The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (12 page)

Luckily for me, the world provides us with second chances, and the timing of my promotion was perfect. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU; the legal agreement that outlined the terms of the school’s construction) for the first Pencils of Promise school was about to get signed in Laos. I needed to get to Southeast Asia fast.

O
n March 17, as most of New York City was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, my Bain colleagues toasted to my last day before I headed off. Since that night at the Philharmonic, I’d spent little free time talking about my day job as a management consultant and primarily spoke with others about my aspirations for this new organization. In doing so, I spoke almost exclusively in the future tense. I tried to constantly articulate the vision for how we would create our first school, and as a result, each conversation moved things closer to reality. But I had been walking along a proverbial dock for the past five months, and now it was time to jump in headfirst. Much as when I departed for Guatemala, I didn’t have much of a regimented plan beyond the first forty-eight hours. But I had faith that I could find a way to navigate the unknown territory ahead.

After an exhausting set of flights, I finally arrived in Luang
Prabang and immediately made a beeline for the familiar wooden walls of Rattana Guesthouse. We had arranged for the MOU to be signed the day after I arrived, and I desperately needed a good night’s sleep. As soon as I told the owner at Rattana that I’d be staying nearly a month, she smiled politely and gave me a small but quiet bedroom with air-conditioning. “How much?” I asked.

“Ten dollars per night,” she said. I was no longer in New York City, that was for sure.

The following morning, TC met me for breakfast at Joma Bakery Café, an eatery staffed by Lao locals with the best Wi-Fi and sandwiches in town. After a quick bite, I hopped on the back of TC’s motorbike and we rode to the nearby education ministry office. We must have looked ridiculous, a small Lao man with a large American holding him by the waist as we pulled into a formal government ceremony. It probably didn’t help that the shirt I was wearing—the only button-down I’d brought on the trip—looked like it had been stuffed in the bottom of a bag for weeks. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we entered the room where the MOU signing would be held, I suddenly realized that this was a big deal.

Six ministry officials awaited us with a full agenda. I was told to sit at the front table with TC and the head of all preschools, while the others sat at tables facing us. A deputy introduced the attendees, who stood for a quick show of applause. No one spoke a word of English, but TC did his best to translate for me. Even though I couldn’t understand the exact words, the sentiment was clear—they were deeply invested in this school’s becoming a reality. I certainly understood what was expected when they handed me the official paperwork. I had reviewed the documents many times before arriving, and with a quick stroke of our pens
TC and I signed the MOU. We were officially ready to go build a school.

Three days later we were on our way to Pha Theung to attend the groundbreaking ceremony. As I bounced around the back of a gray, beat-up pickup, flanked by two men from the district education ministry, I wished so badly that just one of my friends or family could be by my side. Regardless of how much confidence I tried to project, I was twenty-five, and I still craved the comforts of camaraderie.

When we arrived, the location of the future walls had been outlined with strings, and the entire community was preparing for the big moment when we’d break ground on the build site. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been speaking about this in New York for months, but to see it with my own eyes was incredible. Men, women, and young boys carried long wooden planks and gravel to the schoolyard, determined to show their dedication. When I saw two elderly grandmothers carrying a wooden plank, I rushed over to tell them that they could hurt themselves, but they smiled and shooed me away. They said something in Lao. TC told me, “They say they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this. You can try to stop them, but I wouldn’t if I were you!” He laughed.

Eventually the children, parents, teachers, and education ministry officials all gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony. They placed a large spike in one corner, and the
nai ban
(village chief) hammered it down with force. A flurry of activity began, and within an hour the wooden planks were nailed down in place of the string outlines and the school construction was fully under way.

The education ministry had only begun to include preschools in the national education agenda within the last fifteen years, which meant that children ages three to six in most Lao villages
still had no access to classrooms or teachers. Although the ministry had a strong supply of trained teachers, neither they nor the villages had the funds to build the classrooms in which children could learn.

PoP agreed to fund the construction costs for a large one-room preschool with bathrooms in Pha Theung, but only if 10 percent or more of the total project was funded by the village itself through contributions of raw materials and physical labor. This would ensure their sense of ownership, and more important, it would increase their commitment to sending their kids to the school once it opened. The education ministry agreed to provide a trained teacher and take the school under its supportive jurisdiction as well. This partnership between organizations, local government, and the village would continue to work together to support the school long term, providing school supplies, teacher salaries, and ongoing evaluations.

I recognized a few of the kids I had met in the bamboo hut several months earlier, but I was particularly ecstatic to see Can-tong, the first girl who wrote her name with me on the chalkboard. She was still incredibly shy, and if I looked in her direction, she would hide behind her giggling friends. I vowed to win her over eventually, but knew it would take time. I didn’t mind; I planned to visit Pha Theung every day to help with the school construction until my Laos visa expired in a month. Then I would travel for ten weeks through several other countries in Southeast Asia, until returning to Laos at the start of July to see the school construction completed.

We spent the rest of the afternoon eating delicious fish caught from the river, playing games with the excited children, and witnessing the school come to life. I had pictured this day for months, but it was far more powerful than anything I could have anticipated. I thought of my grandfathers, who had journeyed across
foreign lands, just as I was doing now. I thought of my grandmothers, who had dedicated so much of themselves to their children and grandchildren, just as the women carrying those planks had as well.

