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WEEK of October 11, 2004 |
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Texas Tornado Hits Library by Jeffrey Stanley “Your spit, like, freezes before it hits the ground.” Latina journalist Stephanie Elizondo Griest, equal thirds adventurer, schoolmarm, and MTV veejay, was describing the coldness of a 40-below Russian winter to Jennie Tranel’s ninth grade English class. Elizondo Griest is the effervescent author of Around the Bloc (Villard/Random House 2004), a memoir that details her adventures traveling through Russia, China, and Cuba during the late 1990s—trips she was able to finance through her gifts as a writer. She recently spent an entire day captivating our Middle and Upper School students in the Meeting House and in the library with straight-shooting stories of how as a teen, despite her modest upbringing, she cleverly overcame financial barriers in order to travel and pursue a career in journalism. Her first trip abroad was to the former Soviet Union in 1996. In the thick of that particular Russian winter she observed firsthand “the vast issue of homeless youth,” and soon began volunteering at a children’s shelter. The energetic Elizondo Griest also recounted frank stories of her experiences on the fringes of the Russian mob thanks to her mafioso boyfriend, experiences that gave her a bird’s eye view of drug abuse, prostitution, and contract killings. Since her initial visit to Russia, “I’m happy to say the mafioso situation has definitely settled down,” she added.
After a harrowing year in Russia, Elizondo Griest returned to her native Corpus Christi, Texas to drudge through a final year of college, eager to travel again. “Who knows what wanderlust is? Anyone have a definition?” She went on to tell the students that “wanderlust is in my DNA,” thanks to a great uncle who was a hobo, which she differentiated from a homeless person as someone who is not a victim but lives the drifter’s lifestyle by choice. She sought out grants and fellowships to finance her wanderlust, and found one. Soon she had received a prestigious Henry Luce Scholarship and was off to China. There, she worked as a “propaganda polisher” for a Communist newspaper where she learned that despite government restrictions on the media, journalists find ways to write between the lines and “gently try to mold the system from within.” She also discussed the time she spent in Cuba, as well as her exploits in belly dancing, and urged the Upper School students to begin researching grants and fellowships sooner rather than later. “People like to give young people money,” she said with a knowing wryness, stressing that they take advantage of the financial opportunities offered by academia as early as possible in order to gain real life experiences in their chosen fields. Middle and Upper School librarian Larry Williams was the catalyst for Elizondo Griest’s visit. “Every year during the New York is Book Country weekend, the Department of Education sets aside money to send authors to schools,” he explains. Williams had taken advantage of this program in his previous positions at other schools. This is the first time BFS has registered for the program. The grants are such that schools can request a visit, but not from a specific author. “By luck of the draw,” says Williams, “we got an amazing speaker to whom the students really responded.”
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