Unexpected Surprises

Rarely is any day in site predictable. There is no "9-5-ness" about it. That´s what makes me like it so much. Last week my community partner Jesus was traveling for the week, leaving me to run the library virtually solo. I say solo because recently my site mate Kerri had decided to have a site change and move twelve hours south to the department of La Libertad. I could probably write a blog in itself about this but I´ll refrain and only say that I was more than sad to see her go. I really had come to appreciate having her as a site mate and loved her positive attitude. But alas, there wasn’t enough water and sanitation work so she jumped the Tumbes ship (for those of you dedicated readers, she was the SECOND site mate I have lost, Steve was the first).

Anyways, so I found myself working in the library alone. At times this can be overwhelming because there are anywhere from 10-25 children that come on any given day but usually it’s pretty fun.

So one day last week I opened the library and let in a few of the kids that were waiting outside. I hadn’t been feeling well so I brought an orange to serve as my lunch. Call me evil but I did not want to share this orange (contrary to Peruvian custom) so I made sure I ate it as discreetly as possible. However, apparently it smelled pretty strongly and at least one kid, Mayte Juliana, noticed.

“Lindsey, gift me a piece”

Now I gift things to these children ALL of the time, but at this minute, I really didn’t want to hand out my entire orange (because that is what would happen, because after giving away one piece, another child would ask for a piece, and then another, until all of my orange was gone and I would be left with an empty tummy.

“No Mayte Juliana, sorry”

“Whyyyyy?”

“ Because I don’t want to.”

“Well, Lindsey, you really need to learn how to share.”

A five year old told me I needed to learn how to share. I couldn’t keep a straight face and burst out laughing in Mayte’s face and handed a piece over.

Then it started… “Lindsey, gift me a piece, Lindsey I want one!” until I had only one piece left. I hid the piece in my lap until Mariecxi came over and knew what was up when she said my “pants smelled good- kind of like an orange.”

I gave up after that and handed over my last piece while giving Mayte a death stare that said “I told you so.”

That being said, now I always shovel my afternoon snack into my mouth BEFORE heading to the library.

I was faced with another unexpected, yet awesome afternoon when I walked over one day last week and saw six children outside yielding machetes and shovels. They informed me that they were creating a garden because the library needed landscaping. As the afternoon wore on, more and more kids came over, come with plants and others just wanting to play in the dirt. A crew formed that walked around the houses nearby and asked for plant cuttings from their gardens/yards to plant in the library. I finally got to use the compost I had been making in my host family’s backyard for the past two months and by the end of the say, we had planted 17 trees, plants, and flowers. Unfortunately, I don’t have a green thumb and the one kid that knew what he was doing got called home to eat dinner so a few days later, a third of the plants had died (which was to be expected since the majority of cuttings were just branches that had been hacked off a bush and then stuck in a pile of dirt) but as of today, half are still alive and hopefully rooted! It was very refreshing to see kids take an interest in their environment (because generally speaking, my town (and perhaps Peru in general) is not known for that) without any prodding on my part.

On a similar note, before Kerri left, she encouraged the kids to begin collecting used plastic bottles, old tin cans and used paper and bringing it to the library so that we could sell it and make money (while recycling it at the same time). We finally had accumulated a decent amount of each material- 5 kilos of plastic, 1 ½ kilos of tin cans and a bunch of paper. The kids wanted to sell it to make money to buy more books. We managed to sell it all to guy that comes by every morning on his mototaxi to buy used plastic and tin and the like. While we did get jipped a little bit, we made 5 soles. While it may come out to around $ 2.25, it’s still better than nothing and we can buy a new book with it. Yay!

So there you have it, my little successes that make life here interesting and make the days pass by way too quickly.