As we drove back to town, I pulled on my sunglasses and looked out the window, hoping the others in the car wouldn’t notice the tears streaming down my face. This school, my dream, was happening right in front of me.

*  *  *

The next two weeks were busy with getting the school off the ground—literally. Each morning at the guesthouse, a Lao woman in her late twenties, Lanoy, would offer me breakfast with a cheery smile. Her job was to do the laundry and change the bedsheets, but she had learned from the guesthouse owners to speak perfect English, and she had enough moxie to practice with the travelers that passed through. After chatting with her about my day’s plans, I’d ride my motorbike an hour to Pha Theung to play with the kids and check in on the school’s progress, twisting through valleys and over bridges, blasting the Rolling Stones and the Raconteurs the whole way.

I spent the mornings digging ditches, carrying bricks, and laying cement with the laborers, and the afternoons playing games and swimming in the river with the children. The routine became so normal that as soon as the children finished lunch and received their afternoon break, they would grab my hand to run down the hill behind the schoolyard, squealing with delight and pushing their siblings into the warm, shallow waters. Some days I’d race a group of ten-year-old boys out to a large rock jutting from the river, and on other afternoons they would take me fishing using handmade nets in an old wooden canoe.

As I floated in the river I often wondered,
What are my friends doing at this very moment?
They were at swanky parties or sitting in important meetings with important people, and I was in the mountains swimming and playing Duck, Duck, Goose. I couldn’t have been happier with my choice. It was the simplest life I’d ever known, and the most fulfilling too.

One afternoon, while waiting for some older kids to get out of class in their makeshift school, I sat under a tree writing in my journal. When I heard soft voices murmuring over my shoulder, I turned around to the sight of three young girls. They were covered in dirt and wearing tattered clothes, with no one looking after them at all. For some reason I decided to record a quick video, so I turned on my camera and asked them,
“Jao seu nyang?” What’s your name?

“Nuth,” replied the first one, sinking her face behind folded hands. When I asked the other two for their names, Nuth instinctively perked up and answered on their behalf. Her two adorable friends, Tamund and Nith, stood beside her eagerly smiling. I then panned the camera around the schoolyard, showing the three-room primary school, the bamboo hut, and the site where our first school—a preschool for children ages three to five—was under way. As I swung the camera back toward them, I was struck by a sudden realization.

“And you’re going to be our first preschool students?” I asked. Once again, I figured the first step toward this becoming a reality was to verbalize it aloud. Although they didn’t know a word of English, all three giggled with a sense of understanding. “Sounds good?” I asked, and they laughed again with delight. The moment perfectly captured the beauty and innocence of these young girls that our school would educate. It also demonstrated the interconnectedness that we all share as a global
humanity, regardless of whether we look the same or speak the same language.

That night I posted the clip on Facebook, tagging every person who had worked so hard to contribute toward that first school. I was determined to make PoP as transparent as possible by showing people that their donations, regardless of size, were going to change lives in a profound way.

When I woke up the next morning, I saw that the response to the video was overwhelming. Overnight I had received emails, messages, and comments from friends and strangers alike. All of them wanted to get involved. The school was no longer just about my personal desire to thank Ma for her sacrifices. It was now about these three little girls and the countless others we could impact if we started a broader movement.

*  *  *

A friend soon connected me by email to Bob Anderson, the founder of Community Learning International, an organization that built community learning centers, libraries, and schools in Luang Prabang Province. We met for dinner one night along the banks of the Mekong, and Bob explained that he had been living in Laos for more than a decade. His knowledge of the country, people, and NGO space was impressive.

“How much do you pay for a classroom?” asked Bob.

“We work in partnership with the education ministry and a partner organization, so they provide us with a detailed budget, and then we pay them to hire the contractor,” I said. “The school under construction is one large room and a bathroom, and after the village contributes more than ten percent of the cost, we pay about fifteen thousand dollars.”

“We build school classrooms for ten thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t believe it. How were they able to do it for $5,000 less?

Bob explained that his organization had a local architect on staff, Somlath, and that after they received government approval for all of their builds, money never left their organization except to pay salaries and buy building materials directly from the wholesalers at local prices. They bypassed contracting companies by doing all the work themselves. I didn’t even know that was possible.

When Bob offered to have his architect, Somlath, take me to visit several villages they were scouting for potential sites, I jumped on the opportunity. “I want you to see Phayong village in particular,” Bob said. “We’ve wanted to work there for years but currently lack the funds.”

Days later I was bouncing around the back of a tuk-tuk with Somlath, headed four hours north to Phayong. He explained that during the rainy season from June to September, mudslides washed away the dirt road that careened around the hairpin mountainside, making Phayong completely inaccessible to the outside world. At several points on our nail-biting journey toward the village, we had to hop out of the tuk-tuk to push it up a hill. We pushed with all of our strength, hoping our extra force would will the vehicle onward and not leave us stranded in the wilderness. Thankfully, it worked and we arrived just before sunset.

The entire village was made up of bamboo huts with no electricity. Children roamed naked, and mothers carried babies in slings on their backs. Half of Phayong’s more than five hundred inhabitants were ethnic Hmong and the other half were Khmu. Although they lived and farmed side by side, they could not communicate because they spoke different languages. The only chance for a unified future was through education. At the center of the village stood a small one-room structure with decaying wooden bars and a rusted corrugated-tin roof.