PROGRESS IN NEPAL WAS HAPPENING SO QUICKLY THAT MOST OF MY time and energy was consumed. Our expansion plans for Vietnam remained on hold. I knew it was only a matter of time before we’d find a way to add more countries, but the time was not right in the spring of 2001.
At Dinesh’s invitation, I flew back to Nepal that April to attend the opening ceremonies for five of our new schools. I arrived in the capital, Kathmandu, worn-out from the 38-hour journey from San Francisco. Dinesh met me up at the airport and steered me though the crowd of 100-plus taxi drivers searching for a fare. I was thrilled to be back in Kathmandu. Dinesh dodged cows chomping on garbage, we passed numerous temples of the Buddhist and Hindu faiths, and each stoplight-free intersection jam-packed with honking vehicles was an opportunity for me to have my own spiritual moment to seek favor from the gods.
We had a cup of tea on arrival at my hotel in the tourist district of Thamel. Dinesh told me to spend the afternoon resting up, as we were expected the next day in the rural district of Dhading. As he left, he laughingly told me, “You’ve traveled for two days, you look tired, but you’re still not at your final destination. See you tomorrow at seven.”
The next morning broke cold and clear in the Kathmandu Valley. A pure blue sky greeted me, and the smell of wood-fire smoke drifted into my room, making me crave a cup of Nepali duit chai (milk tea). The hotel’s menu offered several intriguing options:
Sweat & sour chicken
Two toast butter jam or honey has brown
Crown crispy fried chicken with salad boneless
Chilly corn corney rice
As I debated my choices, a Nepali man in his mid-50s approached my table. “Hello, sir. You may not remember me. I believe you were here two years ago. You were with your father. You stayed in rooms 301 and 302.” I complimented him on his memory and facial recognition. “May I ask how is your father? Is he in good health? And how is your book project? I hope you are here to continue to help the children of Nepal?”
I pulled some children’s books out of my backpack. He smiled, turned the pages and eyed the books with a sense of wonder. He shook my hand and asked if we could have a glass of tea later in the day. With that, he returned to the front desk, and I gave silent thanks for the reaffirmation that our education projects mattered to the people of Nepal.
Dinesh soon appeared, clad in jeans, a black T-shirt, and Ray-Bans. His topi, a Nepalese hat that adds at least three inches to his five-foot-four frame, was the only indigenous bit of his outfit.
Dinesh explained that our first stop was Benighat. This village lies only 60 miles, as the crow flies, from Kathmandu. But we were driving on Nepal’s notorious roads rather than flying. The twisting, turning, narrow, and slow roads are the downside of the beautiful mountains. The country’s economic situation makes expensive earthmoving equipment unavailable. Instead, one sees laborers with picks and shovels clearing landslides, reinforcing walls, and digging boulders out of rivers to use as building materials. It’s a miracle that any of these roads, no matter how bad, even exist.
For three hours west out of Kathmandu, we were precariously perched on the sides of vertigo-inducing cliffs. We jockeyed for position with diesel-belching Indian buses and trucks bearing the ubiquitous HORN PLEASE signs. We obliged liberally as we weaved through the slower-moving traffic, as though we were a cross between a slalom skier and a honking goose.
Just after 11 a.m. our minibus pulled off the road and into a small courtyard at the school in Benighat. First dozens, then hundreds, of children ran toward us, excitedly yelling, “Namaste.” Beyond the children stood a new whitewashed school building. Red ribbons stretched across each of the five classroom doorways. I felt immense pride in my team, and in our work. Each of these kids, and there now appeared to be several hundred of them crowding around us, would have the benefit of a better education. I had truly found my nirvana. All the work back in San Francisco chasing down donations was indeed worth the long nights and the begging.
I smiled at Dinesh and shook his hand. I told him that he should be proud of his work, and that I found it amazing that this entire school had been built in less than one year, especially using mostly volunteer labor. He did not say much, out of either humility or because he was also overwhelmed with emotion. Instead, he leaned over to let a student slip a welcoming flower garland over his head. He then grabbed my arm and walked me toward the school and the podium that had temporarily been erected for the opening ceremony.
Ceremonies in Nepal tend to be joyous. Incense is lit, red tikka powder is applied to portraits of the king and queen of Nepal to honor them, and many (sometimes too many) speeches are made. Local politicians orate, the headmaster then has something to say, teachers and parents are not shy about grabbing the stage, Room to Read team members are asked to speak, and the list goes on and on. Broiling in the sun, I reminded myself that the long list of speakers was a positive sign. Obviously, each community member was proud of the new school and felt some degree of ownership. The more speakers, the better: each of these people would look out for the new school long after Dinesh and I had left town.
