Harare City Library Flyer for the ZIBF

A huge THANK YOU to Steve Barnard of IT Services for printing 1000 of these lovely flyers for us at a very substantive discount.

The busiest week in the world

Apologies, I have been quiet. Not even a link posted. Not good. It has been busy for me family, work, school, library wise. And it is only going to get busier.....woa!


The Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) is happening at Harare Gardens from 31 July to 4 August 2012. What a hectic week that is going to be for all of us. With schools closing early (I am soooo not happy with that disruption, I have a son doing IGCSE and a major school fundraiser that people have worked soooooo hard for totally disrupted), sports events, fundraisers and other end of termly events brought forward and squashed together. 
Better just move around with a flask of tea and a blanket that week. Don't go home. 

The Giants Causeway
County Antrim, N.Ireland

The naughty wee
flying haggis

I hope you can still find time to visit ZIBF though. If you have children under 13 years, the Children's Reading Tent is for you. The public days are the Thursday 2nd, Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th August. Once again the HCL is putting together a modest programme of activities. Myself and my lovely Irish friend Deirdre are aiming to read Celtic Tales of Flying Haggis & The Giants Causeway and the like on Friday and Saturday afternoon (I will share the final schedule as still a work in progress). There should be at least two story telling sessions on these days, catering for under 7 years and over 7 years. In between quizzes and discussion. 


They will not be bored because next to this tent are several others, including an e-learning tent run by the Ministry of Education where the youngsters can go try a computer as well as 'Meet the Author' events and "Live Literature' also housed nearby. The latter two might hold an older audience, but I await the schedule. 

A Slow Story Movement

In previous posts I was lamenting the slow progress of storytelling in the libraries this term. Such an initiative needs the backing of the community and key stakeholders such as Education Ministry and City Council and we are not yet there interms of mobilisation, communication or indeed capacity. It is just me and a few new and old friends.  This article reminded me that slow is not bad. In fact, it can mean quality. Not everything needs to be done in a hurry. Like a really good story, these things take time. Hope you enjoy it, I did.


The Slow Story Movement, by Ragunath Padmanabhan

Reading for Learning or Reading for Fun

I passed by Highlands Branch Library today. What I noticed was so many children around, outside, walking past, passing by and the library was empty. When I asked Roseanne how many child members the Branch had, she said fifteen. Even if they all paid their $5 membership fee each quarter (yes, only $5 to take out 2 books at a time, as many times as you like) then the income to help maintain the children's section is a grand total of $300 per year. Reading for fun is just not on peoples agenda...do we only read to learn, never for fun?

On a more positive note, the book at Highlands are in really quite good condition. And there are such a lot of them. The new reference books have arrived as well, some young readers dictionaries, science books and other useful read for those in the 'homework club'.

The homework club is what Friday afternoons at the library were. Here the children got to finish their homework on the small tables and chairs, then read from the shelves before deciding which books to tae out over the weekend. They would walk home in groups or wait for parents to pick them up after work. How sad that parents do not see the library as a place for their children. But when you ask them, I bet the parents remember the libraries of their youth fondly.

inside Bulawayo City Library

Bulawayo City Library

Over, coffee and chat at the end of the day today my friend Deborah told me of her days as a librarian in Bulawayo. In the 80s and 90s they had very active libraries, with a storyteller who regularly kept a room full of children silently enthralled, and this is still happening today. Amazing.

The only way to return these libraries to their former glory is to use them. Let us learn from the Bulawayo experience. When reading is fun it also becomes learning.

Building a Cathedral

I had a horrid earache this weekend so was forced to slow down a bit. Just as well really as my work has suddenly become a confluence of sorts this week. This happens periodically. I got to thinking. 

this pic is from travel.nationalgeographic.com 

With several assignments tailing off, a new large piece of work on the list as well as an urgent smaller task to fit in between.... it feels like the Triveni Sangam in Allahabad (see picture). I am reliably informed that this is a confluence of several rivers, including the Ganges, and the mythical Saraswati (said to flow underground and join the other two rivers from below). The waters are different colours and they all meet at the sea at the Bay of Bengal. Hectic.


As such, I fear the fun things I like to do like reading and supporting the library might get crowded out. Things are going so slowly (relative to how work usually goes). Children are few in the library, our volunteer readers are busy, the HCL committee is stretched kinda thin. Getting people back into these old and tired libraries feels suddenly like an immense task. 

from the thezimbabwean.co.uk 

And then I remembered the story of the quarry men. It goes like this. There were these three guys chipping stones in a huge quarry. Just sitting there, near each other, chipping away with chisels. The first guy was asked what he was doing, and he replied that he was chipping rock. Boring huh. The second man was asked the same question, and he responded that he was providing for his family. Purposeful at least. The third man, doing identical work, was asked the same question, and he said that he was building a cathedral. Like, WOW!

Il Duomo in Milan, Italy

The lesson being, duh, if you are just chipping rock, you make yourself a common labourer. If you are providing for your family then it becomes personal and purposeful. But finding the cathedral in your work can generate the inspiration and motivation not just to get through the tough times, but brings in the bigger picture, the higher purpose, in the case of renovating and rejuvenating the children's section of HCL branch libraries it can mean the civic duty that makes our Harare world a better place for all of us now and through the future...our children. 


I am imagining my cathedral...and carrying on. This cathedral needs some timber, some paint and the time of a builder/handyman or woman. Without this the reading corner won't get done.