Home Library (written 3.18.09)

In response to an intense desire to read storybooks, and an equal but opposite lack of reading material, we’ve recently decided to start a public library in my community. The initial steps have been taken: we’ve chosen a location in the school, submitted a grant request, and had a very successful first meeting for which our Peace Corps librarian visited my site to get everyone excited; she’s Dominican and passionate about books, not to mention a experienced librarian, so she could contribute a lot that I could not. She was able to bring up several boxes of books to get us started, and the kids have already been checking them out, informally, a schoolteacher keeping a list of rentals in her classroom.

In the meantime, my house has become sort of a temporary library. I have about 30 kids books in Spanish that I will put in the library when it’s up and running, but for now the kids like to come by and read them here, or sign them out with a promise to return them.

Word has spread like wildfire that this library is coming, and I think what makes me happiest about the whole thing is that we finally seem to have settled on a project that seems equally important to me, the foreign development worker, and the community members. Our priorities have definitely been at odds in the past (for example, they want English classes, while I want them to learn how to read in Spanish first), so it’s nice to have found a middle ground in this project of obvious importance.

Shameless plug: I will soon have a grant online to which anyone interested can donate any amount they deem appropriate to the library. Link to come soon.