating by myself, but having a meal together is something my family really prized when I was living in NC and that is a value I carried with me to school.

When you’re eating together you’re nurturing your bodies and your soul. Every human being needs sustenance, and sustenance comes in many forms. But because of the necessity of eating to survive it is not an activity to be taken casually, but dually because of the instinctual need we as human beings have to eat meals are a common ritual. Therefore, food can say much about a person; where they come from, what they like and do not like, how they were raised. Sharing this need with other people is a form of what we sociologists (eee!) like to call “solidarity.” While I am not, per se, using that term in its purest or most direct sense, I contend that it is often in sharing what is vital to all of us that we bond on an intimate, perhaps even biological level.

And in more practical, concrete terms having a meal together is a ritual that 1. provides continuity in a crazy schedule/life and 2. is really quite enjoyable. My meal times are hours during the day that I simply sit and get to enjoy being with my beautiful friends on my beautiful campus in this beautiful life I have been given.

Sharing meals with my friends has wrought deeper friendships. While often the dining hall is not the place to share profound wishes or secrets (or whatever) many of the more memorable moments in my first year of college have occurred over a meal.

And coming to the more concrete, planning times and places to meet for these meals requires my other big form of communication: my cell phone.

And perhaps a little obviously, how I communicate with you, my computer:

Fun fact: Grace took this while I was actually writing a blog post!

Now, to what I decreed I was going to elaborate on earlier. In an odd twist of events my depiction of my main mode of communication is akin to what Greg Mortensen claimed to be the act that solidified his friendship with the people of Central Asia.

Which brings me to a (be warned, colorful language) rant: The Three Cups of Deceit.

As you may or may not know, a man by the name of Greg Mortensen wrote a book called Three Cups of Tea about being rescued by villagers in the Himalayan mountains. From this experience he claimed to forge an intense connection to the women of the village (through sharing cups of tea) and wanted to raise funds to build schools in Central Asia.

Turns out he’s full of shit. Pardon my English, but I am pissed off.

I have never read the book itself, though two extended family members sent me copies to read. Just never got to it, but knowing what I did about Greg Mortensen I was a full endorser of his Central Asia Institute (CAI) to build schools for girls in Central Asia.

Until one of my favorite contemporary journalists/authors, Jon Krakaur, did a 60 Minutes exposé revealing how many funds had gone missing, that most of the book itself is a complete fabrication, the existence of “ghost” schools, and the fact that key members of the CAI (two CFOs, 1 project leader, 1 board member all in the states and multiple more in Pakistan) quit because of Greg’s refusal to be transparent with the funds.

On so many levels, this is so hurtful. A powerful story about a daredevil mountain climber (whose parents were Lutheran missionaries in Africa) building a partnership with communities halfway around the world, empowered especially because he wanted to help the young girls, is totally invalidated by his selfish aims.  To me, any good he accomplished with his sob story is tainted by the deceit and self-gratifying false humbleness he painted himself with.  

Excuse me, but what an ASSHOLE. I am so angry because he played on sympathy by painting himself as this incredible humanitarian who, through basic human connection, forged these amazing relationships with people and then began an organization to promote understanding and education for young women. President Obama  himself donated $100,000 of his Nobel Prize money to Greg Mortensen, who himself has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

As Krakaur details in his 79-page exposé (which you can download for free until tomorrow here):

“The first eight chapters of Three Cups of Tea are an intricately wrought work of fiction presented as fact. And by no means was this an isolated act of deceit. It turns out that Mortenson’s books and public statements are permeated with falsehoods. The image of Mortenson that has been created for public consumption is an artifact born of fantasy, audacity, and an apparently insatiable hunger for esteem. Mortenson has lied about the noble deeds he has done, the risks he has taken, the people he has met, the number of schools he has built. Three Cups of Tea has much in common with A Million Little Pieces, the infamous autobiography by James Frey that was exposed as a sham. But Frey, unlike Mortenson, didn’t use his phony memoir to solicit tens of millions of dollars in donations from unsuspecting readers, myself among them. Moreover, Mortenson’s charity, the Central Asia Institute, has issued fraudulent financial statements, and he has misused millions of dollars donated by schoolchildren and other trusting devotees. “Greg,” says a former treasurer of the organization’s board of directors, “regards CAI as his personal ATM.”’ (7)

  This is atrocious. He even went so far as to accuse men who acted as his personal bodyguards and friends of kidnapping and holding him hostage. Krakaur reveals to be an intense fabrication of an already fictional account.

