Leatherwood's Pensieve

August 21, 2006

Helen Richardson

Helen Richardson was probably the most influential teacher I’ve ever had—at least, of the teachers I’ve met inside the classroom.

When my family first moved to Mongolia in August 1992, we and a few other missionary families put together a little “joint homeschool” where all the children attended together under three or four teachers. This worked pretty well for the first year, but at the end of that year, most of the families and teachers moved away, returning whence they’d come. For the next few years, my siblings and I were pretty much the only Western children in our area. My parents brought in a new team member to serve as our tutor (amongst other responsibilites). Her name was Helen Richardson. She arrived in October 1993, if memory serves. I was just starting the fifth grade.

As I’ve noted before, I’ve suffered from a perfectionistic streak for my whole life. I only recall it as far back as third grade, but a few years ago, I chanced to examine this big fat folder of papers my parents gave me when I started college, and ran across this most enlightening note from my teacher in first grade:

Daniel does well in expressing his thoughts, feelings, and ideas on paper—it comes very easy for him. His reading vocabulary is growing nicely. He enjoys his work. Math comes a little harder for him. He is currently working on his 5, 6, 7 fact families. He understands how to do the problem, he just needs more practice so that he remembers his facts quickly. I am pleased with his progress. One area that concerns me however is his overemphasis on grades. He was in tears one day because he received a 2! [2 being roughly equivalent to a “B”] I tried to explain to him that he was only in 1st grade and that we mainly do a lot of practicing—it’s okay to make mistakes—we’re still learning! Please reassure him of my confidence in his abilities and praise him for the progress he has made. Some things, like learning to work in a group, take time. He lacks confidence—I believe we can help him gain confidence by focusing on his strengths. Thanks for your support!

The level of prescience in this note and others from my early school life is rather frightening. :)

Anyway, no matter how far back the evil tendencies ran, they were very nearly out of control by the fifth grade. Fourth grade was terrible for me as I shrieked and howled my way through every mistake. Just in writing this, I’m beginning to wonder if my parents didn’t import Helen to have the exact effect on me she did? I dunno, but God used that woman.

You see, she simply refused to tolerate my tantrums. I can still remember her talking to me, pleading with me, arguing with me. She fought with me and for me against the demons that were threatening my sanity. She also noted my increasing arrogance (arrogance and insecurity seem to go hand in hand, more often than not) and stepped on it hard. In talking with my parents recently, they recalled a question she asked me once in the height of one of my rages: “Do you think you’re God, Daniel?” At the time, I brushed off the question angrily: of course I didn’t think I was God! Now, thinking back on it, my demand and expectation that I be perfect are more than vaguely reminiscent of Satan’s boast “I will be like God; I will exalt my throne above the heaves...”

Helen was more than my sanity preserver: she was my friend. She read books to us over recess periods at school: White Fang, Jungle Book (all of it, not just the common pieces), Captains Courageous, Huckleberry Finn ... and others.

She lived near my family in the ger community called Damtardja on the outskirts of Ulaan Baatar. (Ger is the Mongolian word for yurt, which is what the Russians call them. The noted Wikipedia article has some pictures of them at the bottom.) There was, of course, no running water for those gers and pumps were highly problematic ... particularly in the winter. The government delivered massive water trucks to central buildings called hoducks (my own transliteration); it was an individual family’s responsibility to acquire the ration tickets for the water supply and haul a canister up to get it. Ah, those were the days ... shortly after we moved to the ger community, my parents in their infinite wisdom decided to entrust the reponsibility of acquiring this water to me. I put a stainless steel 40-liter canister of water onto a two-wheeled contraption (rather similar to a long wheelbarrow) called a tehrig, trundled it up to the station, filled it up with water (after breaking it open because it was frozen shut), and trundled it back. Since a liter of water weighs about a kilogram, forty liters of water weighs around eighty-eight pounds. When I started the job, the canister was heavier than me; I had to get help to lift it on the tehrig. The job was especially fun in the spring time, when the road was all muddy ... but I digress.

Anyway, when Helen saw what a splendid job I did carting that water (definitely qualifying as a “character-building experience” in a Calvin and Hobbes sense), she hired me on to do the same for her. Since there was only one of her (well, two when her room-mate was around), I only had to do it a couple of times a week (as you can imagine, we established a very strict water economy quickly), but she paid me really well ... a little more than a dollar a week (800 tugriks) if memory serves. I’m not so sure, but she has always considered that experience an extremely character-building one for me. I didn’t notice, but she’s always claimed that I changed a lot through that work, particularly since she and her room-mate needed me. Without water, bad things happen.

As I said before, Helen was a friend. A really good one. She helped me get through probably the hardest period of my life, where my self-control was weakest and my perfectionism most demanding. She introduced me to some of the greatest classics in all literature. She gave me a man’s job—or at least a young man’s job—and I grew into it. She gave me lemonade when the trek was long and hot in the summer and hot chocolate when it was less than minus forty in the winter. She helped keep me sane, and helped me begin to get a handle on my pride.

She did a lot of other things, as well. Some of them at the same time she was tutoring us (she tutored us for three years), some of them afterwards. She helped teach kindergarten, if memory serves. She was really active in reaching street children (believe me, living on the street when it’s forty below and colder is a very trying experience). I really don’t know everything she was involved in, nor do I know many of the details of her past. I’ve seen her twice since she moved back to the States: she actually came to my wedding.

That’s Helen at my wedding in August 2004 (the other extremely good-looking people in that shot are my siblings, in case the family resemblance isn’t clear). Good looking as well as awesome, can you beat that? :D