A Day in the Life of the Library

The Lubuto Library functions as any other library. The door is open, and kids come in and out at their leisure, often between classes at school. I thought I'd share a few of my interactions with the patrons. It was quite crowded today, and I usually end up spending a lot of time with one or a small group at a time because questions arise and new books need to be drawn into the mix.

A couple of boys were looking at a book from the Mammals section, and one pointed to a white snow fox in an Arctic setting and asked if I saw these in America. It's not hard to understand why snow is often very exciting to kids in Zambia. After a short conversation about climates and foxes, he pointed to a photo of the Matterhorn and asked if I'd been there. They thought it was Mt. Everest, which was a pretty good guess. I started telling them about Switzerland and my experiences there. They immediately wanted to know more about the Alps and Switzerland. I turned to the National Geographic atlas with lots of photos and cultural information. I'm glad I traveled in Europe and studied abroad in Rome because they wanted to hear any stories I had about Europe, which I shared and backed up with library resources. They were fascinated by the canals of Amsterdam and Venice, learned the story of the Berlin Wall, etc.

A small child with very limited English swooped in to take a look at the same atlas when the other boys left. It was frustrating at first because I was having trouble explaining anything to him, and he didn't seem to be learning anything. Suddenly, he pointed to the little UK flag inside the Figi flag and declared, "England!". From there, he turned to China. I identified China on a world map. He pointed to a picture of some people on the street, and I told him they were Chinese people. Much later, he turned to the "People" section, and identified a different and randomly placed picture of Chinese people as "China". Even with his limited English language skills, he learned something. It was great!

Joseph, Bob and Benson were reading a children's story. A little background: Benson moved from the streets to Fountain of Hope 5 months ago. He speaks 3 Zambian languages and very good English. He ALSO reads sign language and knows some signs. He picked it up because Bob, who is about my age and arrived from Kenya, is hearing impaired. Benson translates between Bob and me. Joseph, in his early to mid teens like Benson, is Zambian.

They were huddled around a book about The Great Depression called Potato. They hadn't heard of the Depression before, so I explained it to them. Laughing, Benson said, "So America then was like it is here now!"

I had the July issue of National Geographic with me and showed it to them.

We went through the cover article about the Congolese rebel forces who have targeted gorillas in Virungu National Park. Joseph knew a great deal about the situation there, as did Bob and Benson. The article addresses a particular rebel leader who claims to be protecting Tutsis from Hutu forces in the area. He's been accused of using child soldiers and committing other war crimes. I asked them if they knew about child soldiers, and they did. They knew everything. When they heard me mention Hutus, Joseph went into detail about the Rwandan genocide and described it to us. He told Benson and Bob about "the year 1994". I was amazed.

After the article, they requested more information on gorillas, so we went through a book called The Great Apes.

By the time their recess ended, we had covered The Great Depression, the political turmoil in the DRC, the Rwandan genocide, Ugandan schools, Dian Fossey's life, and Jane Goodall's research.

In the early afternoon, there was a power outage and the lights went out. Rather than leaving, everyone opened the windows and continued looking at books in the patches of sunlight on the library benches. Lubuto is definitely the place to be.