“When the residents of Ladha bid goodbye to Mortenson, they did so with affection, and they believed the feeling was mutual. “Years later,” says Naimat Gul [a man whom Mortensen accused of kidnapping him], “when I scanned through the book T hree Cups Of Tea and read that Greg had been abducted and threatened with guns, I was shocked. Instead of telling the world about our frustration, deprivation, illiteracy, and tradition of hospitality, he invented a false story about being abducted by savages. I do not understand why he did this.”’ (19)

I highly encourage you to read Krakaur’s work on the subject. And as for now, I am at a loss as to what to express other than anger. Yes, some good came from this. But I have a hard time validating anything Mortensen has touched now.

It is people like him who are a) causing us all to be wary of any form of charity/nonprofit work and b) forcing me to question whether it’s even worth it to keep forging ahead. Of course I’m going to keep fighting for human rights universally, but this is just so disheartening.

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days until departure: 42

thoughts in my head: not all nonprofits are made equal.

As my hiatus from my 30 Day Photo Challenge persists a little longer, I’ve been prompted with some tough questions and wonderful inspiration concerning the actual “work” I will be doing in Uganda this summer. And all of these questions find their root in the same idea: not all nonprofits were made equal.

My dear friend and mentor Thera wrote an incredible blog post today about a counter-movement to the One Day Without Shoes event called One Day Without Dignity. I highly encourage you to read it!

In her post she explains her qualms with the One Day Without Shoes event; mainly, that one-time drop-off gifts of charity (like shoes, clothing, or school supplies) are bad aid. The one-time hand out harms the local economy by making free what many local artisans, merchants, and businesspeople work very hard to make and depend on sales for their livelihood. It undermines much of local culture and also embodies a lot of really inconsiderate Western presumptions.

While many one-time gifts are made with the absolute best of intentions they more often than not cause strife and dependency among people who are perfectly capable of being resourceful in their own right. Thus her (and my) qualm with One Day Without Shoes: TOMS is a for-profit company. Thus, the Day Without Dignity campaign was launched by members of various NGOs around the world to talk about what makes a good NON-profit. 

However, after poking around on TOMS' website a little more, I did learn that they are more invested in the communities they do "shoe drops" in that I originally realized.There are 5 facets to the TOMS campaign that make their program more sustainable then others, and they are (in their own words from their website): 

1. Giving Partners must be able to repeat giving shoes as the children grow.

2. Shoes must aid their giving partner's existing goals for the health and education for children who otherwise would not have this opportunity.

3. Providing shoes may not have a negative impact on the local economy.

4. Giving Partners must be able to receive large shipments of shoes.

5. Giving Partners can only give shoes in conjunction with health and education efforts.  

So, yes, TOMS is a for-profit company. But they are making an enormous effort to be a sustainable, good influence where they "drop" shoes, which I immensely respect. 

This brings me to my second prompt of inspiration, Hank Green’s three-part vlog about his trip to Haiti with water.org. Again, I warmly recommend you to watch all three of these videos. His third has yet to be released but, based on what he said in the second vlog, I’m going to wager a guess about what it will concern: what makes water.org such a wonderful nonprofit.

In his words, water.org functions on a “new model of charity” in which the recipients of aid are encouraged to be independent, rather than dependent, concerning their need. This is because water.org, which essentially builds wells in communities in need of clean water (something mentioned as a pretty explicit need in Thera’s marvelous blog post), works incredibly hard to make sure that within the community where the new well is built there is an infrastructure of sustainability in place both ecologically and socially within the community.

No charity or non-profit is perfect, because nothing is. But it is important for me as a volunteer and as a donor to be aware and conscientious of which charities and partnership organizations I choose to support. This is because I absolutely believe hand-outs are not the stuff of real change in communities of need.

This lesson I learned in an extremely visceral and hard manner, which I want to share with you if only so that I can explain from my own experiences why I know for my own that hand-out charities are not good.

When I was in Uganda when I was fourteen, my mother and I brought with us some gently used toys my brothers and I no longer wanted with the express intention of sharing them with the children of the communities we would visit. We had the absolute best of intentions, believe me. In my world, I treasured my toys growing up. They were a vessel by which my imagined stories became real. But I was fourteen and knew only my own world of growing up in the privileged USA.

It was a few days into the trip when the group was climbing off the bus in Gulu, Northern Uganda. A cluster of children had gathered around to watch and seeing them, my mom and I decided to give them some of the toys we’d brought.

