I believe that I have mentioned I am helping to create a library at the primary school where I help out. Well, let me explain the reality. We started with a room filled with junk. And a whole lot of books. The principal asked me to survey the situation and see if I could “create a library” out of the mess. So, for the past several months, I have been sorting through massive amounts of junk which has been a task that I don’t wish to do ever, ever do again. There were files from the 1980s, old socks (don’t ask), bills, copies of registers, scary spiders, and massive amounts of dirt and dust. And the problem? The staff/teachers don’t want to get rid of anything? I will ask, “Oh, I found these old empty registers from 1993. I can throw them away, correct?” “No, no. We don’t use them but go ahead and keep them. We might need them someday.” I have almost started crying on several occasions. Don't they understand this stuff needs to be THROWN AWAY?! But my biggest challenge? Waiting for shelves to arrive (remember African time)? The principal and I talked about these shelves and he made it sound so easy…I should have known. After asking him every day for several weeks, I finally just stopped asking.
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| Shelves! |
But, amazingly, like everything in Africa, one day out of the blue, the shelves arrived!? It was magical and there was no warning but there they were…a bit out of sorts (meaning not exactly like we had discussed) but I have stopped being too picky. I’ll take what I can get. And, now I have been busy putting these piles and piles of books into some sort of order (along with the last remnants of the crap I can't seem to get anyone to agree to throw away).
I am not finished (even though all the teachers keep coming by and saying it looks beautiful so imagine what it looked like pre-cleaning) but will be glad when the hard labor is over and we can actually start letting some of the learners use the books!? And if you are interested in making a book donation (?!) just give me a call. I would love to have more books!
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| Notice the remnants of "crap" (lawnmower) |
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| Embracing my work |
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