SHORTLY AFTER THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FUND-RAISING EVENT IN OUR history, I had the pleasure of journeying to Cambodia to see our programs at work. I was excited to make the connection between the money that had come in, and the students and communities that were benefiting from these fund-raising events.
Friends have asked me many times how I keep up the insane pace of travel, public speaking, and fund-raising events. I remember a particular week when I spoke at events on four successive nights in Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, and Vancouver. After too many late nights catching up on e-mail before spending the day traveling, I arrived in Vancouver. It quickly became apparent that the grueling pace was taking its toll. There was one chapter volunteer, Lynda Brown, whom I had always thought of as a rare combination of beauty, sincerity, and intelligence. So it was exciting to run into her, and having just made what I thought was a decent speech, I confidently asked her to join me on the dance floor. She smiled and asked in a concerned tone, “You look pretty tired, especially in the eyes; are you sure you’ll be able to stay awake through an entire dance?”
Why do I work these long hours and put so much of my personal life on hold to focus so intently on Room to Read? Some people may not understand it and may wonder if I’m simply one-dimensional. I don’t believe that is the case. Throughout life, I have always had hobbies and a lot of friends. I still try to make time for each, but over the years of building this organization I’ll admit that I’ve devoted less time to nonwork activities. It’s made some friends mad at me, and my work hours and travel schedule have hijacked some otherwise-promising romantic relationships. At times, the long hours and the constant feeling of being behind have made me less enthusiastic about life than I’d like to be as I struggle through yet another morning on little sleep.
So why do it? Every time I ask myself that question, or lose faith in my life choices, I book myself on a flight to one of the countries where Room to Read works. Seeing the villages we are helping provides an adrenaline rush and a quick end to my existential angst. Shortly after Lynda’s comment, I decided it was time to visit Cambodia and catch up on our progress.
HISTORY AND FATE HAVE NOT BEEN KIND TO THE PEOPLE OF CAMBODIA. The threats to their well-being seem to have come in waves over the last fifty years—exploitation by their French colonizers, collateral bombing by U.S. forces during the war in Vietnam, and the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge. The genocide perpetrated by this nihilistic force eliminated nearly 2 million of the country’s 15 million citizens. Picture New York City without Manhattan and that approximates what happened to this desperately poor nation.
The survivors faced a reality that must have made them question how lucky they were—the country had a ruined economy, little infrastructure, over a million orphans, and no functioning government. This scene may sound like something out of ancient history, but it actually describes the situation in the early 1990s, when I made my first trip to the country. I was, as expected, saddened by the situation, but also impressed with the spirit of the Cambodian people. That first trip started my lifelong love affair with the people of this ravaged nation.
The Cambodian spirit is resilient. Life has thrown at them most of the bad experiences one can dream up, and many that I’d rather not imagine. Yet they still work hard, rising each day before the sun to plant or harvest their rice fields, to attend school, or to run small businesses. On my first trip to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, I sat on my hotel’s small front balcony eating fried eggs and toast and was immediately surrounded by young children hoping to make some money. One boy offered to shine my shoes, while another presented me with an array of foreign newspapers ranging from the Süddeutsche Zeitung to USA Today to the Financial Times. How he had gotten his hands on these were beyond me. Always one to encourage entrepreneurship, I paid one boy for three newspapers including an Italian one that I could not read, while the other boy happily shined my flip-flops.
I thought of these boys several years later, in 2001, when Erin and I were researching possibilities for further expansion. Cambodia seemed a natural place for us to work, given the lack of educational infrastructure, the strong work ethic, and the Confucian-and Buddhist-influenced respect for education. The Khmer Rouge had burned down the majority of the schools and killed 90 percent of the teachers in their war against the educated. One could be branded an intellectual, and murdered, simply for wearing glasses. Erin and I decided that our response to this must be one of forward-thinking optimism: we would help Cambodian communities to build schools and libraries. That which had been destroyed needed to be replaced. We spent little time talking about it. As usual, we just dove in.
By the spring of 2003 we had hired a local team and opened an office in Phnom Penh. I made my third trip to the country to see our first projects in the company of the new team.
