Chronicles of a village librarian - Choices

 

To be a librarian is not to be neutral, or passive, or waiting for a question. It is to be a radical positive change agent within your community. —R. David Lankes

Often people will make the assumption that what we do is easy. It is not. I only have a passion, a drive to change my community, great people backing me up and luckily the resources in form of books. Not many people get the resources. Taking you back to 10 years ago... we had been one in year in operation as INSPIRE a name chosen after like 3 months of arguments. I had been laughed at when i had said that i wanted to do this by some of the people closest to me and it hurt. Others had wanted to know how this infact was a real job and where would i even get money from. The truth is, i had no idea and those questions made me cry more often than not in the dead of the night on my pillow. Just like any other thing one does when you love something, you give alot for it. In the years since i have paid the ultimate price, but this is a story for another day. 

So here i was ... a tea girl (i am not hating on the job but its something id rather not do again) in the middle of  books and my library as a side hustle on the weekends, while volunteering for story telling and teaching of English in a school near my work location religiously every lunch time for an year. Every morning the thought of serving tea again had me wanting to throw myself infront of a truck. I wanted to use my brain surely or do something bigger and it was eating at my inside. I simply could not take it anymore but i did not know what to do except for the little light that reminded me i had 50 books in my bag (mobile library) to give to deserving kids to read. Something had to give (SCREAMS in frustration). By this time our fledgling organization had managed by some divine intervention to get a small contract and we had one child through a blessed sponsor in highschool from the school i was teaching english and practicing librarian skills on (books do indeed take you places ) and finally that same sponsor had decided i needed to be in university, something i had only ever dreamed of (honestly i never thought it would happen to me at all)- but the frustration of serving tea was evident. Aiiiiii  i well learned girl how do i even...😩

So with all this happening i made a decision. One morning bright and early i woke up , did n not even carry my bag and went to my workplace and quit. I still remember my immidiate boss asking me , "are you okay? is somebody forcing you to do this? are you high on something? Can i give you an off you go think about it and come back sober? Emily , what are you going to do about money? does this your organization even make money? Ala! (i should mention that that was my fourth year as a casual labourer and all my friends had been employed except me!) Well lets be honest here... my stomach was in knots and i had no clue if i was depressed or crazy but i had to do something . I still quit and walked out with my head held up high and thankful that i did not cry infront of the CCTV cameras.

By this time though our donors- AFK  had given us more boxes and therefore i had more books. More books meant i could do something. Right? But what to do ? The question of questions. The first thing i did now that i had alot of time on my hands was to arrange and re arrange my tiny library now with two full shelves over and over again, pray and look at who i know who would like to borrow books from me. I can assure you there was a point i think i was having withdrawal symptoms of not going to work. Eish.... had i done the right thing? 

The kids do not know this but every evening now that they would turn up to borrow a book , to read for a few minutes , to play a game , cemented the idea that i was doing the right thing. They gave me the strength to go on. They were not the only one. I had a father figure in Wayne Silver (will address him in
a bit). Wayne has been a great source of encouragement and comfort. He has been there when it got hard and supported this dream like a father would. To this day i have not dissapointed. Maybe he may comment on that 

Something did actually happen but we shall address that next.

I would like my readers to know, that following your dreams is usually more easier said than done. You have to have the heart for it. You cannot and should not quit because the truth is it can be hard . REAL HARD sometimes. In the words of Mary K Ash.." "When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure."

I have reached my obstacles way too many times. I wount say that there is a proven formula for overcoming them because inspite of how many times i have read books about it , listened to motivational speakers , this is a battle i win daily. It has no plans that tommorrow this will happen. You simply wake up and go for it. Do i regret it, absolutely not. The kind of change stories i have seen in the years since i started INSPIRE will make me do this over and over again. Remember , Courage is facing fear. Face yours. How do you want to change your world?

The librarian@INSPIRE

#communitylibrariesrock

#communitylibrariansareinspirational

#goforyourdreams

Chronicles of a village librarian - the start

 

Librarians have the power to transform not only individual lives, but entire communities.- David Lankes

Every story has a beginning. It had never occured to me that i was going to be a librarian. No! infact my childhood profile of dreams had moved from being a doctor, a teacher to adventurer to a captain in the army, which, looking back at it now had a component in service to humanity. I would never have been a librarian if it was not for the fact tha i had a hard time reading and i met Nancy Drew.