Power drills and saws

One thing that the library has been lacking recently is a giant table. Thus far I’ve bought two smaller tables that the kids usually end up arguing over who has more elbow room to read or put together a puzzle. I went last month with the president of the library committee to ask the manager of the regional government (of the whole department of Tumbes) if he would like to help donate to our cause with a bookshelf and a pair of tables. He said he would be more than happy to but Lord knows when we’ll start to see results. Finally during our last library committee meeting, Kerri (my district mate) and I volunteered to build a table ourselves. I mean, we would buy the lumber, get it out to our site, and hammer in some nails- how hard could it be?

Very hard if you’ve never built anything before. Coincidentally, the day Kerri and I went into Tumbes to buy wood, we ran into Ian. Ian had built himself a desk last year so would probably have more experience than Kerri and I combined.

The first thing Kerri and I realized is that neither of us owned a saw. Nor a hammer, and we had no idea a power drill was necessary for this kind of work. I was a Zoology major so woodworking classes weren’t really on my priority list during college. Ian, seeing us rather completely lost took it upon himself to offer us his tools that he had at his house and a day’s worth of work to help up put together this table. We agreed that the next day (Tuesday) we would come back into Tumbes, buy wood and get to work.

Note: Ian is using my sunglasses as "protective goggles"

Buy late Tuesday morning we had bought 144 soles worth of lumber and strapped it onto the top of a combi headed to my site. Ian brought his power drill, saw, C-clamps and some other tools that he saw necessary to put together our table. By lunchtime, we had moved all of the materials into the library and I was ready to just hang out, drink beer and eat the popcorn my host mom had made for us as a snack. Luckily, I was not the only one working on this project.

As the hours ticked away, we managed to do a lot of sawing and get all of the wood ready to make the frame and table legs. Little did I know that without a power drill, I would not have been able to even get the first screw in (yes, one needs screws as opposed to nails). By 6 o’clock the frame and four table legs had been drilled into the sheet of plywood on top.

Kerri displaying her expert engineering skills

While all of this was happening, we decided that there was no way that children could be inside the library while we were working. The library was officially closed but that didn’t stop kids from watching our EVERY move for 6 ½ hours. Ian, Kerri and I all thought to ourselves that things at home must be pretty boring if they could sit at the windows and watch us drill holes into a table for an entire afternoon. At 6:30 it was getting dark and Ian still had 45 min worth of traveling ahead of him, so we left the rest of the table to be done the next day.

The next day I went in early to get a head start on things when the kids came again to watch me from the outside.

“Lindsey, let me come in.”

“No.”

“And why not”?

“Because you’ll cut your hand off if you do.”

This went on and on for an hour until I gave a few of them books to read outside on the sidewalk. Eventually, the majority of the children left for a few minutes and I was left conversing with 6 year old Mayte Juliana (one of my favorites). She had been proposing all of the different ways she could help me in the library, if only I would let her inside. She offered to sweep, to tape things up on the walls, even take pictures of me while I worked with my camera, if only I would let her inside. I guess eventually she noticed that I had left the door partially open and before I knew it was inside the library on her hands and knees, slowly crawling across the floor.

“What are you doing in here Mayte”?

“Lindsey, I promise I’ll be as quite and as slow-moving as a cockroach.”

“What did you say Mayte”?

“I said, I’ll be really quiet and careful like a cockroach and you won’t notice me in here.”

I couldn’t help but laugh and think that a. she was the cutest child to walk the face of the earth and b. why would she compare herself to a cockroach of all creatures?

She eventually won out and I let her sit in a corner and put puzzles together while I kept building.

Kerri came in shortly thereafter and within an hour we had an 8ft by 3ft table finished and sanded with eight children sitting peacefully around it. SUCCESS!!! While I would not like to call myself an expert carpenter, I’m pretty proud of what the three of us were able to accomplish and how it’s being used as a result.

Finished product.

Library Patrons

Two weeks ago I had my final site visit from my program director. That means I have less than three months left here. I am planning on heading out in early Novermber and then traveling around for a bit before heading home for Christmas.