My first few days were spent peacefully in the capital city of Phnom Penh with its wide, French-influenced boulevards. As in my previous trips, microbusinessmen hung out in front of my guesthouse. This time, rather than offering shoeshines or newspapers, the boys were cajoling me into taking a ride on their motos.
During my five days in Phnom Penh, I had a morning routine with these young entrepreneurs. As I walked onto the front porch of the Renaksi Guest House along the river, I would smile and wave to the group, look at my watch, and count from the second hand…one, two, three, four, five…at which point a gaggle of motos would screech to a stop in a cloud of dust, just inches from my feet. “Where are you going?” “Are you going for coffee?” “I will take you.” “I took you yesterday, you remember me?” The shouts went up, each boy smiling while also negotiating hard to be the victor for my meager $1 fare. The five-minute ride to the aptly named Java coffeehouse and art gallery, where I spent the first hour of each day beneath an underachieving ceiling fan writing in my journal, might be their only business of the day.
I felt bad choosing only one driver. Each clearly wanted the business, and there were more motos out front than guests at the hotel. So each day I chose a different driver and wondered at what point they would catch on and no longer say, “You remember me? I took you yesterday.”
One morning, as the sun rose and began to heat the city toward the expected high of 101 degrees, I asked my driver about his background. What were his dreams for his life and his business?
“Before 1995, I speak no English. I speak a little bit of French only, but no English. But now every day I learn. Every day I drive moto, I learn English.”
I told him that his English was impressive. I asked if he had a family.
“Yes, I have two children. Eleven years old and seven. Both are boys. I tell them that they must study and learn more than their father learned. My education was interrupted by the Pol Pot regime. My sons, they have opportunity for education. I tell them to keep studying. I tell my oldest son, ‘You work hard and I will buy you a nice watch.’ He did well at school, so he got a watch. Now the younger brother, he is jealous, and he is studying hard, so now I want to also give him one because his grades are also good. Someday they will have a better life than me, maybe work for the government or in the office of a business. But they will only do that if they study.”
We pulled up in front of the Java coffeehouse. I wanted to turn my wallet over to the guy so that his sons could have the best education possible. I remembered my friend Vu in Vietnam, and his pride, and counseled myself not to do anything obnoxious. I told the driver that he was a smart man to have learned English so thoroughly, and that his sons were lucky to have such a good father. I doubled his fare, to $2, and asked him to apply the extra dollar toward his younger son’s watch.
The hope that comes through education, the belief that in schooling lies the key to a brighter tomorrow—those are ubiquitous throughout so much of the developing world. When I observe Cambodian parents smile and look wistful as they talk about the life they hope their children will have, I am driven to continue to work insane hours and do whatever it takes to help them achieve this dream.
THE NEXT MORNING I HAD TO BREAK THE NEWS TO THE GANG OF MOTO drivers that I was leaving town for a few days. The Room to Read Cambodia team was taking me to the opening ceremonies of our first two computer rooms in the remote province of Kompong Cham.
We left Phnom Penh at 7:30 to begin the long drive three hours to the northeast. An hour into the journey, Dim Boramy, our country director, treated me to a breakfast of noodle soup at a roadside stand. Dozens of Cambodians squatted on small plastic stools, steam rising from the large bowls that cost 40 cents with meat, 30 cents without. Nobody talked, and the air was filled with a chorus of slurping noises. I recalled my mother’s loud protestations at this mealtime offense during my childhood, thought, ‘What the heck, I’m an adult now,’ and slurped more loudly than was necessary. Boramy then topped me, so I one-upped him. As far as breakfast conversation, it was not overly mature, but it made Boramy much less intimidated by his first road trip with the CEO.
Two hours later we arrived at Tong Slek Secondary School, where a dozen teachers and several hundred students were waiting to initiate the first computer lab ever built in this part of Cambodia. During the preceremony tour, I noted that every monitor, keyboard, and mouse was covered in protective wrappings against the dust. I caught Boramy’s eye and nodded toward a cot and blanket set up in the corner. He asked the group of teachers clustered around us about this. A dark-haired teacher in his late 20s explained that the school was waiting for a lock for the door, and bars for the window. Until this security was in place, the teachers were each spending a night sleeping in the lab. I was impressed and made a mental note to share the story with Bill Draper, who had told me that the only aid projects that worked were the ones where the local people felt ownership.
