For many college students, reading and writing consists of skimming through an entire textbook the night before a midterm, or cranking out 12-page papers under deadline pressure. But after visiting the poorest areas in Haiti, first-year Education graduate student Allison Cary found out that the definition of literacy can be relative. "I thought, 'Gee, don't they understand what it's going to do for their lives, to know how to read and write?' " she said. Cary, who will receive her master's degree this spring, recently returned from a visit to Haiti to examine literacy programs, her second trip in two years. She made the trip with Beyond Borders, a nonprofit Christian organization that works closely with literacy centers and organizations in Haiti. Cary, now a Beyond Borders trustee, learned about the organization when John Engle, her close friend since first grade, founded it three years ago. Cary's path to Haiti was not simple. As a child in "homogeneous, suburban" Hershey, Pa., Cary became interested in black culture, albeit from a "very naive perspective." In junior high school, she was selected to spend some time at a camp with inner-city children, and she read books such as Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. Cary, who graduated from the University of Delaware in 1986, originally planned to go into journalism, but her friends pointed her in a different direction. "People said, 'Do you really want to report on everybody's misfortune?' " Cary said. "Why don't you do something before the misfortune happens." Instead of immediately following that advice, Cary pursued a career in sales management with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, working in the Philadelphia suburbs and then in the city for the past three years. Although her job was satisfying and had a "team atmosphere," working in an urban environment renewed her interest in black culture and raised new questions about her career. "A lot of the questions I had about inner-city life weren't being discussed in my work environment," Cary said. Cary then began performing volunteer work for a church in predominantly black Germantown two years ago. And the more she talked with Engle, who is the co-director of Beyond Borders, the more she became interested in the organization. Cary said she first went to Haiti in January 1995 because she was curious about Third World countries and wanted to "see what [Engle] was doing." Though she arrived there two months after the United States military came to restore democracy, her first impression of Haiti was a negative one. "The airport was chaotic," Cary said, adding that she was "really overwhelmed by the poverty" in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital. The lack of electricity, gasoline and even running water made life difficult, she explained. Yet when she traveled to the more serene countryside, she encountered friendly, enthusiastic people -- especially when she and two other Americans stayed with a local family. "It was wonderful, it was really different," Cary said, admitting though that "it was very uncomfortable and awkward at times." Despite the language barrier, Cary learned much about the Haitian people, their culture and their goals. And one of the Americans she was with spoke Creole, the language of the vast majority of Haitians. "They don't want money, they don't want a new house, they don't want running water. They want to be educated," Cary said. The trip, known by others in Beyond Borders as "Transformational Travel," did indeed change Cary. When she returned to the U.S., she decided to alter her career path, a choice she had been contemplating for two years before the journey to Haiti. Cary began to wonder if she could make a difference in others' lives and her own. "I want to be a teacher so I can learn myself," Cary said. John Rawley, who has known Cary since her childhood, said she has always been "loving with other people." Rawley accompanied Cary on this month's trip. He said he believed the first trip led to "her resolving in her own mind that she wanted to devote her life to helping children." Cary applied to education graduate schools last February and has discovered that her fellow students share the same concerns as she does. "[The education program] made me realize how many other people are as concerned as I am about what happens and worry about what's going on," Cary said. As part of her studies, Cary is a student teacher for fourth graders, an experience she called "a real eye-opener." Although she said the children are "very bright and energetic," she stressed that they need "to develop their own self-discipline" and "initiative for learning." When Cary returned to Haiti earlier this month, she had hoped to "find out what progress had been made" in both the country's literacy centers and infrastructure. Cary discovered an increase in commerce and construction, and a "more organized" airport, but poverty was still prevalent. "No matter who goes there, or what your questions are, there is something for everybody to learn," she said. Cary now is looking forward to her new career, hoping eventually to teach in an inner-city school, most likely in Philadelphia. "It's very humbling to be involved with education," she said.
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