This decision is one I think I will always regret and feel guilty for. The children started fighting for the toys and suddenly the bag was ripped from our hands as the oldest kids pushed the younger ones out of the way to take as many as possible. It was horrible to watch and I had no idea what to do.

They were just kids living in a really tough world, and I had wanted to share with them something that had brought me joy as a little one. But I did not think that hand outs mostly go to those who can get them, not necessarily those who have more need. I had made a lot of presumptions in my own saintly-ness for parting with these toys and in my eagerness I did not stop and think about how best to give the toys to those who needed them most. And these were just toys, not even food or water or clothing.

Yes, I was young and yes, I really didn’t know any better. If I had been older and wiser I would have asked the leaders of a community in varying capacities about who in their town had children with some serious need. I would have then asked them to discretely deliver the toys, or, better yet, I would have given the toys to an organization with a long-term relationship with a community that perhaps had serious needs already satisfied, so toys would have been a nice treat for ill children.

Water.org is by no means the first or only organization to figure out how the best of intentions can wring the worst of outcomes. There’s a little saying my mother always told me “If you give someone a fish, you’ve fed them for a meal- but if you teach someone to fish, you’ve fed them for a lifetime. However, they must be willing to learn how to fish.”

This is a model that has existed for a long, long time. But when charities send out shoes at the first sign of bare feet without first asking if these shoes are wanted, needed, or going to go to the right place that promotes giving fish and not the willingness to learn or the ability to fish. Yes, that’s a gross overstatement and by no means am I saying people who have received TOMS shoes don’t have innovation or a desire to learn or grow, nor am I calling TOMS a terrible company with the worst of intentions. I am saying that the model of the "charity" needs to progress, quickly, into a model of partnership. I am saying we need to recognize TOMS is a for-profit company with some really wonderful intentions to promote positive growth.

Obviously I like TOMS, having participated in the One Day Without Shoes event and owning two pair. So call me a hypocrite. Or, call me an educated consumer.

I love my TOMS because they’re cute and comfy shoes and both pairs were loving gifts by my Aunt and Uncle and father, respectively. I treasure them because, as I might have mentioned, I’m damn lucky to have as many shoes and love in my life as I do. And I like that they are trying, as a company for profit, to use their profit for providing shoes. But I also support fully organizations like MCC, water.org, and Habitat for Humanity that were created to make lasting and educated change.

And now, for the third source difficult inspiration for this post: a dinner conversation. Last night at a lovely, lovely dinner in Cape Cod (a post on that to come) a friend of my friend’s asked me what I was doing this summer. When I replied with my plans to live in Uganda for two and a half months, she asked a little sharply “Is this a Bible thing?”

And in that question flooded a thousand thoughts. My anger at groups that function not only as hand-outs, but self-congratulating hand-out charities that do so in the name of a religion. My further frustration that I, who identify as a Christian but one who also reads the Upanishads of Hinduism and the writings of the Buddha and would die for the acceptance of people of all sexual orientations and believes in the validity of all faiths, am immediately judged to be someone who also promotes such convert-the-heathens-with-self-loving-grins charity. And perhaps most of the internal dilemma of what in heaven, hell, and earth I am going to do with this inescapable call to Africa in “the real world.”

So I picked the more tangible reply with “Well, sort of. I’m working with the Diocese of the Church of Uganda, but it’s not a convert-the-heathens deal.” I went on to explain that I want to live my life as a servant and a learner, that I am a pilgrim going home and it’s a complicated growing-up thing, and that above all I am going to LEARN and not to teach.

What do I know, anyway?

I can recite passages from Harry Potter. I know more about women’s aviation history than anyone in their right mind should. But the real stuff? I’m wandering in a big forest of knowledge and desperately trying to take every second in and praying to God I do something with my life that will make my Mom and Dad proud. I want to love and learn as much as possible. And God knows that’s enough for me right now.

So that’s why I am going to Uganda, and that’s why I think we all need to carefully think about what change we want to promote. I love my TOMS, I loved participating in the One Day event, and that doesn’t change. We’re all broken, and I think most of us just want to make the world a little happier each day, self-congratulating hand-out charities included. Let’s take these good intentions, though, and apply them in a model of non-profits that functions as a partnership, not a charity. Yeah, it’s going to be a whole lot harder. But change is hard. 


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current jam: tchaikovsky's serenade for strings
best thing in my life right now: SPRINGTIME!
days until departure: 55