'Three Cups of Tea' tastes like opportunities at Rice

By Claire Krebs     9/4/08 7:00pm

Like many of the incoming freshmen, I did not want to read Three Cups of Tea. I had even less of a reason to do so as well: I am a mechanical engineering senior, and I had absolutely no involvement with O-Week. I will confess: It took me the better part of two weeks to finish the book. Not because I did not like it, or thought it was idealistic or sappy, but because I have had a glimpse into the main character Greg Mortenson's world.

For those not in-the-know, Three Cups of Tea was this year's freshman summer reading book, co-written by Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (co-author). It is the story of Mortenson, a mountaineer who sees firsthand the poverty of a Pakistani village during a failed mountain ascent, which starts him on his lifelong mission to bring education to thousands of rural children by building schools across Pakistan.

Mortenson quickly learns that the only way to accomplish a project of this scale is to build relationships with Pakistanis on the ground, using their firsthand knowledge. While the story itself is overwhelming, the real value of the book comes from the lessons he learns along the way of what will and will not work in humanitarian projects.

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Books and lectures like this seem to find me without my active effort. Usually I hear about such things through the international service group at Rice that I have been involved with since my freshman year. We work on long-term engineering projects in Latin America, collaborating with the people in the communities we serve; like Mortenson, we have learned the hard way a sustainable project must be built on these relationships.

I suppose I should not have been so shocked by the numerous parallels between Mortenson's experience and my own, but I was. He has had the same problems, felt the same frustrations and faced the same language barriers that we have dealt with in our projects, except Mortenson speaks Urdu instead of Spanish.

While the parallels seem endless, what resonated most deeply with me were the relationships Mortenson develops in Pakistan. Not only do these people help him achieve his material goals, but they themselves reflect fundamental truths about the world. It is here that I see the deepest symmetry with our work in Latin America. For every Jahan, Haji Ali or Faisal Baig, inspiring and guiding Mortenson in his work, there is a corresponding person living in the communities we visit.

There is Ciamara, the adorable little girl from El Salvador who stole our hearts with her wide eyes and mischievous smile. Her grandfather calls her Mentirosa, "little liar," as she, one by one, denounced every guy on our team as intolerably ugly.

There is Don Mercedes and his 24-year-old son, Juan Carlos, also from El Salvador. Don Mercedes reminds you of your grandfather with his mannerisms, wry sense of humor and loving devotion to his dog, except I doubt your grandfather can break up boulders with a barra before breakfast. His son Juan Carlos could be the Salvadoran everyman, perpetually joking and wielding a machete, except he has been diagnosed with diabetes and has failing kidneys. Despite his ever worsening condition, he is always with us to help in any way he can, a constant reminder of both our own mortality and the resilience of the human spirit.

These characters are just a few of the ones we have met. They are very different than us in their origins, native tongues and daily habits, but by getting to know them, we have seen that they are just like us in core values and everyday cares. Like in Mortenson's tale, these people have molded our lives and our understanding of ourselves.

Although all of the people I have met are dear to me, it is a girl named Marina in a tiny town in northern El Salvador who means the most to me. Eighteen years of age, with long black hair and a pallor uncommon to most in the village, Marina seems to see through the seriousness of life to the humor around it, perpetually sharing an inside joke with existence.

I met her on my second trip to El Salvador, but with my limited Spanish, we had little contact. Unfortunately, with travel dates limited to vacations and the beginning or end of summer, it is difficult to finish our project-related tasks, much less form relationships with more than just the most involved community members. Of course, we would love to, but we can only make do with the time we have.

It was not until my fourth trip that I was able to connect with Marina. The technical aspects of our project completed and the rest of the team wandering the village, I was preparing to take a well-earned siesta when she walked by. With the requisite "buenas tardes," I invited her to stop on our porch.

For 45 minutes we shared more silence than conversation. Normally my test of a friendship is the amount of silence that it can sustain before it is broken. With Marina, I felt like I had known her all my life.

Later that evening, sitting alone on our porch under the sky, I realized that the reason she feels so familiar to me is that with her mannerisms and nature, she is me.

This tall, skinny, uniform-clad teenage girl who has never been further away from home than the neighboring town is the girl I would have been, had I grown up in a small Salvadoran village. And maybe instead of me traveling from a faraway land to help her, it would have been her flying to help me.

Obviously, the material benefit of humanitarian projects can be huge. But I would argue that the relationships built along the way are more important. Similar to Mortenson's experience, all of the people I have met in El Salvador will be with me the rest of my life, and I know I am a better person for having known them. I can only hope I have had a similar effect on them.

Of course, I am not the only Rice student to have had this experience. There are many of us, of every major and class, all trying to be, as Gandhi would put it, "the change [we] wish to see in the world."

There are so many opportunities at Rice in which to contribute and from which to grow. You don't just have to settle for reading about it.

Claire Krebs is a Hanszen senior and co-leader of the Engineers Without Borders project in El Salvador.

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