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

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