Street art in Santiago

Before I write about storytelling here in Chile, I want to show some of the murals and other street art we saw yesterday in the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago. Sofi (my tour manager) and I walked there from our apartment in Providencia yesterday. We saw these scenes before and after lunch (I had the most delicious piece of salmon I have ever tasted--I'm drooling a little thinking of it). At any rate, here are some of the pictures. 

The buildings are painted in vibrant colors, whether or not they have street art on them, and there's a mix of old and new construction. On this Sunday afternoon, we were happy to stroll around Bellavista, enjoying the beautiful weather. It was a great way to relax before diving headfirst into the tour. 

The Chile tour begins

I arrived! On Friday, I had a full day working with third graders (8-9 yr olds) at the Lied Center of Kansas on puppet skills, then rushed to the airport. My flight from Dallas to Santiago was delayed by ten hours, so the airline put me (and a planeful of frustrated travelers) up in hotels in the area. On Saturday we took the ten-hour flight. I was met by my tour manager, Sofi, with whom I am also sharing an apartment. Here are a few pictures of the apartment:

This is my bedroom with attached bathroom. That second bed? I think it will serve nicely as an office. Sofi also has a bedroom and her own bath

The kitchen is small but nice, as is the living room.

And a view from our windows:

More on what we saw in Santiago in my next post.

The power of quiet

I'm not a loud storyteller.  I prefer to invite listeners in to my story world, rather than grab them by the lapels and drag them in. I'm an introvert, so maybe that's why this is my style. Oh, sometimes I get loud, sometimes I wind the kids up, sometimes the decibel level gets high, but I like to bring everybody back to a calm state where we can all enjoy the story connection. I love seeing kids really listening to stories.

This past week, I had the pleasure of working with individual classes of second-graders (7-8 year olds) at Quail Run Elementary School in Lawrence, KS on the Learning about the environment through the arts program, through the Lied Center of Kansas. This was the project on lifecycles, dragonflies, puppets and storytelling. I've worked with these teachers before and was impressed once more by their powerful classroom management skills. All three teachers spoke quietly and calmly with the students, giving instructions without raising their voices. On top of this, they were kind. The children were attentive. They weren't automatons, they weren't stressed, they were just enjoying the sessions without getting wild. The teachers understand the power of quiet. I don't know if this is a school attitude or just these three teachers, but it's a wonder to watch. Afterwards, I was talking with one of them about this. She laughed and said she thought the kids were a bit wired. She also mentioned that when she has a student teacher, she often has to tell them to take the intensity and volume down a notch, as the kids will always ramp up higher than the teacher. 

Another way this teacher used the power of quiet in her classroom management style was at the end of the session. She needed to tell the kids what was going to happen next. She said something like, "Okay, everybody, now look at me. Put your hands on your head. Good. Put your hands on your knees. Good. Now put your hands on your ears. Hands to your sides. I'm going to give you the instructions for what's going to happen next. I'd like you to walk back to the classroom without saying anything. Put your puppets on your desks and line up for gym." She only had to remind one kid that it was time to follow instructions. 

Children don't need to be yelled at all the time. Quiet works. Respect works as well. 

Thanks to the teachers, Peggy, Shawn and Paula, for using the power of quiet.

P.S. One of Peggy's students came back about an hour after the session with a story he had written about what we had done. Fabulous!

You do WHAT?!

My friend Granny Sue is organizing a storytelling blog hop (the internet answer to a pub crawl?) and she asked for blog posts about who we are and what we do. If you're a family member or old friend, you probably know this stuff, but it occurs to me that many readers don't know my background or the range of what I do. So here goes...

On a plane, at a party, in a networking gathering or in many other places, the question comes up. "And what do you do?"

"I'm a storyteller." 

"What? What does that mean?"

"Well, I tell stories." I launch in, "I tell folktales, my own stories and stories from books. I don't read the stories, I tell them. When I work with young children, I use puppets, but I also tell stories to adults and older kids." 

The next question is often, "Can you make a living at that?" Yes, I have done so since 1993. 

"How do you get your work?" I jump into the list of things I use to market my work: this website and blog, directories and rosters, postcards, e-mails and my favorite, word of mouth. 

