As the pandemic shutdown continues, with some restrictions lifting in various places, several things have shifted, particularly around how we, collectively, source and prepare food. People are baking more – yeast shortages, unheard of before, are now a common occurrence, with flour and other supplies flying off of the shelves. At the same time, increased discussion regarding the possible/likely links related to our current mainstream factory farms/animal food systems (in terms of individual health, zoological diseases and their role in this pandemic, and overall climate health) has increasing numbers of people seeking out more plant-based options.
At the same time, when switching key aspects of how we buy and prepare food, many people struggle with how to make that transition, particularly when also managing other aspects related to living in a pandemic.
Help is on the way! Are you looking for help with plant-based eating? I am now offering coaching sessions – all about how to switch to plant-based eating, whether you want to go 100% plant-based, or start with a few simple changes to how you eat.
Sessions will be customized, depending on what you are looking for, and where you are starting from, and may include, among other things:
– learning simple tricks and ideas about how to switch to more plant-based eating
– finding recipes or resources to help make meal planning, or travelling easier
– sharing and exploring resources related to reasons for switching to plant-based eating
– switching to reduced waste and/or plastic with food purchasing, storage and prep
– other items as requested.
You may choose one-on-one, or invite a few friend to form a group, or book a larger group session. I will do my best to customize sessions to where you are at – whether you are looking for quick and easy or more complex food projects.
NOTE: I am not a certified nutritionist. You are responsible for your own health decisions. I am here to help provide ideas, work with you and to share my experience on the journey towards plant-based eating.
Questions? Want more information? Curious about rates? (I aim to keep my rates as affordable as possible for everyone!) Go to the website and contact me for details. I look forward to hearing from you!
I am very pleased to announce that two new items have been added to the online store! As of today, TruEarth Eco Laundry Strips, as well as Pela Compostable Phone Cases are both available!
I saw a quote on social media few days ago, and am sharing it here. While I was searching for that one, I came across a couple of others, that I am sharing as well. Happy Monday!
These quotes are relevant in all of the areas that we talk about here – development, food, sustainability and others. As we all deal with this pandemic, and the climate crisis, our collective failure to listen to experts – who have been calling for massive changes to prevent a climate crisis for decades – can not be ignored. Changes to our choices – individually and collectively – need to be radically rethought, so that we come out of this pandemic with a Green New Deal (in various forms, locally and globally), with related changes to how we live, work, eat, use energy, get from place to place and support each other collectively, among others.
Based on wide-ranging interviews with former employees, board members, and others who have intimate knowledge of Mortenson and his charity, the Central Asia Institute, Three Cups of Deceit uncovers multiple layers of deception behind Mortenson’s public image. Was his crusade really inspired by a desire to repay the kindness of villagers who nursed him back to health when he became lost on his descent down K2? Was he abducted and held for eight days by the Taliban? Has his charity built all of the schools that he has claimed? This book is a passionately argued plea for the truth, and a tragic tale of good intentions gone very wrong.
100% of Jon Krakauer’s proceeds from the sale of Three Cups of Deceit will be donated to the “Stop Girl Trafficking” project at the American Himalayan Foundation (www.himalayan-foundation.org/live/project/stopgirltrafficking).
When Three Cups of Tea was first released, the book suddenly became frequently talked about – at least in some development circles. In my circles, responses seemed to fall (very roughly and unscientifically) down two lines – those who thought it was an inspiring and fact-filled story, proving that all you need to be an excellent NGO worker is to be a nice person with a nice story and, on the other hand, those of us (mainly people in the NGO world in some way), who saw countless red flags, both in his story and in the development model he was advocating for. Full disclosure: From the beginning, I have been firmly in the second camp.
Having heard bits and pieces over the years about the follow up from the original book, and then his second book, I hadn’t thought about it for a long time, until an unrelated discussion happened to bring it to my attention. A quick search, and some reading, got me at least partly caught up on what has happened in recent years.
Many of my concerns with the original book, and the work that followed, are covered in detail in Three Cups of Deceit. Without writing a full dissertation on everything that is wrong with Three Cups of Tea, I will summarize a few primary concerns here. These are my points (ie not quoted directly from Three Cups of Deceit), but they are generally shared among various critiques that have been written of Three Cups of Tea:
1) It promotes the idea (long ago disproven) that work in development requires only that someone “be a nice person who wants to help”. As with countless other jobs, being a nice person is obviously required, but is in no way a substitute for professional expertise or knowing what you are doing/how to do it well. And, ultimately, the damage done by poorly managed development projects is so destructive (to communities and to other organizations), that being “naive but well-intentioned and nice” results in impacts that are actually not a very nice for others at all.
2) It is overwhelmingly, factually inaccurate. It is fiction posing as non-fiction.
3) It is extremely disrespectful of communities that he claims to want to serve and help. The focus is on him and his imaginary hero-story – where he is the knight in shining armour saving helpless communities from themselves. He sees himself as Santa Claus, dropping in from the outside to deliver gifts, then leaving again. That is not development – it is the epitomy of White Saviour Complex.
4) It promotes a model of development that is not grounded at all in modern best practices, and is actively harmful in many ways – far more than can all be identified in one post. His model promotes a world-view that is highly colonialist, disrespectful of others, and not effective at achieving his stated goals. For example, putting funds towards teacher training or other things would have had a greater positive impact on education than putting it towards construction. That said, given that he seems to have kept most of the funds for himself, it can’t even be said that he put the money towards construction – but that was the theoretical aim, it seems.
5) The active mismanagement of funds and other problems risks decreased trust, by the general public, of the work that really good NGOs are doing. Hopefully, the reverse is true, and people will learn from this, and really appreciate the excellent, transparent and accountable work that countless good NGOs are doing.
I am grateful to the author of Three Cups of Deceit (and others), for doing the hard work to fact check an organization that has been unaccountable for far too long. Based on what I was able to find currently, I was not able to (in a fairly brief search), definitively determine the current status of the organization. That said, I can say definitively that it is not an organization I would donate to, or recommend that others donate to. If you have a copy of Three Cups of Tea on your shelf, consider replacing it with Krakauer’s well-written critique, instead.
Want to read more about this? Here are a few more resources, with a few key quotes. All are well worth reading.
(Note that some of the resources on this topic are a number of years old, from when some of the more significant allegations of corruption and misuse of funds came to light publicly).
How the U.S. military fell in love with ‘Three Cups of Tea’ – Washington Post
“No amount of tea with Afghans will persuade them that we are like them, that our war is their war or that our interests are their interests,” said Michael Miklaucic, a longtime official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who is currently serving at the Pentagon’s National Defense University. “The war in Afghanistan isn’t about persuasion or tea. It is about power.” (Italics mine).
Another reason I’ve always had trouble talking about Mortenson’s books is that it’s hard to give an alternative for people who feel the need to act. Even before the reports of C.A.I.’s mismanagement, I saw little value in this model of development. It’s centered around a foreigner, and the foreigner has no special expertise in either education or Central Asia. Even a balanced and reasonable individual is likely to fail in this situation.
Over the last 50 years of studying international development, scholars have built a large body of research and theory on how to improve education in the developing world. None of it has recommended providing more school buildings, because according to decades of research, buildings aren’t what matter. Teachers matter. Curriculum matters. Funding for education matters. Where classes actually take place? Not really. (Italics mine).
