Other states, other lives, other souls

Guest blogger Phil Deering

[photo courtesy of Mike Holtby, 2008, Flower Hmong child doing homework] Three Cups of Tea tells the story of an elite mountain climber who, injured and lost, stumbles into a tiny village deep in the Hindu Kush. As he’s nursed back to health, the author sees girl children of the village squatting in the dirt, bravely trying to learn to read and write. (There are no schools for girls in these parts). He vows to return and build a school, which he does (many times over.)  Most of you know that the author, Greg Mortenson, is a complex and somewhat sordid fellow who, at the very least, has stretched the truth about his experiences and success at increasing literacy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

None the less, the longing of developing-world children for schooling is real and heart rending to many travelers who witness it. And the shock of realization has prompted many travelers to act. This is the story of my Three Cups of Tea experience, some of my unique (and often wacky) experiences along the way, and what I learned.

In April of 2007 I was trekking in a remote, mountainous area in the far North of Vietnam near the Chinese border. My guide and I left from the market town of Bac Ha. He had arranged home stays, where we’d be put up for the night with indigenous families, from the Hmong and Zao ethnic groups. On the second day out, it was drizzly and foggy as we hiked along. Then, out of the mists some rough swings came into sight. We’d come across a tiny school, made from sticks and tarps, with no heat or electric lights. It’s chilly up in those hills and the kids had to wear jackets in the one-room school.

What gob smacked me was how attentive and well-behaved these kids were. The lesson was in following directions, with the goal of building a little truck from a kit of plastic parts. The kits were shared: one kit for each group of four. But no one was antsy or naughty. The contrast to U.S. kids was amazing. Mayhem would have resulted in a U.S. classroom where four kids had to share one kit.

I realized in a flash that for these kids, education is the only way out of a life of back-breaking labor, trying to coax rice and corn from flinty soil and cold rainy weather. Also, if they weren’t in school, you can bet they’d be out working: chasing the water buffalo out of the rice, helping mom plant corn, or minding the toddlers, or as my guide and I called those bare-bottom little ones who leave their droppings where they stand: The No Pants Tribe.

Over the next couple of days, I had plenty more great experiences, which, in addition to hiking through amazing country, included:

Getting up early with grandpa at one of the homestays. He pulled down a slab of bacon that hung above the fire, sliced off some chunks and cooked it up for me and him before the family woke up.

He begged me for medicine for his ailing wife. Of course, I had nothing.

Also, an experience all 1^st Worlders should undergo –being gawked and laughed at for your awkward attempts to perform a common, low-skill task in the community you are visiting.  The photo below shows bemusement at the clumsy white guy who can’t work a cross-cut saw used to cut beams for a house-raising.

When I got back to the States, the memories of those attentive kids working away in their cold, drafty classroom really stuck. I was compelled to stay connected. My plan was to find a 5^th or 6^th grade class that would become a “sister school”.  The kids in the U.S. could quickly raise enough money for a little waterwheel electric generator that could produce enough power to light the school, and the U.S. kids might learn something about how other children think about the value of education. So the next September I started with some teacher friends and got a few nibbles. (Teachers are a little wary of “great ideas” that aren’t part of the curriculum they need to deliver.)

Before anything could get firmed up, my guide Thanh emailed me with terrible news. Over the summer, when school was out, a landslide (common in those parts) had destroyed the school. No kids were hurt, but there was no more school.

It took only a few weeks before the good old USA Can Do, There’s No Obstacle We Can’t Overcome” attitude clicked in. “I bet I can raise money to build a new school”, I thought. “Won’t that be cool! I’ll be like Greg Mortenson.” (this was well before he was exposed as a charlatan).

It took more than two years, and raising the money was the easy part. But over those 24 plus months, I got ridiculously drunk at a year-end party, drank pretend tea, maneuvered through the mine-fields of corruption, ate some of the yummiest food ever, got blessed by a shaman, grew to understand the reasons for some of the barriers the Vietnamese government threw in my way, and learned a lot about myself.

Upcoming: Chapter two–Year One of the Bac Ha School Project – Actually, You Can’t Do That