Listen, Find, Grow, INSPIRE

Sitting here in my comfortable suburban home on the outskirts of Seattle, I allow myself to spend these uncharacteristically sunny and warm summer days staring out the kitchen window, past the brown-roofed houses and pine trees and into the distant horizon, blue and clear, lined with mountains. If nothing else, I am a bright-eyed, hopeful, and somewhat naïve undergraduate, a rising sophomore, barely past my college initiation. A world that once seemed so huge feels smaller now, more intimate, as if I could stretch out my fingers and touch the ends of the earth. When I close my eyes I can almost see my middle school students, tanned and small, eager to learn. I can see the teachers at the Sanamklee School dressed in uniform greeting me with polite, sweet smiles. I imagine Pitsanulok, Thailand – rural and hot and humid – gorgeous.

These dreams, like most other dreams, always end the same way: shattered by reality.

Reality is this: I have never been to Thailand and, aside from when I was born in Vietnam, I have never been anywhere beyond North America. It’s a running joke for most of my family that my first trip back to Southeast Asia is not to my homeland but rather to Thailand, Vietnam’s long-time regional rival. Though funny and ironic, it sheds light onto a huge idea. I know nothing of Thailand beyond what I’ve read in my “Lonely Planet Thailand” guidebook. I have no idea if my students, the teachers, or Pitsanulok will be anything like I expected. In my back pocket I carry a Thai-English dictionary, huge ideas, and a helluva lot of good intentions. But is this enough?

Adam Tolnay, the founder of Learning Enterprises as well as The Learning Foundation India, Y-Fi (Youth Finance), and PANANGO, to name a few, kindly gives a few pearls of advice to those who come into foreign communities to establish service projects.

1. LISTEN to what the students want to do and work with their natural inclinations not against them.
2. FIND the few really enthusiastic people and work with them rather than trying to move everyone forward.
3. GROW with the project and see the setting up of the program as a multi-year effort.

The Learning Enterprises Thailand team is trying to put together a project in rural Thailand that we hope will encourage positive change in the community. Adam’s advice illuminates the fine line between being socially innovative and being irresponsibly unrealistic. Little battles that are hard-won are almost always more helpful to a community than huge battles that are lost.

Though here in Bellevue, WA, a world away from Phitsanulok, Thailand, I allow myself to indulge in these dreams that I know will probably be torn apart when I step foot in Thailand and see everything with my own eyes, the good thing about projects and dreams being shattered is that they can be put back together in way that is more reasonable, informed, and strong enough to withstand the harsh blows of reality. I just have to be willing and ready.