The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change (6 page)

My heart leapt. I had an ally.

During the sunrise tour we saw people of all ages bathing in the river. One man did a floating meditation, another taught his children the morning rituals.

When we arrived back on the shore, as the group took pictures of the surrounding buildings, Vanay nodded toward me and pointed at a few steps that led into the water. I discreetly walked to the side and stripped down to my shorts. I walked down to the bank and into the river. I dunked my whole body, and without thinking about it, I submerged my head and opened my mouth, letting the water rush in the way I usually do in a bathtub or pool. I rose to the top and spit it out without even thinking about the mistake I may have made taking in the world’s holiest—and biologically dirtiest—water. No turning back now.

Once I was shoulder deep in the water, I closed my eyes and said my prayers. As I emerged from the water ten minutes later, an elderly shaman with a saffron robe and orange turban filled with a cascade of white hair called out to me, “Why go in the Ganga?”

I told him why and he took my hand in his. He pulled out a ball of bright red and yellow string and looped the string twice around my wrist. He closed his eyes and recited a prayer of protection and goodwill, then told me this was a holy string of Varanasi.

A small crowd of Indian boys gathered around us. We walked together for a few blocks, but before they departed, they asked me for some money to help them. Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few pencils. I gave one to each of the boys. The change in them was immediate. They began drawing on pieces
of paper a shop owner gave them and practiced their letters for others to see. They had a new sense of freedom, a new independence. I was moved by how such a small act could open up a sense of possibility, wonder, and connection in those who had so little. Ideas began to percolate in my mind, but I forced myself not to get too excited. No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn’t get the image of that boy holding that pencil out of my head.

A
fter India we traveled the open plains of the Kenyan Masai Mara, spent time in the townships of South Africa, and explored the overgrown favelas of Brazil. Rather than pursuing guided tours at historic sites, I developed a habit of befriending locals who were my age and asking if I could spend time in their home villages. This simple request took me far off the beaten path and enabled me to gain an inside glimpse into how rural communities functioned. I became obsessed with learning how other people lived and was consumed by a newfound passion to help. By the time Semester at Sea came to a close, we had circled the globe and I felt like a man on fire.

When we arrived at the docks in Ft. Lauderdale where our families awaited us, I was immediately struck by how much bigger Americans were than the people I’d met abroad. It was so rare to see an overweight person in the developing world, yet more
than half of the people waving from the Floridian shores seemed enormous. As Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Although I had been worried about experiencing culture shock in foreign countries throughout the trip, the greatest culture shock was about to occur back home.

Ma was eager to take me to her golf club in Boca Lago and fill me with heaping plates of brisket, meatballs, gefilte fish, sushi, and chicken-noodle soup—delicacies after months on the ship eating stale rolls and soggy salad. I wanted to enjoy it, but as we scraped the excess into the trash, all I could think about was how many people went to sleep hungry in the places I’d just visited.

That night my brother, Scott, who had become the top nightclub promoter in Atlanta, insisted that we go clubbing in South Beach to celebrate my return. I hadn’t even been back on US soil for more than ten hours, but we went to the Miami hot spot Skybar. Beautiful, scantily dressed women waved sparklers and danced around carrying enormous $5,000 bottles of Dom Pérignon. Their performance eerily resembled the religious ceremonies I had seen over the past few months, but in the Candomblé ceremonies of Brazil and Cao Dai temples of Vietnam, people were celebrating life, not bottles of alcohol. I could feel myself judging those around me, which wasn’t fair because they hadn’t seen what I’d seen, nor had I lived a day in their shoes.

No matter how hard I tried, though, I knew that this feeling wouldn’t go away until I traveled again. I had grown so much in my time abroad, but it seemed as if life at home had pretty much stayed the same. It felt as if I were back in my childhood bedroom; I knew everything so well that I could find the light switch in the dark, but I no longer fit in the surroundings once everything was
illuminated. My parents had always told me that when it came to travel “we’ll support you, just not financially,” so I hatched a plan to get back on the open road.

*  *  *

After working multiple jobs through May and June, I had enough money to backpack on a shoestring budget through July and August. With my friend Luke, I started in Europe, where we lived on cheap sandwiches in well-traveled tourist hot spots like Paris, Vienna, and Prague. But we also visited more remote cities like Bratislava, Slovakia, and Split, Croatia, just to chase adventures off the beaten path. In these distant locations we often met the kindest people, who took us into their homes. In Dubrovnik, Croatia, we stayed with an elderly couple we met at the bus station. After telling them how much we missed homemade breakfasts, they placed warm bread, scrambled eggs, and fresh-squeezed juice in the kitchen for us each morning. These treats lifted our spirits and reminded us that even on the road you can find strangers who can make you feel like family. The food was certainly delicious, but the gesture showed us that kindness cannot be evaluated in dollars and cents. The only way to measure it is in the weight of compassion that the act itself carries forward into the life of another.

