Storytellersunplugged

by
George Guthridge

I have been writing a series here about how to use nonfiction techniques to write better fiction. Because of something that happened recently – something that I hope you all will find fascinating, even though it only peripherally has to do with writing – I am going to diverge from that series this month and perhaps once or twice in the future as well.

Backstory (I apologize to those of you who already know this): In 1982, more or less on a lark, I took a job teaching high school in a Siberian-Yupik (Eskimo) village on blizzard-swept St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. I got the job over the phone – and eventually discovered why being hired had been easy. Contrary to what the district administrators (who lived 200 miles away) told my wife and me, the school was so out of control that it was under threat of closure. Teachers had been beaten up, shot at, and the teacher housing set afire – with two teachers in it.

The villagers made their living hunting whale, walrus, and polar bear, and carving ivory. The kids, all of whom were ESL (English as a second language), had almost no world knowledge and most had very low reading and writing levels.

Two years later, using the writing method that I had earlier created and which I redesigned to fit the kids’ pedagogical and cognitive needs, the students became the only teams of Native Americans ever to win a national academic championship. And they did so – twice.

They studied for the national finals literally while they were hauling water and while they were in the skinboats hunting whales. At one point, three of the four boys on the two teams, after being exhausted from hunting walruses, went 72 hours without sleep in order to study for the state competition. The kids overcame fire, personal tragedy, and other emotional and educational problems that stagger the imagination, not the least of which involved having to compete against kids from schools of the gifted on subjects, such as genetic engineering and nuclear waste disposal, that the Eskimo student had never heard of before.

A movie, the sequel to Stand and Deliver, was being made about the kids’ accomplishments but unfortunately got caught in the 1987/88 Authors Guild Strike and was never released. Anyway, to make a long backstory somewhat short, a few years ago I decided to write the story. Janet Berliner, my coauthor on a number of projects, then did a wonderful job cutting the story to a more publishable length – having lived the experience, I was having great difficulty figuring out what to prune. The book, The Kids from Nowhere (as they called themselves) is scheduled for November 15th publication from Alaska Northwest Books. Though it is nonfiction, it reads like a novel. In fact, I have ventured to say that if you did not know that it is true, you would think it was fiction. It’s that kind of tale.

END OF BACKSTORY.

Around Labor Day, my (second) wife, Noi, found a book, Three Cups of Tea, in the airport. She works for the airline, and someone had left it after boarding the plane. It was about schools, and since I am an educator (in my 37th year teaching; I started at age two), she brought it home. It turned out to be a national bestseller and, for me, much more than that. Much, much more.

It is the true story of Greg Mortenson, a nurse who, by his own admission, was a “climbing junkie.” He was attempting K2, the world’s second highest mountain, when a French climber in another party began desperately ill. Greg and two other climbers abandoned their climb, rushed to his aid, and saved the man’s life.

However, the race against the clock so exhausted Greg that he himself became ill. He tried getting down to safety, got lost, and eventually made it to a village high up in the Himalayas, on the Pakistan side. There he convalesced for seven weeks.

During that time, he noticed some barefoot little girls trying to do multiplication tables in the mud, with sticks. A teacher could only visit the village once in a great while. Greg was so moved that he vowed to build the village a school . . . but he had NO money. He came back to the States, slept in his car and eventually on floors in hallways, and raised $12,000. He sold all of his climbing gear plus his car and returned to Pakistan, only to find that he could not get the building materials to the village, due to a chasm. He returned to the U.S., found more money, and returned and built the bridge.

He now has built 54 schools in Pakistan and educates 24,000 children. He is so trusted in the region that at one point he had to face mullahs (who were demanding bribes) in a high-level court . . . an American, amid a theocratic court. Yet he won.

He also went into Afghanistan, where he was captured by the Taliban and held for eight days in a windowless room. They then put a blanket over his head, herded him into a pickup truck, and took him out to a field, where he assumed he would be executed. Instead, they gave him $400 U.S. and told him to keep doing what he is doing. They had researched him, realized that he takes no government money, and decided he is for “real.”

The first student to graduate from the first school he built has gone on the medical school. A young woman, incidentally, from a place where prior to Dr. Greg, as they call him, most girls did not attend school at all.

**
Okay, back to my part in this: I was about three chapters into the book when I felt an overwhelming connection to him. Probably it was because I had taught in a cold-weather environment for so many years, but it was more than that. I couldn’t really explain what I felt. I awoke in the middle of the night and told Noi, “I’m going to give him the royalties from The Kids from Nowhere.”

I phoned him, and after some difficulty getting hold of him – he has been touring the U.S. raising money – I finally reached him. “I know you!” he said. It turns out that he had read Child of the Light, which Janet and I wrote back in the ‘80s. Delighted, I said, “You’re one of only six people on the planet who read it!”

I told him what I already had decided: I am giving him the royalties to build a school in the name of the Gambell students (who are not kids anymore, of course). I had previously phoned them and told them my idea. They said, “Hey, how cool!”

You can give a village the building materials and, once the villagers have built a school, have it equipped and a teacher paid for three years – all for $40,000. Obviously, I would like to give him enough to build several schools. It depends on sales.

Two things are of particular interest to me. First, for the first time outside my life as a teacher, I am involved in something that I think is truly special. It is exciting, revitalizing, and, ultimately, profoundly amazing to be part of something of such magnitude. Secondly, for the only time in my life, I have been in the presence of greatness. I flew to Bozeman, Montana, to meet Greg on one of the few times he has been home. He is shy, soft-spoken, well-mannered, well-groomed, and, clearly, deeply, deeply committed to the children of Pakistan. It was an honor to have shared a pizza.

Helping the kids meaning more than just helping any poverty-stricken children. Many of these are the survivors of last year’s terrible earthquake. Too, the area is an intellectual battleground, al-Qaida is trying to recruit young people from the region. As Greg has repeatedly pointed out, the only way to defeat terrorism is through education. The terrorists are not afraid of bombs or bullets. I don’t know about you, but until this came along I had felt helpless in the face of the terrorists’ evil. This is one thing, even if it’s just one school, I personally can do to fight them. And so can you.

And so a plug: Because it is from a regional publisher, The Kids from Nowhere is likely not going to be in your local bookstore. Please ask them to stock it, and please consider ordering a copy. (If you want an autographed copy, please email me at rfglg@uaf.edu or else phone 907-246-KIDS.) The book is also on Amazon. It will be a great Christmas or Chanukah present for a teacher or for anyone else who loves kids and loves triumph over adversity. The book retails for $16.95. Autographed copies are $20 postpaid regular mail or $22 priority mail.

Thanks for listening.

–George