"How did you start?" I have a couple of answers. One is that I babysat when I was a teenager and would make up stories to tell to the kids. Another is that I was a children's librarian and learned to tell stories in my job. I always tell people how lucky I am to do work I love. 

Still, these answers don't ever tell close to the whole story.

You can find me telling stories in schools, libraries and at festivals. I tell for kids who are learning English, you can find me hanging out with the stroller crowd with puppets, I might be at a school telling character ed stories, I love telling stories in Juvenile Detention, I've told stories to high school communications classes and forensics students, I teach a workshop (or series) called "Storytelling, Storywriting." Before performances for kids, I often play "Name that tune" with the listeners, playing on my harmonica. Afterwards, the puppets might greet the audience.

Is that all? Nah. I tell Medieval stories to older kids and adults, including The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, my longest story, which clocks in at 95 minutes, and Queen Berta and King Pippin, which I translated from Old French and Modern French. I was one of three co-founders of Going Deep, the Long Traditional Story Retreat. Last week I did a one-woman show for adults called Blood, Guts, Spies and Fat Naked Ladies, a wild piece of personal fiction based on truth about the year I lived in Bulgaria in the early 1980s (yup, during Communism). I've got a large collection of stories of the Turkish trickster Nasruddin Hodja, most of which I translated from various languages.

What else? I coach storytellers, I teach workshops on using puppets with young children, story stretches and songs, storytelling, writing. More? Oh, right, I give house concerts, conference presentations and keynote speeches, too. Weddings and anniversaries? Yessiree.

When not performing, I search for stories in English, French, Bulgarian and Russian or do (or avoid) office work. I travel around the world (all over the US, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Argentina to date, with an upcoming trip to Chile) telling stories. 

Some of the personal stuff: I'm a reader, a talker, an adventurer. Though I live in Kansas, I'm a New Englander at heart, the youngest of seven kids. I love to cook, eat, play around in the garden, hang out with friends, listen to music, swim, walk. I have a four-legged office assistant who is meowing at me now to feed him. 

I also like pie. I'm still looking for the best restaurant pie on earth. Fruit, not cream.

Pictures from Belgium 2013

Before I leave Belgium, I want to put up some of the random pictures I took on this trip. Back to storytelling later.

Facade of a house in Brussels. Lovely, isn't it?

This was in tile above a door in Brussels. It's fairly new, I think, as opposed to the next picture.

And what a lucky door the next one is:

And here is some good advice from a wall on the same street: 

And to finish up, the Happiness Cafe. 

More on the 2013 Belgian tour

It has been a good couple of weeks here in Belgium. Yesterday I had my last two performances of the tour, at the school the farthest away. It was in the village of Limbourg, which required that I take three trains and then be picked up in the town of Verviers by the kind director of the school. Fortunately, the trains were on time on the way (delayed on the way home, but I didn't care).

This is the clock in the Verviers train station.

Some of the schools I've visited have been run by native English speakers or are international in scope. Others are English-immersion schools, with primarily Belgian teachers. I have to say, all the schools were wonderful on this trip. The level of English has been mostly very good. I left each school saying, "I hope I can come back here next time!" Believe me, this doesn't always happen. I remember one school in Belgium many years ago where the level of English was very low, the staff wasn't helpful, and the administration seemed hostile. I had none of that on this tour. All of the schools were welcoming, all of the kids responded well to the stories. The hardest part is always the logistical aspect, figuring out how to get to the schools either by public transport or by the kindness of my friend Marie and her trusty Prius.

Here are a few interesting things I saw at the schools. At World International School, the main part of the building was once a house owned by a marble merchant. There was marble everywhere! Mix and match. There was even a slab of marble in front of the radiator. This is the fireplace in the staff room: 

I didn't take pictures at Collège St.-Louis in Liège, though I did last time I was there. I had a fun time with the middle-school kids there. I would have liked to get a picture of the cat in the staff break room. Apparently there are several who live outside at the school. The director prefers them not to go inside, but this one was surveying its domain by the window.