As my Nepali language abilities are abysmal, my mind had several opportunities to drift off. I thought about how much my life had changed. Two years ago I had been experiencing my crisis of confidence while working in China. I’d endured tortured introspection about whether there would be “life after Microsoft.” And now here I sat in a rural village, as happy as I had even been. I did not have any of the trappings of my old Microsoft life and had not collected a paycheck in over a year. But I felt as though I had found my role in the universe. I looked out at the crowd, and several children smiled and waved at me as soon as we locked eyes. Their faces made every minute of my three-day journey to this remote village in the shadow of the Himalayas worth it.
I also thought of my friend Hilary, who had endowed Room to Read’s half of the challenge grant. I was proud to be representing her as the school was opened in honor of her parents. I was still having a bit of a problem with taking my friend’s money, especially since they would not directly benefit from it. Seeing the new school, and the dedication plaque honoring her parents, made me realize that I was merely a conduit. Her money was temporarily entrusted to me as it made its journey to this village, where it was converted to bricks and mortar, and then further transformed into an education for hundreds of kids. An amount of money that for her was a “rounding error” in her investment account had created something permanent that would pay dividends for years to come and would also let her parents know how much she loved and honored them.
My musings were interrupted by the headmaster inviting me to cut one of the red ribbons. I was then asked to say a few words, so I told the school that a friend in America had trekked in Nepal and had been overwhelmed by the kindness of those she’d met during three weeks in remote mountains. This was her way of saying thank you to a country from which she had received such joy. I also saluted the community for having donated the land and labor.
The headmaster was the last to speak. I could not follow most of his rapid-fire Nepali, but did recognize that he continually repeated the number 1,001. I whispered a request for explanation to Dinesh.
“One thousand one is considered a lucky number here in Nepal.”
I love palindromes, but decided to leave that observation to myself.
“Why does he keep repeating it?”
“He’s reading the names of each family who donated one thousand one rupees to the school construction to honor and thank them for their commitment.”
I calculated that 1,001 rupees was $14—a large sum in a country where the average person earns less than a dollar a day.
After the ceremony had concluded, we were invited into the teachers’ room for tea. I sat next to the headmaster and told him that I was impressed by the number of families who had donated money. I asked if he knew the exact number of donors. With a look of immense pride and a wide smile full of perfect teeth, he informed me that 183 families had contributed.
It was a wonderful combination. A donor in California had done her part, and the village had done theirs. The amounts donated by each were quite different, but that was inconsequential. Many families—one in Silicon Valley and 183 in Benighat—had proven their commitment to education and had partnered in the construction of a new school.
DURING SUBSEQUENT VISITS TO NEPAL, I WOULD CONTINUE TO HEAR stories about the power of these challenge grants. One of our projects, Himalaya Primary School, was located on the outskirts of Kathmandu, in a poor community whose economy depended on the local brick factories. The local soil was conducive to brickmaking, and six soot-belching factories surrounded the village. On a site visit to check on progress, I met the headmaster. He proudly recounted how he’d visited each factory to ask for support in building a new school. He reminded each factory owner that the workers’ wages were so low that parents could not afford to contribute to the challenge grant. But Room to Read required each community to coinvest, so he proposed an innovative solution: each factory owner would donate 10,000 bricks, and Room to Read’s money would be used to buy cement, window frames, desks, and to pay for skilled labor to erect the walls. His sales strategy succeeded, and once again I was blown away by the ingenuity of the communities with which we partnered.
Two days after my visit to Himalaya Primary School, Dinesh took me into the foothills of the mountains west of Kathmandu. Our destination was the village of Katrak, which perched on a hillside overlooking verdant rice fields. Dinesh parked our rented truck along the side of the road, and with a head nod and a shout of “Jhane ho. Orolo” (Let’s go! Uphill), he announced to me that we had a steep hike in front of us.
At 8 a.m. the sun was already burning down on us, and my pace slowed as I stopped for applications of sun cream and gulps from my water bottle. On frequent occasions women with large bags hoisted onto their backs rushed past me, heading up the trail. I could not hope to match their pace, even though I was carrying only my water bottle and a Nikon. I asked Dinesh if they were returning from the market. He laughed and asked whether I realized that these women were carrying cement. I must have looked perplexed, so he explained.
When the local government of the village of Katrak requested Room to Read’s help, Dinesh and Yadav (our civil engineer in charge of the School Room program) said that they would provide half the resources if the village could come up with the other half. The head of the village development committee told our team that the village was poor, with more than 95 percent of parents living on subsistence farming. What little economy the village had was simple barter, and as a result few parents could afford to put money into the project.
Yadav explained that contributions other than cash would count toward the challenge grant. As an example, parents could prove their commitment to education and the new school by donating labor.