There is that one book that changes your life. That book that takes your life on a different course. By then i was almost in grade six (standard six) in a school run by missionaries and without the ability to spell the word run. The embarrasment. But a little detective girl in the pages of a book and my mother's determination changed all that.

Fast forward to about 11years ago. I was frustrated from working in a job that really did not require me to use my brain at all- serving tea . However i was surrounded by books. Books of all kinds. But they were mainly boring because i am not an academician and i love the thrill of a great story. I could only find very few books in the way of entertainment. So i decided to start my own. Mine took up a whole wall which in those days was a big investment in a bedroom on its own which meant the kids had to share. Yes i had two by the time i started to run a community library and my oldest was already an avid reader. I had all sorts of books..bought and collected. When i say collected, the shape some of those books were in, needed divine intervention. But did i care....no. The fact that it was a book and it was mine was enough. My library - home library was my peace. My place to be. Then one day of days , we had a break in. The kind the thug is a child . It got me thinking , since he had un-intentionally targeted my LIBRARY , what if we could make a library for the community kids to come to? What difference would it make if the had easy access to knowledge and information?

And it is on that day i think the ultimate decision inside my heart was made. And my journey began. No its not easy to invite kids to come to your house and you have no exit (meaning backdoor and you are located in a "plot"). They were mainly made up of ghetto kids. The rough kind. the ones you are worried that perhaps there will be robbery with no violence. The truth is, i was scared of them and of dreaming because i did not know where this would take me. I was scared for the first few days until i discovered they had some of the most beautiful hearts there can be in a human being . The kids were wonderful and mostly they appeared which is usually not easy because this is a library in a home and parents are jittery about this things. This first kids were the foundation stones. The ones we look back on and know we have and had something good going on here. The ones you meet on the road in town and they stop you and ask, .."do you remember me?" i used to come to your library in Pembe Tatu. My heart will at this time smile all on its own and i will think to myself ..." God this is wonderful!'. Then they will continue by saying,..." do you know i still read?" and i will respond with an almost hug of greatfulness...." and i still run the library@INSPIRE"

But i know YOU there have a question that you probably want to know about before we go on with stories of all kinds...., how did we get so many books?.. Well...... as I had mentioned earlier, I started by having a collection all my own about 300 books (which is impressive). You would probably have called my library weird because most of the  books were falling apart and had maybe chapters missing , but they served the purpose and they filled one entire shelf . Then me and my friend Flo, sat down and decided there must be good people out there willing to donate books to a good cause. Call it a brilliant idea because that is what it was.So i sat down and googled all known book organizations in the world. and sent emails . Thousands of them with alot of rejections. The kind that tell you " we are sorry we cant at this time. Gosh that is almost a slap in the face because you ask yourself hard questions but mostly do this guys know what i am all about or are they judging me by lack of a cover

Then AFK happened. I would have missed it entirely you know. I found this organization as a footnote in someone elses website. Right there at the bottom in the corner . Sitting , waiting. I clicked to their site and it interested me. Right down to the email of the president . With my heart in one hand and not caring if i got to them or not , i wrote a "desparate plea" . Would you please give me some books. I think i wanted to cry. I wanted to give up. I guess i must have thought ...community business is for those that know how to write in good english. I dont , i can only write like myself. And so i did. I dont know how to explain that feeling when someone replies and its not a no. It had been many months later, many mornings of looking at my email to see if there would be any reply from anybody and many many days of asking myself if i was indeed doing the right thing. Then ....an email, and not just an email. An email that said..."we are impressed and will give you 7 cartons" ah! You should have seen the joy on my face. The excitement with which i found florence and told her the good news. The way i run home to tell my family that we were going to get books. Books from America. How in the world does a girl get so lucky. I slept and dreamnt new books

We received those 7 cartons with alot of jubilation. We stared at the books, we smelled them, we opened them. No one wanted to be passed by. The other kids came in. We oohed and ahhed. Arranged
them and rearranged them. I have never in all my life seen books read so fast and repeatd again and again. By this time the number of children that were attending our  "library " was rising to above 20.With few books , me working and only the weekends available , this was indeed an adventure. A full time one 

I was still struggling with the question of ... can i quit my job and do this full time?Where would i even begin? At this time many years ago, i did not know what i was getting myself into. Was i ready? No. Was i a "qualified librarian" ..No but i had the passion to do what i do. I had no clue as to what i was doing except kids enjoyed reading and reading can and has continuously made a difference. And i enjoyed having them come to my place.

The librarian@Inspire

#communitylibraries

#librariesinnyeri

#librariansmatter