At St. Paul's British Primary School, I had time to look through the school's albums of creative projects the kids do. I didn't go up into the back garden where the children go for recess, but I could see that they have a grand time there. One teacher laughed as she told of a student who had had to change his clothes completely the day before because he was plastered in mud. The play yard is up the stairs in the second picture.

Here are a few pictures from the school in Limbourg. I'm not sure what the animal figures playing instruments are, but I did love the seahorse playing harmonica on the balcony. 

I was in the gym at this school. The door to the bathroom had an unexpected sign on it: 

Comfortable seating in Belgium

I'm near the end of my 2013 Belgian tour. Last week I went back to the European School of Brussels at Uccle, where I've been three times (or is it four) before, and for the first time to the school's site at Berkendael.

Six years ago, I told stories at the ESB site at Uccle. The last day of the performances was especially difficult, as my father had died the day before and I wasn't able to get back to the US. I decided to continue with the performances but get back in time for the funeral (I must say here that the teachers at ESB were especially kind). During the very last session, I had kindergarteners. I was worn out from performances and from grief, so I sat down to perform and therefore wasn't able to see that the small children in back were completely eviscerating the cushions. When they left the room, I was surprised to see pillow guts in a big pile around where they had been sitting. The teachers apparently didn't notice. I was beyond able to do anything about it, so I neatened it up and, I'm embarrassed to say, fled. 

I confessed this to the current librarian. She laughed. She is new since then and told me about sewing the cushions for the children to sprawl out on before the opening of the library this year. She is librarian for both school sites, and at both, the children have many wonderfully cosy places to sit. 

I like a comfortable library. This reminds me of the reading bathtubs in the library in my hometown of Springfield, Vermont. A local artist (Goldie May) lined the inside of old clawfoot tubs with foam, covered them with plush and painted them. Kids loved reading in them. 

Here are the cushions at the two libraries. Pretty, aren't they? 

More on the tour soon, I promise. 

Travel projects

I write this from Belgium, where I'm performing and visiting friends for a couple of weeks.  I have several days free and had good intentions of working on two specific projects: 1) cleaning up the translation of the story of Berthe Aux Grands Pieds, which I call Queen Berta and King Pippin and 2) finishing the first draft and beginning the rewrite of my National Novel Writing Month novel from last November. 

Today I sat down with my laptop, ready to begin the first project. Alas (or as I might say here, 'Hélas!'), just as in this picture Queen Berta is sitting forgotten in the forest, far from Paris, where she should be, the translation is sitting cozily in my external hard drive at home, far from Belgium, where it should be.

Source : acoeuretacris.centerblog.net sur centerblog.

I'll have to work on it when I get home. In looking for a good picture to use for this post, I came across an excellent summary in French, so I'm doubly wishing I had brought my work with me. That story deserves to be known.

So I'll be plowing ahead on my novel. I find it good to have a limited number of projects when I travel for extended periods. In 2008, on a month-long trip to Brazil, I took only one book, a collection of Grimm Tales. I had been hired to perform my programs Grimm for Grownups and Cheerfully Grimm for the first time a few weeks after I returned, so I spent my free time working on the stories. In 2009 when I came to Belgium, I sat in my friend's kitchen by the hour working on the translation of Queen Berta and King Pippin. Now, I'll turn my attention to this short novel for older kids. Having a smaller pool of projects makes it easier for me to focus.

I wrote most of the first draft of this novel as part of National Novel Writing Month in November. I succeeded in the challenge of writing 50,000 words in a month, but I didn't finish the story. I think I only have a couple more pages to wrap it up, and then it will be time to rewrite. I admit it: I like beginning projects and often get bogged down with the hard work of editing and rewriting.

Before I begin, it might be good to take advantage of the rare sunny weather here. Quite often when I'm here in February it's raining or spitting snow. For the past four days it has been cold and clear.

Nasruddin teaches the wise men

Here's a Nasruddin story from a Bulgarian source:

Nasruddin Hodja was a shepherd at one point. One day a couple of wise men were passing by. They asked him for something to eat. The Hodja poured them a bowl of sheep yogurt, then gave each a spoon two meters long. 

"Hodja, thank you for the yogurt, but how do you expect us to eat it?"

