Thousands of Cups of Tea

It was January 2009 and I had been reading the NY Times Best-Seller, Three Cups of Tea, after seeing it's author interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning, a show I watched religiously on Sunday mornings. I was living in Indiana and his story so inspired me, that I began raising funds to send to the Central Asia Institute. Here's what I wrote (February 4, 2009) on a friend's Facebook timeline:

I just finished reading "Three Cups of Tea" about Greg Mortensen and the Central Asia Institute. They are combating terrorism in upper Pakistan and at the Afghan border by educating impoverished children that would otherwise attend madrassas (basically becoming jihadists that hate America). 

We can support a teacher's annual salary over there for just $260, so I've plegded my $10 and I'm looking for 25 friends to match that. Are you in?

I was all-in, you could say. Inspired by this man's work, I wanted to do what little I could to help his organization educate, primarily girls, in remote parts of the Himalayas. I was even enlisting my friends' help.

According to Wikipedia, his first book "stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks [and] has been published in 47 languages." It was followed by a sequel, Stones Into Schools, which I also read. I'm surprised to find that I didn't blog about any of this in 2009 or thereafter, because it turned into a scandal.

In April 2011, CBS News which had introduced me to Greg and his book, did a damning expose on it's "60 Minutes" program. It interviewed Jon Krakauer who'd written a conspiracy theory claiming all of Greg's first book was a lie, that he didn't stumble into a remote village and share three cups of tea with tribal elders after failing to reach the summit of K2. The program that aired in 2011 called into question everything I believed about Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute, who I'd given my money. It even led to a criminal investigation in Montana which did NOT result in charges, but did show some impropriety. That investigation led Mortenson to repay $1M to CAI. He had been a bad manager of the non-profits money, but he wasn't a thief or a liar.

My curiosity over this story led me to recently Google Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea. What I found really surprised me. Not only was Krakauer a crack and just trying to get rich on Mortenson's coattails, but CBS News hadn't even done their due diligence to verify his claims. Not once did Steve Kroft or his crack team of journalists travel to these schools located in remote mountain villages and talk to the natives!

https://vimeo.com/86945374 (video link)

My Internet search this morning led me to a new documentary, 3,000 Cups of Tea, by Jennifer Jordan and Jeff Rhoads. It attempts to tell the real story of what happened and show evidence of the success of the schools that Greg Mortenson founded. The documentary team actually does the journalistic work that CBS News failed to do by going into the schools and into the villages to talk to the beneficiaries of Greg's dynamic work. They talk to men in the village where Greg shared his "three cups of tea" and documented on film their eyewitness accounts of seeing him stumble across the bridge fresh off his K2 climb. The film also calls into question the journalistic integrity of the American media and how irresponsible they have become in telling people's stories or getting to the truth.

Greg's reputation was nearly shattered in April 2011 by Steve Kroft and his colleagues at CBS News. I found it greatly ironic that the same news source who introduced me to him and his work was the same who attempted to shatter his reputation two years later. Were they THAT afraid of having egg on their face? Well, guess what!

You can learn more about the 2016 documentary film here. I can't wait to watch the whole thing! I'm surprised that CBS News hasn't done a second follow-up to apologize to Mortenson and the CAI, but where are the ratings in that?