The Road to Hell...

One of the books that helped inspire me to submit my Peace Corps application was "Three Cups of Tea". Upon coming to Senegal, I have seen at least 3 copies of the book in every regional Peace Corps office. Now, it appears that "Three Cups of Tea", "Stones into Schools", and Greg Mortenson are not who/what they claimed to be.

See: New Yorker article Bozeman Daily Chronicle article Any other reputable news source you can find, including, the Byliners article written by Jon Krakauer, "Three Cups of Deceit" (a small payment is required).

EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS IS MY OWN OPINION AND MY OWN OPINION, ONLY. I am going to focus only on the development aspect of the issue at hand. Not on the financial indiscretions nor the apparent storyline fabrications.

Ethnocentrism: "judging other cultures by the standards of your own, which you believe to be superior".

Seeing a "developing" country is exceedingly difficult. And it is really easy to believe we, as Americans, have all the correct answers. Arriving in Senegal, it was easy to look at a situation, from a distance, and say, "I can fix that! If I get money for X or build Y, it will all be better!"

The glory of Peace Corps is that we have the same grandiose ideas as Greg Mortenson. However, we very seldom have any money to back our programs. And we also have to live in the country we're working in. We have to eat the food that is provided us. We have to acclimate ourselves to the cultural norms and mores of our host countries. We live here and see the errors of blind gift-giving. We live here and see the obstacles to development. We also get to figure out how to make development work and be sustainable when we are gone.

What "development" is, first and foremost, is behavior change. It is teaching people and challenging people. The best quote I've ever seen to describe development work is:

"Go to the people. Learn from them. Live with them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best of leaders, when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say, 'We have done it ourselves.'" - Lao Tzu

Lessons learned:

• The problems I perceive are not necessarily problems in the eyes of the people I serve.
  
• The solutions that I feel are self-evident are often impractical.
  
• Regardless of how strongly I feel for a project, I cannot inspire locals to adopt my project as their own. I need to adopt their projects for my own; since they care, it is 700 times more likely to work.
  
• Typically, people will not turn down a gift. Whether they need it or not. They'll probably even take it even if they don't want it. Think about all the free stuff you've accumulated over the years. Did you really need it? Did you really want it? But it was free, and offered, so you took it.
  
• One must remember all the relevant factors in a situation, and implement proper project planning.

However, when a well-intenioned soul tries to dabble in development, they don't typically have this experience to call upon. If Greg Mortenson had dropped his ethnocentric bias, if he had considered the entirety of the problem, if he had instituted follow-up plans and program monitoring, most of his problems wouldn't have occurred. (Well, except for the whole financial hoopla).

WITNESSED EVENT: Children studying in the wide outdoors, using sticks in the sand.
SOLUTION: They need a school! Ready, set, go!

MORE PRAGMATIC APPROACH:

• "Huh, I wonder why they're studying outside?" -- Do they have an existing building they simply aren't using? Is there an existing NGO in the area doing educational outreach? How about I ask lots of different people these questions, because I'm sure I'll hear lots of different answers. Do they need or want a building? What kind of building would work the best?
  
• "They don't appear to have proper learning aides..." -- Why not? Did an NGO once give them books, paper, pens? Is there no where to buy such things? Is paper for some reason not practical or sustainable? What are the options? What about chalkboards? Those are reusable!
• "This teacher seems to be dedicated..." -- Who pays the teacher? Where does he/she live? What is his/her education level? What subjects are taught? Once again, what learning aides are available? How can I help this teacher provide quality educational materials to his students?
• "Look at these kids who are so dedicated to their education that they're drawing in the dirt!" -- How can I help keep these kids engaged in education? How can I encourage them to continue their educations? What does an educated kid around here do? What are their job prospects? How can their education help them in these goals?
• Find out what times of the year the students are available to attend school. Why? What are the other duties that pull a child away from school? At what age do children typically quit attending school? Why?
  
• What is the education level of the parents? Do the parents value education? Is there any drive to educate ones' children?

What if there are no children going to school, even though there is a teacher and a school building?

• Is it hard to get to?
• What are the other duties the children perform? Do they have to work in the fields? Do they have to care for other children?
  
• Do the parents understand the value of education? Are the parents educated? What level are the parents educated to?

What if there is not a teacher, but there is a school building and interested children?

• Is there a shortage of teachers in the country?
• Who employs the teachers? Have they been paying the teachers?
• How can a community member fill the role of teacher? How could he/she be paid? What training would they need?

What if there is a school building, and no teachers and no interested children?

• Well, then it appears that perhaps someone got wrapped up in the glory of handing out money. As a fellow PCV said today, "A building doesn't make a school".

I believe that Greg Mortenson and CAI have built many schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan which were sustainable. There were villages that had teachers easily accessible, parents who understood the concept of formal education, students who had the means to go. These villages were able to take advantage of the great gift that was dropped in their laps.

However, from what I can tell, many other villages requested a school just because they could get one. There was something free, and they wanted in on it. A pragmatic NGO would have weeded these villages out. It would have been discovered that there wasn't a full-time population or that there weren't any teachers available or that the area floods in the spring or that another NGO is building a school 5 k away or that there isn't the student body to justify a school ....

Development is HARD. And large NGOs have a difficult time balancing donations, foreign-spent money, obtaining receipts, creating obtainable and measurable goals & objectives, achieving said goals and objectives, all while respecting cultural differences. I'm not saying that one person can't create a functional multi-national NGO and achieve great things. What I'm saying is that the learning curve is mighty steep. And said individual would need to be open to learning from each and every mistake.

I hope that CAI is able to pull themselves through this mess. There are some dedicated, competent people who work for CAI. People who are devoted to the mission. However, somewhere over the last 16 years, their figurehead lost his way. He got blinded by the limelight and never learned how to make his creation the better. He instead got distracted by the glory of gift-giving, without ever noticing if the gifts were well-received.

I'm going to stop my tirade now. If anyone wants to discuss this further with me, feel free to comment! I'm interested to find out what other people think about this situation, and development work as a whole.
Because, ultimately, as corrupt a situation as this appears to be, I still feel like as long as just a few people changed their behavior in regards to education, or were able to access a functioning school then Mortenson didn't flub up entirely.