"I thought you were the wise men! You feed each other, of course."

This is a variant of the story of the difference between heaven and hell, or the allegory of the long spoons. A man died and went to hell. He was ushered in to the dining hall, where the table was piled high with delicious food. The people around the table looked miserable, as they had long chopsticks  splinted to their arms and couldn't get a bite of the food. Then he went to heaven, where there was also a table piled high with delicious food. Once again, the people had long chopsticks splinted to their arms, but they were happy, as they were feeding each other. 

By the way, I love sheep yogurt when it isn't too, well, sheepy. I think it might be when the ram is in with the ewes that it gets a gamy flavor. When I lived in Sofia in 1983-84, I would go to a little hole-in-the-wall shop where they served sheep yogurt in season and biurek, a delicious pastry. The line was usually out the door when they had sheep yogurt for sale. 

Nasruddin and the lost ring

Here's an old favorite from Turkey. I think I heard it first in Bulgaria as a joke. Was it the same joke-telling session where I heard about the inebriated fellow who was trying to spear an slippery olive on his fork? He chased it all around the plate and finally gave up. His friend picked up the fork and decisively stabbed the olive. The first man muttered, "Hmmph. I tired it out."

Nasruddin Hodja and the lost ring

One evening, a man noticed Nasruddin Hodja searching the ground under a street lamp. 

"Hodja, what are you looking for?"

"A ring, my son, I lost a ring." 

The man stopped to help the Hodja look. After several minutes, he said, "Hodja, are you sure you lost it here?"

"Here? I didn't lose it here. I lost it over by the house."

"Why are you looking here, then?"

"The light under this street lamp is much better than by the house." 

The ring in this picture was a present from a family friend who had lived in Turkey. It's a puzzle ring, formed by four linked rings that only fit together one way. 

Back to basics

I'm making bread today. I've been baking bread since I was nine years old. I began with the basic white bread recipe from the Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery (volume Bea-Cas). I followed that recipe for six or seven years before I started improvising. That's a long time for me, as I view all recipes as mere guidelines. I started experimenting, throwing in a handful of cornmeal or adding oatmeal, substituting olive oil for butter, trying maple syrup instead of sugar, learning that with whole wheat you have to knead the dough longer. Usually it was pretty good.

Lately, I've been tossing in flax seed and oatmeal and sesame seed, sweetening with molasses, measuring by feel and taste. For the first time in ages, I haven't been satisfied with the end result. I've decided to get back to basics.  Several years ago, I found that one volume of the cookbook at a book sale, sitting alone on a shelf, so I took it home. Today I followed the bread recipe exactly, and as I did, I was taken back to being a beginner, to the smell and feel of the dough.  

It's good to get back to the basics. I can, and will, branch out again, but right now I need to use the simple recipe. I feel that way about how I get storytelling work. In 2010, as some of you know, I moved from Lawrence to Kansas City. I'd been a full-time storyteller in Lawrence for 17 years and had built up my name and reputation in Lawrence. It isn't that I didn't have to promote my work, but that the pool of people who knew my storytelling was large. Maybe I was a little complacent.

In KC, not as many people know me. I find that I have to get back to basics, to what I did in the beginning: I networked, gave out my business card, talked about the art of storytelling, introduced myself to people who might have an interest in my work, showcased, sent out targeted mailings, listed myself in directories, made as many connections as I could. I'm doing that again (and it's easier in some ways, thanks to the Internet). 

Think of how some kids approach the world (before they're taught to be scared), with an openess and willingness to experiment. If they have the basics, they can create something amazing. That's the kind of beginner's mind I'm looking for. I'm going back to what I did in the beginning, as I'm doing with the bread, and from that place of openness and wonder, my work can open up. 

I've had fewer school gigs as teachers struggle to prepare students for testing and budgets are cut. In thinking like a beginner, instead of continuing the strategies that are not working, I start wondering how else I can use my gifts. I have to be nimble, as I think about other applications for storytelling, such as Skypetelling, or telling stories at weddings, or preparing a program specifically for kids who are learning English as a second language. 

I have to think creatively about how to make my living in a creative field. Part of that is cultivating beginner's mind.

