A Little Story, for all of us
24 November 2020: A little story, for all of us
Every book has a story or two behind its creation. The Good Stranger’s Sancocho Surprise / El sancocho Sorpresa del Buen Desconocido is being published today, and its story goes back to 2012. But in reality it goes even farther than that, nearly twenty-five years, when I first lived in the Dominican Republic.
On Fathers’ Day 2012, I found myself in the D.R., missing my five year-old son terribly, so in some ways I began writing it for him. I kept at it for the kids I’d also grown close to over the years in the D.R. And I finished it, in part, to win a bet with my wife.
When my son was little, my wife and I had a habit of reading to him at bedtime, like many parents, or basically anytime we needed to get him calm. The kid was just (and still is) kooky for books, and he loved snuggling as we read. For many years in my work for Education Across Borders, I spent long stretches of every year in the D.R., often in the summer, running service programs to build homes and stronger communities. In 2012, when my son was five, my assignment coincided with Fathers’ Day. I got all weepy that night, and made it worse for both of us by reading to him over the phone. He kept asking me why I didn’t come home. A few days later, tired of feeling blue and still with several weeks to go in my stay, I thought I’d try to write a story that I could one day read to him, so he could understand the amazing place I was spending so much time in.
At first, I thought it would be easy— after all, I’d published a novel and was working on two other books at the time. But when I returned home and showed the draft to my wife, she grimaced. “It’s nice but… no kid will read this.” (She would know, she teaches literacy to small children.) And then she smiled, a bit devilishly, and said, “Writing for kids is actually hard, Mr. Big Writer For Adults. I bet you can’t actually do it.”
Thankfully, she was willing to help me win the bet—it was only a dollar after all. And she proved to be my best editor. After more than a dozen drafts, she finally said, “You got it.” (But she still hasn’t forked over that dollar.)
In the writing, I often had in mind the kids I knew in the D.R. The year my son was born, and we started reading to him, I connected the dots— finally— on a deeper level about the work I needed to do with EAB in the D.R. Too many kids there have scarce access to books, if any, and along with that, very little experience of reading aloud, of falling under the spell of a story spinning out in the air before them, especially while safe and warm in the embrace of a loved one. Or even experiencing a story time circle with their friends, something offered with marvelous (and privileged) frequency at every branch of the Seattle Public Library system, even in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. (SPL just simply rocks my world.) So I started collecting children’s books en español, taking them to the D.R. whenever I could, and asking others with EAB to do the same.
Felicia and William, my Dominican co-founding partners, suggested that I do something more than simply give away the books—I should gather the children, and read to them.
I started reading to groups of kids during the siesta hour, and I was surprised by how much we all enjoyed it. It was a gift I hadn’t anticipated. I felt a little less lonely for my son, and much more connected to these kids.
With Sancocho, I wanted to write a book they would relate to, and enjoy reading and listening to. That’s why the curly-haired girl sings those “silly” rhymes, and why it doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff of tragedy, poverty, prejudice, and oppression. Their world is not one of blond princesses in sparkly dresses; it’s rice and beans, bachata, and pine board homes, as well as crumbling schools, gutted hospitals, and the long festering wounds of colonialism and dictatorship. My hope has been to celebrate the cultural richness of the D.R. —and really the Caribbean in general. Not only the tangible elements— landscape, food, and language— that are easily swapped in as part of many re-tellings. I sought to go deeper, to illuminate the Child-like Spirit I have found there, and been transformed by, since the first day. The spirit of radical compassion, like the Good Samaritan practices; a spirit of generative generosity, like the apostles experienced when they set those few measly loaves and fishes before the Teacher. A spirit that is available to joy, free to be both vulnerable and generous, and lives with deep, abiding hope rooted in faith and inseparable from suffering, that produces a despair-resistance resilience, even in the worst of times.
This is the spirit that Education Across Borders has always tried to live, teach, and cultivate. Service, in this spirit— whether it be in offering a greeting, building a home, or cooking a big pot of sancocho with visitors— draws one to living in community. Not just in physical proximity, but in spiritual communion and interdependence. That’s perhaps more easily learned when life is so fragile it forces you to ask for help on a regular basis, just to survive; that’s the reality of most of my friends in the D.R., and one the wealthier sectors of the world are perhaps finally waking up to in this pandemic. Life is simply too fragile, too unpredictable to go it alone… and, what you receive from giving to others is too rich to ever seriously think about hoarding it for yourself. You can’t help but want to share.
This is why the D.R. has become a second home for me, why I’m so proud of the work of EAB, and why I hope Sancocho will help more folks experience it for themselves. Our work, I’d daresay, has something wonderful to offer the world, and will grow even richer as more people come and add their ingredients to the pot.
Some of the best children’s books speak equally well to children and adults. This book invites children to see the value of generosity, and of withholding judgment of “the other.” My hope is that the adults who share this book with their kids or students will also be touched— and challenged— by it. It’s a joyful story, but not a simplistic one, because it invites us to understand that sometimes those we are quickest to reject are those that hold the most precious gifts for us. Joseph Campbell often taught that our enemies can be our best friends, spiritually speaking, teaching us what no one who likes us would actually dare to.
We are in a critical moment in history now, where many powerful interests are eagerly scapegoating immigrants, racial minorities, and many kinds of “others” for political and financial gain. As adults, we need to see this clearly, and take an active stand against it, and that starts at home with our kids, and within our own hearts.
Take a little time, on your own if you’re brave enough, to read this story and let it sink in.