General Update
Life in San José has been a bit busier for me this past week, for a very exciting reason. I went last week to Tegucigalpa with the municipal librarian for a training with the National Library Network. The Network helps various public libraries across Honduras with book donations, trainings and technical support. I got in touch with them back in September, and we arranged for the two of us to go to their office for a two-day training on how to run a library. When we got there we expected just that, a mere training... when in fact we got a training along with 135 brand-new books for our library. Considering our library originally consisted of about 100 very old books, half of which were bad novels in English from the 70s, this donation was huge for our library. We got back to San José excited and newly optimistic about the future of our little municipal library.
Since then, we´ve been working like crazy to get the books registered, cataloged and classified before being placed on the shelves. Now, back at the GU Library where I worked freshman year, everything was computerized with a digital card catalog and registry. However, you can imagine that in little San José, this is just not possible. So everything is by hand: writing inventory, stamping the books, making the cards from construction paper, writing out cards for all 262 books, 4 cards per book (that´s 1050 cards!!!), classifying each one and THEN organizing them on the shelf. In the end I know it will all be worth it, but it is definitely alot of work for the two of us. We will try enlisting the help of our library committee, who claim they want to help. We´ll see if they actually come by to do the menial work of cutting cards and taping codes on books for hours on end.
This has been the most exciting event for us all month, which I´m especially happy about since many of my other projects seem to be stalling or dying on the vine: school is out until February, so I won´t be working with them til next year, the women´s trash cooperative never invites me to meetings anymore, and the tourist group has delayed meeting up for over a month. Whatever.
Another neat event in San José occurred on Monday, when I saw a group of AMERICANS right in the middle of town, speaking my language and looking very tall and American. Normally I would not be excited to see fellow Americans... maybe it´s just for the sheer number of U.S. tourists that travel to other countries, but I just don´t feel an urge to talk to an American when I see one overseas. HOWEVER if i see one in the 1,200-person town of San José de Comayagua, I get VERY excited! So I went straight over to their van and introduced myself... it turned out they were from the army/air force base, and wanted to spend their Veterans Day holiday checking out the caves in San José. Amazing! They ended up staying there all day despite the rain and mud, and said they´d be sure to tell their friends. Friends!! More tourists!! I was pretty thrilled... even if the youth tourist group can´t get their act together, the tourists still come.
Other than that life is the same... I´ll be making Irish bread and bringing it to my friend´s site in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving this year. Apparently her site sells Butterball turkeys, yes Butterball turkeys, so therefore Thanksgiving must be held there.
More updates to come.
Since then, we´ve been working like crazy to get the books registered, cataloged and classified before being placed on the shelves. Now, back at the GU Library where I worked freshman year, everything was computerized with a digital card catalog and registry. However, you can imagine that in little San José, this is just not possible. So everything is by hand: writing inventory, stamping the books, making the cards from construction paper, writing out cards for all 262 books, 4 cards per book (that´s 1050 cards!!!), classifying each one and THEN organizing them on the shelf. In the end I know it will all be worth it, but it is definitely alot of work for the two of us. We will try enlisting the help of our library committee, who claim they want to help. We´ll see if they actually come by to do the menial work of cutting cards and taping codes on books for hours on end.
This has been the most exciting event for us all month, which I´m especially happy about since many of my other projects seem to be stalling or dying on the vine: school is out until February, so I won´t be working with them til next year, the women´s trash cooperative never invites me to meetings anymore, and the tourist group has delayed meeting up for over a month. Whatever.
Another neat event in San José occurred on Monday, when I saw a group of AMERICANS right in the middle of town, speaking my language and looking very tall and American. Normally I would not be excited to see fellow Americans... maybe it´s just for the sheer number of U.S. tourists that travel to other countries, but I just don´t feel an urge to talk to an American when I see one overseas. HOWEVER if i see one in the 1,200-person town of San José de Comayagua, I get VERY excited! So I went straight over to their van and introduced myself... it turned out they were from the army/air force base, and wanted to spend their Veterans Day holiday checking out the caves in San José. Amazing! They ended up staying there all day despite the rain and mud, and said they´d be sure to tell their friends. Friends!! More tourists!! I was pretty thrilled... even if the youth tourist group can´t get their act together, the tourists still come.
Other than that life is the same... I´ll be making Irish bread and bringing it to my friend´s site in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving this year. Apparently her site sells Butterball turkeys, yes Butterball turkeys, so therefore Thanksgiving must be held there.
More updates to come.
posted by Maureen at 10:07 AM
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