Time to go check on that bread. 

Tasty!

Skype-telling

It worked! Last year I wrote about considering telling stories remotely, using Skype. I once did a puppet workshop for a classroom on Skype and didn't like it much. I couldn't see the kids very well. I've also coached storytellers on Skype, which is much better. My friend Carol asked me (again) if I would tell stories to her niece and nephew who live in Massachusetts. Carol lives abroad and has introduced the children to me via CDs.

Yesterday, I met the children not in person, but through our computers. I spent about 35-45 minutes with them, telling five stories and one song, with three puppets. Rachel (age 5) and Gabriel (age 7) were excellent listeners. They—through their mother—sent me an e-mail afterwards saying, "I liked skyping with you and I would like you to do it again sometime :) It was fun! The baby was hilarious. Please bring out the puppets again" and "It was really fun skyping and I hope to do it again soon. The baby was funny! Next time, please bring the puppets again."

Here are some thoughts on the experience:

I spent time setting up the environment. First, I moved from my office, which has blood-red walls, to the dining room. I set myself up with the neutral backdrop of the curtains on the puppet room. I wore a green sweater and turtleneck that contrasted with the curtains as well as with the puppets.

It was a sunny day, so I closed the blinds and turned on the overhead light to avoid my face having a vampiric shade. In order to minimize the number of chins I appear to have when the camera looks up at me, I raised the laptop, using thick books.

A few days before the call, I tested the setup with my sister. The day before, I made sure I had added Carol and her sister to my contact list. I didn't want to be messing around with that on the day. I subscribed to Skype Premium so I can have more than one other video up on the screen during a call. On the day itself, I turned off all other computer programs and shut down some of the services running in the background. 

Because I wanted to introduce the children to a few of my puppets, I had the puppets out of their bag and ready on the table. I also had a glass of water. I should have put the cat outside, but alas, I had to do that in the middle of the session. Nobody seemed to mind. 

Unlike real life, the kids could only see my head and a bit of my upper body. I made gestures higher than I normally would, so my hands would be in the frame. I also slowed the gestures down, as going too fast makes the image blurry. 

I was worried about the connection. On Christmas day, my family tried a five-way Skype call and found it frustrating. The audio was garbled and the video didn't work for one brother. Fortunately, the Skype-telling on Friday was clear, with only a few odd voice distortions from time to time. The video was good for the kids and mostly for Carol, but the video of the kids that I saw froze for about the last ten minutes of the 35-minute call. 

I wonder if Google+ Hangouts would be better. My sister and I played with that after the Skype call on Christmas. The video was so-so, but the sound was better. 

What do I charge for this Skype-telling, you ask? It's for families, not for birthday parties or for schools, and I'm offering it at a low introductory price of $30 for half an hour. Feel free to spread this around—I'd love to do more of it!

Comments? Questions? 

Short Bulgarian cartoons

I came across some wonderful films by Bulgarian animator Donyo Donev today. They're great illustrations of story structure and also of the stock characters of wise (or not so wise) fools in folklore. 

This one shows a circular story, called "Intelligent Village."

I thought it was going to be the Bulgarian story of "The Village of No Cats," in which Clever Peter tricks a village overrun by mice into paying him to bring in stray cats. It starts that way, but turns instead into a circular story. It also illustrates one of my favorite story structures:

Somebody wanted ___________,

But__________,

So__________.

Donev did a series of films about three fools. This one is called "The Three Fools Pedagogues." 

Somebody wanted? Among other things, the three fools wanted to teach the baby music. 

But? But the baby was really too little for the music lesson.

So? They moved on to the dancing lesson. 

And much more. 

I came across these videos by following a link on the Facebook page of the House of Humor and Satire, which is in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. I'm hoping to get back there someday! 

Art for art's sake

Rant alert. Don't worry, it doesn't last long.

I've found myself tired lately. Not physically tired. I'm tired of justifying the arts. I know, I know, I posted that lovely list of ten lessons the arts teach, and I'm clear that storytelling enhances reading skills, problem solving, empathy, blablabla. I get that the arts can fit into the curriculum in myriad ways. 

