Builder Helps School '08
He’s putting his hammer to use for kids’ future
By Stephen Baumann
Venice Gondolier Sun (FL), June 4, 2008
In a sense, it was the lousy economy in Southwest Florida that led James M.S. Johnson to a small town in Nicaragua and a different perspective on the world.
“I hadn’t been able to get a job, and there wasn’t anything going on in the construction industry around here,” said Johnson, 61, of Englewood. So when a friend introduced him to Louise Brunberg of Venice at a peace conference last New Year’s Day, he asked if she needed a hand at the Montessori school she supports in Nagarote, Nicaragua. She did, of course.
Weeks later, Johnson found himself in another world, building shelves and relationships.
“Going down to Nicaragua was this huge spiritual awakening for me. I realized I can’t seem to make a difference here, nobody needs an old carpenter here, but down in Nicaragua they do and they appreciate it,” he said.
Johnson is a creative and handy guy. He began building his house off Placida Road in 1989. He ran a pile-driving business, was a general contractor and carpenter. He also likes to get away now and then. In recent years, he’s taken time off for very long walks. Johnson and his wife, Eva, have hiked the 2,175 miles of Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Last year, they took on the 2,660-miles Pacific Coast Trail and managed to complete 780 miles, despite Johnson fracturing his leg. But the school trip was a new sort of adventure.
“I went down there not knowing what the heck was going to happen or what needed to be done,” he said.
Brunberg had him build a set of shelves and cubicles for the kids to store backpacks. Simple here, if you’ve got the know-how; in Nicaragua, a lot harder. It can be a major chore to find parts, screws and dry, straight wood. What normally might take three hours can take days in the Third World.
Still, Johnson found the work rewarding, so much so that he returned a second time to install a 660-gallon water tank at the school. Running water on demand is a luxury in this part of the world, so the tank helps make life a little easier.
Johnson plans to return again late this year. There are other projects — a new roof and kitchen, for instance — at the school Brunberg runs for more than 250 poor children.
And then there’s Brunberg herself, a clear-minded, no-nonsense do-gooder. A former teacher, the 80-year-old Brunberg began the free school more than a decade ago. She recruited teachers and still raises funds to keep it going. She keeps them in supplies, provides meals and even managed to buy a school bus to shuttle kids around.
Johnson calls Brunberg “the most remarkable woman I’ve met in I don’t know how long,” but he’s concerned about the future. “The thing I worry about now, when something happens to Louise, the school is not well-enough endowed to endure past her legacy,” Johnson said. He is hoping that updates of a Web site and facilities will help.
“There are an awful lot of people who are reliant on Louise,” he said.
As for Johnson, it sounds like he’s all in. “To pull any one of 30 of those children out of that cycle of poverty is a tremendous reward,” he said. “There’s a saying on mural on a wall near the university. It says ‘Ignorance is the worst sin of a people and the best weapon of a warlord,” Johnson said. “It’s a very, very profound statement that, to me, has a great deal of weight in my own country, as well as to the folks there in Nicaragua.”
Copyright (c) 2008, Venice Gondolier Sun