My musings were interrupted by a small boy. He approached boldly and announced to me in perfect English, “Thank you for Room to Read. My dream is to be a businessman.” With that, he handed me a drawing (see photo insert).
I thanked him and asked if I could keep the drawing. He nodded, shook my hand like the businessman he dreamed of becoming, and melted back into the crowd. My thoughts quickly turned 3,000 miles northwest, to Nepal, where a seventh-grade girl had written a note about her new computer room: “Thank you for this wonderful machine inside which the world is hidden.” These labs held such promise for students who had previously had no connection from their remote villages to the outside world. These schools were now becoming, through our work, a powerful combination of low-tech libraries where students could fall in love with books and high-tech computer labs that would eventually allow them access to all of the world’s knowledge.
The headmaster interrupted my musings. The ceremony was about to start. In the schoolyard were crowded hundreds of children, including 25 girls who were receiving scholarships from Room to Read. After warmly welcoming the village elders and the Room to Read team, the headmaster spoke:
“It is unheard of for a rural area to receive an investment like this. It’s always the city people who have these opportunities. Please tell your donors that we are so very happy today, because now our children can compete with any other students and don’t have to leave our village to have a good education. We tell the parents, especially those with girls—don’t let your daughters become prostitutes or drop out of school. If they stay until grade nine, they will learn English, they will learn computers, and they will have a better life and more opportunity.”
A female teacher then stood up. It’s rare for women in these rural communities to speak in public. It appeared to be spontaneous on her part, as the headmaster looked a bit startled. With intense passion, she spoke about the lab from the women’s perspective:
“The girls are always overlooked in our society. But Room to Read has trained female teachers like me to understand computers. You did not just train the male teachers. So now we women who have learned computers have shown that we are also deserving, and that we can teach the children these new skills.
“Also, you have required that girls have to have the same access to this lab as the boys. That is going to change how girls in this province view themselves, and how they are treated by others. I have only one request for you, Mr. John. The trainer you sent here to teach the teachers is good and helpful, but we do not yet feel that we know enough. We would like to ask if he can stay for one more month.”
I asked the trainer, a 19-year-old whiz kid we had hired from a computer training center in the city, if he was okay with this idea. He nodded excitedly and gazed at the teachers as though they were family. I then asked Boramy, quietly, how much we were paying the trainer. The sum: $25 per month. I told the teacher that this was something I was unable to decide, and that Boramy was the country director in charge of all decisions. Boramy was trying to look serious, but a smile was breaking across his face. He said yes, in both Khmer and English. Twice. The teachers applauded, and I felt a strong conviction in my gut that we had made the right decision to launch our programs in this country.
With that, we all walked over to cut the red ribbon on the door to the computer lab that was part of a brighter future for Cambodia. The students, without wasting a nanosecond, ran into the room, eager to start learning this new technology.
I wanted to learn more about our scholarship girls. The headmaster introduced me to Nam Sreyny. A tender and shy 16, her early education was cut short due to financial hardships at home. Her father had died two years earlier while serving in the army. The government had offered neither explanation for his death nor any compensation. Nam and her mother were now scratching out a meager existence on a small plot of rented farmland.
There were two obstacles to Nam attending school, both economic. Her mother could not afford the $5 monthly fee, and the nearest secondary school was 20 miles from their home. Even a bicycle would not solve this problem (unless we taught Nam to “be like Lance”), so she was forced to drop out after grade six.
Fortunately, the Room to Read Cambodia team had learned about her situation during a routine visit with the village’s teachers. She had always gotten good grades and enjoyed her studies. She was described as being shy in public, but not at all reserved when attacking a book or her math homework. The local team offered her a scholarship. In addition to paying for her school uniform, shoes, a book bag, and school supplies, a stipend was paid to one of the teachers to allow Nam Sreyny to board with her during the week. And Nam Sreyny did get her bicycle and on weekends goes home to help her mother tend to the farm and its animals.