I'm just tired of having to tell people why storytelling is important. I'm tired of trying to convince anyone that the arts are worth funding. I want to remind people of the bumper sticker that says "The Earth without Art is just...Eh" 

I long for art for art's sake. I long for the end of standardized tests that test how well kids can answer test questions and that leave students and teachers stressed, anxious. I long to live in a world where I never again have to say how I will measure the effect of my storytelling on the listeners, as if my impact on an audience could be quantified. I long to tell stories that don't have to fit into a curriculum or connect with awkward standards, stories that matter on their own. I long to live in a culture that recognizes the intrinsic value of the arts. 

As part of this, I also long for education reform. The current system doesn't allow kids to be divergent thinkers, to be their true creative selves. Today I came across the ideas of Sir Ken Robinson. Here's his TED talk, "Do schools kill creativity?"

Valuing the arts

Last week I went to a talk given by Nnenna Freelon at the Lied Center of Kansason the importance of arts in education. I'm already a convert, but there was a moment in the Q and A that I loved. One of our local politicians who has always been a strong backer of the arts asked the loaded question: "Should government support the arts?"

Photo by Ann Dean. For those of you not in Kansas, this cardboard cutout is a take on the mural of John Brown in the Kansas Capitol painted by John Steuart Curry. It was seen at a demonstration for arts funding in 2011, when our governor defunded the Kansas Arts Commission.

The audience, knowing the situation in Kansas and knowing this particular senator, laughed a little. Nnenna's response was great. Instead of the expected "Of course!" she took a long pause and said, "That's not the question. The real question is, who do we want to be?" 

She's right. Who do we want to be?  I want us to have the possibility of being interesting, creative, funny, engaged, connected problem-solvers, with a wide emotional vocabulary. Will everyone be that? No, certainly not, but I want the possibility, and I believe the arts can allow that possibility. 

I recently came across this fabulous list, Ten Lessons the Arts Teach, by Eliot Eisner: 

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA. A .pdf of this list, in pretty form, is found on the NAEA site. 

Your comments? 

Nasruddin and the sheep's head

Here's another story about the trickster Nasruddin Hodja. Or Nasreddin. Or Nastradin Odzha. Or Saradin. Or Hoca Nasrudin. Or Mullah Nasredin. Or Juha. There are lots of variations on the name, as well as lots of variations on the stories. Try putting the stress on the -din, not on on the -ru-. This one is from Croatia.

Nasruddin and the sheep's head 

When he was a little boy, Nasrudin's father gave him some money to buy a roast sheep's head.  On his way home, Nasrudin ate the whole thing.  He arrived with just the skullbone.
"What is that head, my son?"
"It's a sheep's head."
"Where are the ears, then?"
"The poor thing, it was deaf."
"Where are its eyes?"
"Unfortunately, it was blind."
"Where is the tongue?"
"The miserable animal had none."
"There's no meat on its face."
"It was very skinny, had the mange."
"Well, why on earth did you buy it?"
"It has good teeth."
"And so do you!" said his father.

Western Kansas views--and pie

Last week, I drove almost seven hours to Western Kansas to tell stories. First I was at the Scott County Public Library for a Young Author Celebration on Sunday. What a fun group made up primarily of Mennonite families! I'd thought that the kids would see me in the next couple of days at the Scott City Elementary School, but it turned out that they were mostly from the Mennonite school. (Don't worry, I'll get to the pie soon. I will say, though,  that I've had excellent pie made by Mennonites at Iris' Cafe near Ulysses, KS many years ago.)

On Monday and Tuesday I told stories to kindergartners through fourth graders (ages 5-10), in small groups in the library. It's a treat for me to tell in the school library instead of in a cavernous gym or cafeteria. It makes so much sense to have the storytelling in the library. Even though it was only the first full week of school, the kids were wonderful listeners. At this time of year, the kindergartners are still really preschoolers, the first graders are still really kindergartners, and so on. The librarian and music teacher were my gracious hosts at the school. 

On Monday afternoon, I decided to go sightseeing. I'd never been to Monument Rocks, strange white rock structures about 18 miles northeast of Scott City. They're also called chalk pyramids. Here's the view from the distance, with the flat, flat land all around. (Flat like the top of a pie, not the lattice kind though.)