The women we saw this morning had responded to the call. Each morning, a group of them would wake up before sunrise, walk an hour downhill to the roadside where the cement bags were being stored, and then walk 90 minutes back up to the village. The bags weighed 50 kilos—110 pounds—and some mothers were making the trip twice in one day. Dinesh reminded me that this was a farming village, and that the women would still have to spend their day in the fields.
We crested the hill and on the building site saw 20 men, presumably the fathers, digging the foundation and beginning to put up the walls. I asked one of the mothers if I could try picking up her bag of cement. I nearly threw my back out as I struggled to get the bag above my waist. The mothers were greatly entertained, and the group around me grew larger as I failed to impress them as Hercules.
I outweighed these women by at least 50 pounds. Most of them probably survived on two bowls of rice and lentils per day. Such was their belief in the power of education to provide their children with a brighter future that they were willing to make any sacrifice. I felt inspired and vowed to work even harder to find the funding to enable more of these challenge grants. I also vowed that I’d get to the gym to lift weights a bit more often.
BACK IN THE SPRING OF 2001 THE POWER OF THESE COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS was becoming clear to me. At each ceremony, a proud headmaster or teacher would tell me a unique story about how their community had rallied around the challenge grant. As I listened to the recitation of the story, I would sneak furtive and proud glances at the school building, decorated in prayer flags and with red ribbons stretched across the doors. It quickly became obvious that the model designed by Dinesh and the local team was not just an ivory-tower theory. It was paying everyday dividends across the country.
Dinesh was so excited to show me every Room to Read project that he insisted we squeeze in a site visit on the way to my departing flight. A group of parents were mixing cement as their children played nearby. Without enough resources for even a soccer ball, the kids had filled an empty water bottle with stones and were kicking it toward their makeshift goal with the zeal of a young Pelé.
I shot photos. Soon, every child was hamming it up, competing with his or her friends to occupy the camera’s lens. As Dinesh ushered me back into our car to drive to the airport, my eager young subjects ran after us with shouts of “Thank you” and “Bye-bye.” As we made slow progress over the rutted road, the students had no problem keeping up; indeed, some even passed us. As they continued to smile and wave, and as I finished off the 15th roll of film from the trip, I had a feeling in my gut, one approaching pure certainty, that I had made the right decision as to how I would spend the rest of my life.
YOU SAY YOU WANT A
REVOLUTION? ADVICE ON
CHANGING THE WORLD
Think Big from Day One
When I started Room to Read, I declared immediately that our goal was to help 10 million children to gain the lifelong gift of education. Some people told me that this was hubris—how could a guy who had established only a few libraries set such a brazen goal?
I did not allow myself to be talked out of this, as I believe that it’s important to think big. There was a saying at Microsoft—“Go big or go home”—and this lies at the heart of my advice to anyone who wants to create change. The problems facing the world today are immerse. This is not a time for incremental thinking. If a cause is worth devoting your time to, then you owe it to yourself—and those you will serve—to think in a big way.
The side benefit is that thinking big can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because bold goals will attract bold people. Let’s say, for example, that your cause is to bring clean water to villages in Africa where children are dying of diseases that nobody should be killed by in this modern world. Below are two statements that you could make while talking to a potential donor or board member about aiding your nascent organization:
STATEMENT #1: My dream is to bring new wells and clean water to at least 25 villages in Kenya over the next three years.
STATEMENT #2: The scale of the water problem in Africa requires bold solutions, because millions of people die of diseases that they would not contract if they had clean water. So I want to help at least 10,000 villages, throughout Africa, to have clean water within ten years.*
The latter statement is probably going to scare some people away. This is fine—after all, you don’t want people who think small or who are afraid of big challenges. The second statement will also attract the attention of potential donors. One of the biggest frustrations that funders have is that “we are spending all this money, yet so little seems to change as a result.” Therefore, when they meet someone who declares a bold set of goals, they are likely to take notice and you’ll be in a position to “get the meeting.”
My favorite “poster child” for this advice is actually from the private sector—Amazon. When Jeff Bezos launched the company in 1995, the home page boldly declared Amazon to be “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore” even though they had yet to sell a single title. He was referring, of course, to the breadth of selection they would be able to offer via a virtual store, so the claim was at least plausible. Many naysayers were of course on hand to point out that Amazon’s first-year revenues were less than what a single Barnes & Noble outlet in Manhattan might do during a slow week. I can imagine that his lawyers tried to talk him out of it, but Jeff was bold, and his claim to be building earth’s biggest bookstore got him a lot of attention from investors, the media, and customers. They talked about the company, and the buzz led to publicity and sales. Amazon is a classic case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It not only became earth’s best-selling bookstore, but also its biggest record store.
* When setting bold goals, it is important to allow yourself more time.