One night of storytelling at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) 25 years ago had an amazing effect on the young men confined to the correctional facility, to such an extent that boys who had never read a book were looking for shade under a tree to sit and read finding hope and solace in the stories.
Many had never had anyone read them a story; books were scarce in their homes and their own stories were of neglect and abuse while growing up. Many learnt how to fend for themselves from an early age and being raised in single-parent homes a father figure was absent in their lives.
Recently, the man who introduced them to storytelling and who they all grew to love shared their story with The Scene. They called him Paddy O’ Toole, a name from one of his stories. He first met them as Ramnauth Sookraj, a young man pursuing his studies at the University of Guyana but fearful of completing a National Service stint at NOC.
Sookraj, in an email noted that the concern expressed in the media recently about the poor literacy skills of students brought to mind his experience at NOC. His story speaks to the power of story-telling as a means of drawing children, even the most disadvantaged ones, into the world of books and reading. He opined that if children could be lured into reading for fun and pleasure it could significantly increase their chances of attaining effortless literacy.
“I daresay storytelling may well be one approach to dealing with the problems of poor literacy rates and the high incidence of crime and poverty,” he said adding that his experience at NOC demonstrated that it might hold promise as a reform tool.
Sookraj recounted that in 1983 he was sent to NOC and was informed that he had to set up a library and perform duties as an assistant house-father, and that the mere thought of having to deal with 40-odd “wayward young criminals filled me with dread”.
He described himself as being bookish and retired by nature. Sookraj said he kept asking himself why him since he felt that there were many tough-looking students that the captain at the dorm could have chosen to work in the dorm.
The dorm he was assigned to was relatively new and spacious and airy. He recalled that the resident house father was a man named Corporal S- a gruff, wiry man with beady eyes and a raspy voice who ruled the dorm with an iron fist.
On his first night he found the welcome not encouraging and remembered the hostility and resentment that was shown by the boys and on that very first night, Corporal S decided that he was going to take a deserved night off.
Pandemonium broke out just after he left, Sookraj said, with the boys running around the dorm shouting and fighting and no matter what he said they persisted. Reinforcements were later called in to quiet them down.
Sookraj said he questioned whether UG was worth enduring more of that.
But on the next evening he went in with a plan. He saw to his duties ensuring the boys had their baths and were in their pajamas and then armed with some books he settled down to tell a story. Some of the younger boys reluctantly sat down to listen and Sookraj told his first story.
“And so the wire bend and the story end,” was how Sookraj ended the story and had prepared to call it a night when the boys clamoured for another story then another and another. While telling one of the stories Sookraj lowered his voice for dramatic effect and only those sitting on the floor were able to hear him when suddenly the older boys who were on their beds started protesting, “Talk mo’ hard’ and “Meh can hear yuh!”. It was then he realized that the older boys who kept their distance were listening to the stories and paying keen attention. By the end of the first week the entire dorm was sitting in for the nightly story telling session. Six months of storytelling went by.
“From early evening, they would wrap themselves in their sheets and sit cross-legged on the floor, patiently awaiting the magical hour. I chose from a wide repertoire of stories – Anansi and fairy stories, stories about giants and dwarfs, devils and demons, witches and wizards, ole higues and jumbies, folk stories, myths and legends of faraway lands.”
Through all the many stories the children listened with rapt attention, “eyes wide, mouths agape” and some of them even lost in wonder. It was like preparing to see a good movie as the children would jostle each other for prime position next to the story teller as it allowed them to see the pictures accompanying the stories. And the story telling nights were not kept a secret as words spread to the other dorms where the older inmates were kept and during encounters in the dining hall Sookraj said the older boys pleaded with him to visit their dorms and do the same. Their cries were heard as eventually Sookraj said the administration scheduled him for occasional storytelling sessions for the older children. Sookraj said initially he had some apprehension about how the older boys would have taken to the stories he was telling the younger boys, however, he quickly found that they were “just as enamoured of the story-telling sessions as were their younger counterparts.”
Sookraj’s eventual nickname ‘Paddy O’ Toole’ was actually given after a memorable story-telling character in one of the stories. “From then on, their typical greeting whenever they encountered me was ‘Paddy tell me a story.’” He revealed that he felt a little bit like the Pied Piper as the children trailed him around the compound during the day, hoping for a tidbit of story. It was their penchant for calling out that nickname that landed Sookraj in hot water some time later. He explained that one weekend he decided to go AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave) as he had a craving for his mother’s home-cooked food. “I crept out of the compound one Saturday evening and took the Adventure ferry to Parika, thence to my home on the East Bank of Essequibo. On my return early Monday morning, I attempted to enter the compound just as surreptitiously as I had left.” But he found out that to be a mistake as a sharp-eyed child who must have missed the storytelling sessions spotted him and shouted, “Paddy O’Toole tell me a story!” His cry was picked up by others and the early morning quite was shattered by shouts of “Paddy O’Toole tell me a story!” It was no surprise that the entire compound was alerted to his presence, including the Captain, who was not amused and in fact sentenced him to an extra week of service at the facility.
And while the administration was supportive of the idea of a library and even supplied a building and furniture, Sookraj said he soon found out that there was no money to purchase books. Not to be daunted, Sookraj said his solution was to obtain box-loads of discarded children’s books from the National Library in Georgetown. And while some were tattered with pages missing and were not ideal they were better than nothing and after much patching and cleaning with bleach they adorned the shelves of the library.
According to Sookraj initially there were just a few takers of the books but that soon changed as the children got into the spirit of reading. He said he witnessed the remarkable transformation which gradually took place among the children. There was marked improvement in their behaviour and they were filled with joy and had extra bounce in their steps. And during the days the boys enacted the stories taking on the roles of some of the characters and while quite a few of them requested the books from which he read, Sookraj said he was not sure if they actually read the text or rather looked at the pictures. “…but the fledging library saw a spike in the number of children borrowing reading material. Without a doubt, storytelling had piqued their interest in books.”
Sookraj spoke about a 10-year-old boy, who showed keen interest in reading and would immerse himself in the books he borrowed He attended the nearby school with the other boys and Sookraj said he was touched when one afternoon he extracted a sweet biscuit (which was distributed at school) and wordlessly handed it to him. After a time the children confided in Sookraj and he learnt that storytelling was a new experience to many of them as no one had read a book to them before. “Their stories were heartbreaking. Many of them had grown up too soon, had been neglected, abused and forced to fend for themselves from an early age. Many of them came from single-parent homes with no father figure to serve as a role model. I respected their privacy too much to enquire about what had brought them to NOC, but it was clear to me that these youngsters were badly in need of hope and purpose in their lives.”
Sookraj feels that his storytelling helped to reshape the internal stories which the children had been socialized into believing about themselves: “that they were worthless, no-good dunces with no future.”
And while Sookraj said he had initially latched onto the storytelling sessions as a means of self-preservation, storytelling actually took on a life of its own which transcended both the children and himself and spread a “mystical web around us that was at one protective and liberating, healing and exhilarating.” He said the six months he spent at NOC proved as much a period of self discovery for him as the children as never before he felt so needed and never before had his life taken on such dept, meaning and purpose. And when he told his last story and then said goodbye there were tears in many eyes and he found it difficult to believe that the same group of boys had just six months before greeted him with much defiance.
And there is a bitter sweet ending to the story as Sookraj said just last year he learnt that the ten-year-old had died in a tragic traffic accident. He was about 35 years old and from all accounts he had made a success of his life, he had a good job and had only recently gotten married. “I would like to think that in some small way, those storytelling sessions played a role in [him] beating the odds and emerging a winner.”