Getting closer...

This is called the keyhole. (Nothing to do with Key Lime Pie. Hold your horses about the pie.)

And there's another clump of rock formations across the road.

Across Kansas, there are abandoned houses and barns. I put a picture of one up a couple of years ago, in fact the last time I was in Scott City (working with junior high school kids that time). Here's one I saw on the way back to the motel in Scott City on this trip. (I didn't actually have pie in Scott City, but I had a nice chile relleno. The pie story is coming.)

The land out here is fenced in, sometimes with wood posts often made of hedge, a.k.a. Osage orange, wood that is resistant to insects and rot. It also burns hotter than any other wood, but has to be in a wood stove because it sparks like crazy. I used to burn it in my stove in Lawrence. (Not the oven, which I had to clean well when I moved as cherry juice had spilled over when I made a pie.)

When the white settlers came, there weren't lots of trees, but there was plenty of limestone. (I think they also made good pies after they'd planted fruit trees.) Post rocks can still be found around Western Kansas. Here's an example, with more in the background (from the rest area somewhere outside Great Bend).

Some of the most impressive buildings in Kansas were built of this limestone. This is the Kansas Mercantile, in the Old Ness County Bank Building, also called the Skyscraper of the Plains in Ness City. (Almost there.)

Okay, about pie. Many years ago (maybe 11?) I was telling stories in southwestern Kansas libraries for a week. I do love a good piece of pie and am usually on the lookout when I'm on the road. After the performance in Ness City, I stopped by at the Kansas Mercantile. On the door was a handwritten sign, "Thursday special, pie and coffee." I paused. What day was it? Yes! Thursday! 

About six or seven people sat around a table, relaxing as I wandered around the gift shop. One volunteer asked if she could help me. I didn't get to the point (of the pie) yet, but asked about the building. I had recently bought my old house in Lawrence, which was built in 1882. She took me on a tour, even up to the unfurnished top floor. On the way down, I asked about the pie. 

She was happy to cut me a piece of cherry pie. It was magnificent, one of the best in my quest for restaurant pie. Homemade, with a pit or two that snuck in to tell me it was made with fresh cherries. The woman who made it stopped by while I was eating. As I ate, I sat with the crowd at the table. They asked me where I was from and what I was doing in Ness City. One older gent had a harmonica in front of him. "Are you going to play that?" I asked. He had only been waiting to be asked. He had mild dementia, but retained his love of music. The others around the table sang along with the old tunes he played. 

I got back on the road that day headed down to Dodge City, with the sound of How much is that doggie in the window and Daisy, Daisy in my ears and the taste of excellent cherry pie in my mouth. 

How many donkeys?

Many years ago, I translated stories I'd found about Nasruddin Hodja, the Turkish trickster, from Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Croatian and French sources. I've begun playing with these folktales again, reworking them for performance. My idea is to put one up here on the blog every now and then.  I've only done one all-Hodja show but I'm considering doing more. If you tell them, it would be great if you give credit.

This one is from Bulgaria, the home of Clever Peter (Khitur Petur), who is the wise fool of that country. I especially like the stories in which the two tricksters appear together. Because the Ottoman Empire ruled in Bulgaria for 500 years, it's understandable that Clever Peter always gets the better of Nasruddin Hodja.  I've heard this story in other versions; this one was retold by Angel Karaliichev. Here's my take on it:

How many donkeys?

The Hodja was taking his five donkeys to market. He counted them to make sure he had them all. Good, five. He got tired of walking and climbed up to ride on one. After a bit he counted them again. Only four! He must have lost one. He got off the one he was riding, looked on the side of the road, in the ditches, in the trees, then looked back and counted once 

more. Whew! Five. After a while, he got tired again and rode for a while. When he counted, he only found four again. He got down, looked around, counted and found all five. This happened over and over.

His friend Clever Peter came along. "Clever Peter, can you help me? I keep losing one of my donkeys. When I'm riding, I have four, when get down and look back, I have all five. Would you count my donkeys?" Clever Peter counted, "One, two, three, four, five...six! One of them has only two legs."