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| Jane Kurtz: Author of Books for Young Readers | ||||||||||
2007 -- page 5
Nearing the End |
Continued | |
| Article index What Does a Book Do? Books Offer Adventure Getting Ready to Go The Workshop Nearing the End |
Near the end, it occurred to us we should explain that it was the kindness of friends, family, and strangers that had helped most of us pay for our trips and that we were volunteering our time. This was astonishing—and important—information for our Ethiopian trainees, used to seeing those who work for nonprofits and NGOs as the well-paid and well-protected. Some of our trainees were starting their own schools. They were the ones to stand up and say, “We must not always look to the outside to save us. Yohannes is only one man and cannot start a reading culture all by himself.” |
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We wrapped up five intense days and headed north, a trip of beauty and
sadness, discomfort and amazement, answers and adventure. Our
guides, Habtu and Haptuwold (www.vastethiopiatrips) cared for us skillfully and showed us things even Chris and I had never seen. Was it a bad idea to take ten strong, opinionated people—each with expertise, each with expectations, each accustomed to being in charge—to do training in Ethiopia, particularly without a manual and without adequate time to discuss together ahead of time what we would do each hour of each day we were there? | |
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Chris was right. |
Yes. No
question who got to wear the nanner nanner boo tee shirt on that
one. We had more talent, more ideas, more things to show
than we ever had time for, and far more than our trainees would have
been able to absorb even if we had had the time. Chris was
right: we should have tried a first training with two or three
teachers and expanded from there. |
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 Alicia on a bus in Ethiopia
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Luckily for us, Alicia, who is starting a PhD program in international literacy, is now working on a follow-up, her dream to spend a year in Ethiopia setting up a training center and crafting a systematic plan that will include plenty of modeling, practice, and feedback for the Ethiopians who will be turning rooms with shelves and books into literacy centers. |
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But even though I ceded the nanner nanner boo boo tee shirt, I’m secretly glad for our recklessness. In 1957, Joyce Johnson wrote to Jack Kerouac that she had moved to New York City to write novels but had taken a job at the office of a literary agent and had somehow, instead, “become terribly mixed up with snobbish ridiculous, theatrical ideas of some vague kind of glittering power.” She was quitting that, she said, and going back to what he’d reminded her was important. Writing books so rarely involves glittering power, no matter what others assume, no matter what our restless longings. A 1995 survey showed that only 16% of freelance writers made over $30,000 a year and most made under $4000. But when the dreams of glitter are gone, something profound remains. I’d only been home a few days when all the prickles and problems peeled away from my memories. What was left, shining in my memory, was the joy of it. The fun. The beauty of what teachers and librarians know about books and reading and writing. What people around the world want to know about books and reading and writing. And the power of what little black marks on a white page can do to illuminate worlds, to plant determination and offer comfort, to connect one human being to another. |
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