Described is the education of an individual who was born in a remote village in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. It tells how a young boy progressed from a village, where the language spoken did not have names for numbers, to the position of tutor in mathematics at a university. The story is felt to resemble many others in the rapidly developing country. The main source for the report is four tapes on which Atawe answered questions concerning his life. It is felt that many problems associated with the development of formal educational systems in developing countries become more clearly defined in light of biographical sketches such as the one provided by this document. The view is that everyone working in formal educational systems should be more concerned with the effects which an educational system has on individuals and traditional societies than with the contribution the system makes to a country's technological advancement. (MP)