Three Cups of Tea: A Defense

By Albert (Age 13, Canadian International School)

Editor's note: Read a response from a student who believes Greg Mortenson should face the consequences for purposefully deceiving the public. 

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Three Cups of Tea is a book by Greg Mortenson. It was published in 2006 and it is an apparently true life story about Mortenson getting lost on K2, the second highest peak in the world, and eventually stumbling across a tiny village named Korphe. There the villagers nursed him back to health and he vowed to return to build schools there. Since then he has built over 150 schools in Pakistan and nearby Afghanistan. Despite this book being a bestseller for over five years, recently, there has been a lot of criticism. Author and climber Jon Krakauer discovered some parts of Mortenson's memoir were made up and that he used the money from the organization for his personal use. However, I believe that Mortenson's achievements far outweigh allegations made by Krakauer.

The first reason why I believe Mortenson's achievements outweigh the mistakes is that the mistakes in my opinion aren't that serious. There is only one big issue with what he is doing right now, which is that he is using money from the charity for himself. All the other mistakes, such as building schools on peaceful grounds in Afghanistan while he claimed he was building in dangerous zones, are just exaggerations made by Mortenson. The false stories he tells don't really have a huge impact on the work he does. As for the big offense, no one can really be sure if Mortenson does keep the money for himself. Also, the main point is that he has done the work and has helped the children, not if the money used was less than it should have been.

The next reason is that many other famous people who have helped change the world have also done things that weren't right. Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to building orphanages, schools, and clinics for the poor, was criticized for accepting questionable donations from dictators and criminals. She was also critized for the deplorable conditions of her clinics. Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized parts of his Ph.D. thesis, but that doesn't even come close to overshadowing the achievement he had leading the civil rights movement. Some believe that Gandhi may have had relationships despite his vow of celibacy, but does that affect or overshadow his achievements such as making India an independent country? No. So why should it be any different for Greg Mortenson? His achievements far outweigh the mistakes he made.

On the other hand, some feel strongly about Mortenson deceiving people with made up tales in his book, but the main point is that the money goes to charity. Some also feel strongly about Mortenson using more money for himself than he should, but it is more important that the rest of the money is helping build schools in rural and dangerous parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In conclusion, despite the many mistakes that Greg Mortenson made such as making up parts of the book and using more company money than he should have, his achievements such as building over 150 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, raising money for charity, and inspiring many far outweigh his mistakes.