Where in the World Are the Books?

April 7, 2011
3:55pm

As you can imagine, since returning from my glorious vacation with my mom, books and planning for their arrival has taken up most of my time! This past weekend my partner in crime and I met in town to finalize the accommodation for the 6-8 volunteers who will be assisting with the sorting, secure transportation to and from the warehouse for the 7 planned days of sorting and pick-up, and to meet with the owner of the warehouse to get an update on the books’ whereabouts and plan some contingency strategies should the protests hold up our operations. OH! I also learned about and got first-hand experience on how to kill and prepare a chicken. It was a very productive weekend. :-P

We were told that the 1,000 books should have arrived in Durban’s port yesterday. This means that, with all luck, they should be jumping a train and hitting Swazi soil by the middle of next week. Brooke or I will get a call less than 24 hours before the books arrive at the front door of the warehouse to be unloaded. In that short time we are going to call all of those individuals who were put on the sorting crew, and tell them to get their butts up to Matsapha! Again, this could all be delayed for a number of reasons, including the protest scheduled for next Tuesday, but we are ready for their arrival (knock on wood). The schools have also been finishing up some last minute additions to their libraries and writing down the directions for the book pick-up.

Actually, I have not written anything about the massive Librarian workshop that took place the weekend before Mom arrived in country! It went rather well. Thirty librarians showed up for the workshop at the Manzini Library. We had organized accommodation and food for 2 nights at the convent/hostel four blocks down the road from the library. Thankfully, a good friend and fellow volunteer came to help me out at the last minute, because my partner had to go to Pretoria for medical reasons. I gave her the official title of “Cat Herder” since that is how it feels to try and get people to things on time in this country. She did a wonderful job and the participants were at the library on time and ready. I wish I could have said the same about the presenters. :-(

Our project is partnering with the Swaziland National Library Service who performed similar teacher librarian trainings. Thus, they were going to teach the material in siSwati using the agenda we had co-created at a meeting just the week before! I was quite disappointed but I guess not entirely surprised to find them not prepared and completely disorganized at the training. It made my heart sink and my blood boil. I had actually considered hijacking the workshop, but my much calmer and less Type A friend talked me off the culturally inappropriate edge. With some prompting and clarification questions, the presenters did end up relaying a majority of the information they were suppose to teach. What wasn’t covered or covered poorly, I attempted to clarify the following morning during my session on student involvement, positive reinforcement and praise, and creating a space conducive to learning (topics that aren’t really considered in this culture). Part of it turned into a review session, but the evaluations came back very positive. I can confidently say that our objectives were met at the workshop, just maybe not as smoothly or as professionally as I would have liked. The teachers then returned to their schools fully equipped to prepare for the books’ arrival.