So the end is in sight. Which is awesome and terrifying at the same time. I´m starting to look at everything with a big more nostalgia and realizing that I won´t be here forever (because during the majority of my service, it has felt like I would be here/ have been here forever). I´ve caught myself going to the library earlier and earlier each day so I can hang out with thekidsmore. I´ve gotten sad when I´ve thought about how little I remember my kindergarten and first grade teachers and hope that these kids will remember me when they´re older. Beacuse I will never ever, ever be able to forget them.

Here is a lineup of my most dedicated library patrons (there are a few adults and teenages, but I think that the kids are much more fun to talk about).

ARMANDO

Armando (above) is nine and just won the ¨reader of the month¨award for the month of July. He is a genuine bookworm. He lives next door to the library and so whenever I am in there, he is too. Once, I didn´t even realize that he hadcome in because he was so quiet and was in the corner, reading a book al by himself. I WISH there were more children like him. As reader of the month, he won a new pencil case with sparkly, gel-pens (think Milky pens from the 90s) and a new book. I admire him because of his initiative.

DANIEL (at left)

Daniel is Armando´s little brother. They look nothing alike and I genuinely don´t understand anything Daniel says. He has lost both front teeth and has a major lisp so Iusually use anyone else present as a translator whenever he says something to me. He´s six and while he can´t read, he is a master at putting together puzzles. 50 piece puzzles are no problem for this child. Today I had him help a ten year old finish his puzzle. He also screams like a girl.

ALAEJANDRA (at right)

Alejandra is a very studious, bright 10 year old that is at Armando´s same reading level. She is one of the two Peruvian children I know that wears glasses and is Jesus´niece. She is very soft spoken and brings homework to work on at the library.

DOMINICA

While Dominica may only be two, she always tags along with her older sisters Maite, Mariexci, Julia and Natalia. She is so pudgy and fat that she resembles a stuffed animal. I love squishing her cheeks together when she talks. She is a hilarious dancer and wore a turquoise-squinned dress to the July 28th party. She always has her sandals on the wrong feet and likes modeling my sunglasses.

MAYTE JULIANA (at left)

Mayte Juliana is five and is one of my favorite patrons. She once promised me she would be as ¨quiet and careful as a coackroach¨while in the library. she LOVES taking poctures with my camera and also lives next dor. When she found out we were going to have a party for Peru´s Independence Day (July 28th), she immediately yelled outside towards her house ¨MOM, YOU NEED TO MAKE TOFFEE FOR THURSDAY´S PARTY¨! I never asked her to do this, I was supplying all of the candy, she just thought it necessary that she show up with toffee treats on her own. She is also very good at sweeping and I have no problem asking her to clean thelibrary while I am busy. I would also like to state that I thought she was seven until last week and was concerned that she had a developmental problem (because she couldn´t read yet) until I found out she was five and then felt badly for thinking that she had a learning disability.

ASTRID (at right)

Astrid is a little monster. She loves doing cartwheels in the libary and stealing pieces of kid´s puzzles while they´re trying to put them together. She is very hard to keep occupied all of the time and Kerri does a very good time at keepingher under control when she comes. I usually just try to send her home.

MAITE OYOLA CONCHA

Maite is four and has attitude. Her voice is super raspy and walked in one day with a black eye because she had fallen off a table that she was dancing on. Talk about a prime candidate for the Coyote ugly sequel. She is Mariexci and Dominica´s sister. She also knows the word to every huayno song I have on my computer (sierra music).

MARIEXCI

Mariexci is five and can already do two-row (I can´t hink of a better word) addition and subtraction problems (13+10 as opposed to 2+2). she helps her younger sister Maite with the math homework that Jesus and I give out in the afternoons. It took my a few weeks to learn how to say her name (Mari-ek-si). She is really good at telling me whenever anyone else in the library is bothering her/doing somehting that she doesn not like. She really likes ¨The Little Mermaid.¨

Whew that was a lot of typing. There are close to forty other patrons but I wanted to give you all a sample of just a few! Thanks for reading.