Following my time in Europe, I spent the rest of the summer backpacking through Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia with my SAS friend Dennis and his college roommate, Zach. The futuristic feel of Singapore and gorgeous beaches of Thailand did not disappoint. In Cambodia, we were hosted by Scott Neeson, a tough-willed Australian and a former film executive who oversaw the release of some of the top movies of all time, including
Titanic
and
X-Men
.

A few years before, Scott had visited Steung Meanchey, a notorious
garbage dump in Phnom Penh, where several thousand of the region’s poorest kids were living in squalor. After recognizing that his help wasn’t doing enough from afar, Scott walked away from his life in Hollywood. He sold his house and Porsche and moved alone to Cambodia to create the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF), which provides housing, education, food, and life-skills training for kids in the most impoverished communities.

The organization was small, nimble, and run by someone I deeply connected with. On several occasions I walked with Scott through Steung Meanchey. The smells of garbage were overwhelming, but everyone seemed to know him, and he chatted with multiple families about the need to bring their children to the CCF for medical attention. The services he provided were to children who desperately needed help, and he had a personal relationship with those he looked to support.

He explained that he had a staff of local Cambodians, which was best for the children they supported, but he needed help raising funds back in the States. I immediately agreed to become the Cambodian Children’s Fund’s first fundraising coordinator and vowed to devote my senior year of college to helping the organization educate more children.

Since I was born on Halloween, I planned out the costume party I had always hosted for my birthday, but this time I asked for a $10 donation at the door in lieu of gifts. The party raised several thousand dollars and would be the first of many events I’d host to support the CCF.

Although the first party was a success, I ran into a roadblock when planning the next event. I had no proof that I was affiliated with the CCF, so I couldn’t get nonprofit discounts on venues I tried to rent. When I asked Scott for a way to acknowledge my association, he mailed me my own two-sided business cards. On one side
it listed my name and “Fundraising Coordinator” in English, and on the other side it was translated into Khmer, the native language of Cambodia.

It was such a small thing, but those business cards were the best gift I’d ever received. I felt that I belonged. I felt that I mattered. The $20 investment it took to produce those business cards gave me a sense of value and enabled me to raise thousands of dollars for the CCF over the next few years. I suddenly had an identity that I could be proud of, and all it took was a piece of paper.

*  *  *

Although I had a sharper sense of purpose than ever before, I still had this lingering feeling that no one understood me. I’d gone through such a rapid and profound transformation over my four years of college, and sometimes I felt as though my life was trailing far behind where my mind was taking me. When I hatched plans to launch a nonprofit after graduation, my parents, professors, and peers all tried to dissuade me. I’d worked hard to complete a triple major in economics, sociology, and public and private sector organizations, and they didn’t want me to squander it. “You should go work at the highest levels in business,” they said. “This way you can make as much money as possible and then use those dollars in your forties or fifties to fund something that will better the world.”

Reluctantly, I decided to follow their rationale. I knew my résumé was strong enough to open a lot of doors, and I began applying to the most lucrative jobs that a recent graduate could attain. But I knew that deep inside I was now driven by something completely different.

The spare cash I’d earned through the jobs I’d held over the years had allowed me to accumulate some savings, but whenever I looked into my wallet, the single most important item in there was
always my CCF business card. It meant so much more to me than the dollar bills it rested beside because it enabled me to belong to something bigger than myself. Purpose can manifest from so many different places, but it most often appears through the small things that enable us to feel connected to a broader whole.

Although I was about to plunge into the corporate sector, my CCF business cards unlocked a feeling that I wanted to explore further. I decided to take one more big trip into the developing world. I had my backpack, a pair of aviators, and enough cash to last four months in Latin America.

The only thing left to do was to write a will and hop on a plane heading south.

I
can’t explain exactly why I did it, but rationally, or irrationally, I just decided that it had to be done. I was twenty-three years old and I wrote a will.

I didn’t have much: my music went to my sister, journals to my brother, and any money I’d made went to the Cambodian Children’s Fund. I typed up the document after dinner the night before I left and asked my mother to sign as a witness.

As she held the pen to sign my will, balancing against the wooden kitchen counter, tears started to stream down her cheeks. “You’re really making me do this?” she pleaded. I nodded. I was about to travel alone through a remote part of the world for months, and I wanted to make sure the right people got my possessions in case something happened. I knew my belongings weren’t of immense worth, but they were important to me. Sometimes you have to leave things behind to understand their true value.

Over dinner, my dad had asked me for my itinerary. I couldn’t help but laugh. He repeated, “I’m not messing around. I want to know where you’re going to be each of the first thirteen days. You don’t have to tell me where you’re staying, but I want the names of the towns and cities.”

“Dad, I don’t know where I’m staying the first night, so how can I possibly tell you where I’m staying for the next twelve?” I told him of a place called Semuc Champey, which my SAS roommate Jaret had traveled to last year. It had natural, emerald-green pools and a cave you could swim through for miles by holding a candle to light the way. “I’ll go find Semuc Champey first—it’s somewhere north of Guatemala City—and then explore Central and South America from there. That’s really the only plan that I have.”