The Work Behind the Project: Evolution of a Library

In movies, TV shows, or blogs, we frequently read about people who go overseas to the developing world and do great things. They discuss it so flippantly, like it was absolutely nothing: “Yes, I started a library at a primary school. It was so heartwarming to see those children lost in the joy of reading for the first time in their lives.”

I would like to find these people, and I would like to ask them a few questions. Did you train a local to be a librarian so the library can function properly? Did you pour the money in yourself, or did you engage the school? Did you order the shelves from a store or hire a local carpenter? Where did you get the books? Are the books appropriate for young ELL? Have you taught the children proper book handling to preserve the life of the books? Have you discussed a budget with the head teacher to make sure the library will be maintained financially? Did you form a library committee of students and adults? What are the library rules and hours of operation?

Most importantly, did you ask the school if they wanted a library?

Ladies and gentlemen, I started a library at my primary school. So far, it has been one of the greatest challenges I have ever faced, and the hardest part isn’t even here yet. Do you know why it’s hard? It’s not a project to feel good about myself and the charity I do. It’s a project that I am acting as a consultant on so the proper locals are engaged and invested in what is ultimately their library. For a young American over-achieving control freak recent college graduate, taking the back seat and keeping my mouth shut is nearly impossible. Here’s how my first project is going so far.

When I walked in to what would be my library for the first time, I was not particularly pleased. It is an old classroom. The windows don’t lock and the door has no lock, which means the books could get stolen or rained on. There were no shelves. There were piles of boxes of books everywhere. These books were from an old library that my very favorite charity, World Vision, founded. They, of course, dumped the books and left (if you don’t know, I really really really really passionately hate the way World Vision operates). The library lasted a few months in 2007 before it fell apart.

Piles and piles of books

The pile just kept growing

A makeshift shelf - the only thing in an otherwise empty classroom

The damage from World Vision, however, stuck around. My librarian looked at the pile, looked at me, and smiled. I got this feeling of dread in my stomach. When she then asked, “So how long will it take you to sort this?” I almost walked out. I insisted that we were partners, and we would sort together. I quickly realized that most of the books were Swazi textbooks that were outdated. I started sorting them. She, in a very patronizing and maternal tone, told me that we were only sorting the story books today. I started at her incredulously, and asked where they were. She said we’d have to find them but not sort anything else. Again, I almost quit, but I decided to ignore her. After all, I was busting my butt to get this going, while she watched me sort and talked to her friends. When I went to the bathroom and to talk to some of the other teachers as I took a break, I left the room. She got students to remove the boxes of textbooks and threw all my piles that I had spent hours making into the boxes. I came back to piles of the books that she wanted to work with and nothing else. I was stomping mad. I gave in to the temptation and walked out. Taking a back seat is a learned art, not an innate one in my case.

I was determined that day 2 was going to go better. I walked in cheerful but prepared to be aggressive if need be. She had a pile of “story books” and a pile of American textbooks that had been donated. I looked through the story books and realized that they were a mix of fiction and non-fiction (The Diary of Anne Frank was in there). When I mentioned this need to sort, she looked at me and asked: “What is the difference between fiction and non-fiction? I thought there were only story books and school books.” Americans, do not take your Western library education for granted. This explanation had to be repeated over several days, but she eventually understood. I alphabetized the fiction while she sorted the textbooks by subject. By she sorted, I really mean she complained about how heavy the books were and talked to her friends while I worked. At the end of the day, she told me that a child must have alphabetized the books, because every adult knows that you alphabetize by title and not by author. I didn’t appreciate the insult, but I went home feeling a bit better.

Day 3 she stood me up. This would end up happening a lot. It’s not considered as rude in this culture as it is in ours. She finally answered her phone and told me to go on working. I chose not to. I went home, and that evening decided that I was taking a back seat and she was going to really work. See, Swazis define work as being in the room where work is done, not actually doing the work. That needed to change in order for me to keep my sanity.

A few days passed. The next time we worked together, I imitated her. If she sat down to chat, I sat down right beside her. If she went out for a drink of water, I also stood outside. If she stared at the books and said how heavy they were, I stared too and agreed with her. Absolutely no work got done, and she got annoyed with me. I kept this up for the next few days, and eventually she started taking the lead on the work. I cannot tell you how good that felt.

We got the books sorted by fiction and non-fiction, and the textbooks sorted by subject. We were working on creating a library inventory over the course of several days, when we got a surprise. The library has a lot of empty space, and this apparently screams “Use me for storage!” to the teachers. We have 2 walls with shelves and 2 empty walls. For reasons I cannot even begin to understand, they had decided to store a desk delivery in front of the 2 walls with shelves, leaving the other two empty. This sure made it difficult to work, but the kids were eventually allowed to assemble the desks.

Here, I felt something really special. These kids had been learning on the floor and had no place for their textbooks. They wrote on their laps. My school is one of the poorest in Swaziland. When 555 primary schools were ranked based on the standardized test scores of the students, we ranked 502^nd. It’s sobering to realize how lucky you are, as well as to see the joy in the faces of students who have new desks for the first time. I went home and cried.

Starting to get shelves

Organization takes shape

Organizing

Our little fiction section

The textbooks

My librarian - and all the empty space

Desks being assembled in the school courtyard!

This was the mess last week. Books in all the emptiness? No. Books in front of other books.

Most recently, we learned how to create an accession register and to make labels for the spines of the books. That is what we are working on now. We only have about 200 books. In May, we will receive 1,000 books from Books for Africa. That’s when the true test of dedication will come for the librarian and for the school. Registering, cataloguing, and labeling all those books is going to suck a lot, but the payoff will be worth it.

This is hard. It’s hard to get shelves, raise the funds for a door lock and window locks and burglar bars. It’s hard to raise the 1500 rand for transport of the books. It’s hard to train a librarian and students when you are new to the work yourself. It’s hard to work at a slow pace and not drive it forward. It’s hard to smile through the frustrations.

Those dreaded textbooks made a reappearance on Thursday. Once again, they were pushed up against the bookshelves and not the empty wall. Oh, the joys of working in Swaziland.

You know what the most ironic part of this whole thing is? You have chosen to read this post, however many of you there are. When I return, how many people will want to hear this story? How many times will I want to tell it? In one year, when this library is functioning and my time here is ending, how much will the struggle mean to me? I’d be willing to bet that when someone asks me what I did with my Peace Corps service, I’ll answer: “I started a library at a primary school. It was so heartwarming to see those children lost in the joy of reading for the first time in their lives.” And I’ll probably resent myself for it.