About three weeks ago, Kevin and I went to San José to pick
up a long-awaited special shipment from Alaska. We waited in line at the post
office, with passports and customs papers in hand, for just long enough to be
glad we’d taken the whole day off for the task. We were ushered from one window
to the next, signing this and dating that, writing my passport number here and
answering questions there. It was well worth the wait though, because the busy
man at window six pushed us out a cart piled high with four huge boxes of
books!
The books were all donated by Government Hill Elementary in
Anchorage. But they couldn’t have arrived without the help of the group of Returned
Peace Corps Volunteers in Anchorage, who secured $600 to pay for the shipping
costs. The books were more amazing than we had expected. The first box alone held
exactly 200 books — no doubt thanks to my Dad’s expert packing skills. Kevin
and I oohed and aahhed over each one as we pulled them from the boxes. All of
them are written in Spanish (because reading in your first language is much
more motivating than reading in your second) and are overall in fantastic
condition.
My elementary school principal here in La Rambla has been
awaiting these books almost as eagerly as I have. She has set aside four handcrafted
bookcases in an extra classroom that we will convert into the school’s first
library. The books have been classified, alphabetized, numbered, fitted with
library pockets, and stuck with spine labels, but there’s still much more to do
before we can call the heaps of books, which are currently occupying our spare bedroom, a library.
As soon as the books are moved onto shelves, the walls are
decorated and we find some sort of mat for the kids to sit on, Kevin and I’ll
start giving “library class” for forty minutes five times a week. All of the
kids in the school, from kindergarten to 6th grade, will get to
participate in fun reading-centered lessons to promote a love of reading in a community
where kids just don’t have access to attractive, interesting books. They’ll get
to check them out and take them home to share with their siblings and parents
and just read over and over again.
The teachers at the school are ecstatic about the library’s
possibilities and have been quick to offer assistance and support, and the
local parents are getting more and more involved in the project as they see it
coming to fruition. After being involved in so many teaching and English
training-related activities and projects (where progress is slow and generally
invisible), it’s exciting to participate in a project in which I can actually
see daily progress. Pretty soon La Rambla is going to have the best children’s
library Sarapiquí has ever seen!
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