31 Mayo 2012

My host father was drunk in the fields today, so milking, making cheese and wuacta-ing were particularly annoying and I had to stay later than expected.

I run back to the house, fix lunch for everyone, and by the time I am finishing cleaning up there are little ones at my door, “Srta. Luz, hay VALE?”

“Of course I will open the library, let me go get the key and we will go right now!”

“Yaaaaaay!”

Then Belen says something like, “But you don’t need a key, you just hit it really hard,” she motions with the shoulder, “and ploock!”

I find this kind of strange. I mean, the wall the municipality constructed to protect the books made me nervous at first, but we have never had a break in. Today, I was no more worried than any other.

Here I am, talking to a short mob of about 12 kids about lowering their voices and washing their hands while I unlock the door, I push it open, and half the wall collapses. Into the library, thank god, and not onto my kids.

Immediately I scan the books and appliances with my eyes. Everything is there.

Fury. My heart goes wild. What do I do? This is so dangerous.

“Belen, who did this?”

Silence

“It is ok, sweetheart, I just need to know who did this. Can you tell me?”

Then 11 other voices chime in, “The hostel manager.”

They tell me about how they were playing outside last night after I left, and he told them to leave, came in the hostel, and when he left the wall was bad.

Honestly, this sounds about right, a 13-year-old brain temper tantrum because I didn’t kiss his feet last night. He acted out of anger, then when the wall actually started to collapse he got scared and bulted.

I tell the kids to wash their hands outside while I get my head together. I call Hirma and Meche. No answer.

Do I close the library for the day? Do I report the vandalism to the local police? Do I insist we move the library somewhere more secure? Will the municipality ever fix this? How do I keep the books safe until they do? Why is this such a constant fight?

I struggle to keep the kids outside while I lift the wall and prop the door up with some of the broken wood. I let them in and build an imaginary wall with a bench and tell the kids they cannot enter it. I put one of my 10-year-olds in charge and duck out to Hirma’s quick once the kids are engrossed in their art projects. No answer. Sh**.

I don’t know why, but in that moment, in the middle of the street, I could have had a breakdown. I could have collapsed under the weight of the last straw being piled on my back. Honestly, I thought I would have.

 After pacing back to the library, back to Hirmas, back to the library about 5 times, it just left me. I breathed in some calm that had left me about a year ago, and went to my house and got the hammer and nails.

While the kids’ numbers tripled in the library, I hammered.

“Srta. Luz, can we help?”

“You sure can, I need all your strength to hold this in place while I hammer.”

Huge smiles, they jumped on it. They even wanted to do more once we were done. They paced the wall, looking for ways to make it stronger.

“How about we put a nail here so that part doesn’t bend.”

“Here is a hammer and a nail, my fine sir, have at it.” which was followed by a lesson in my novice knowledge of carpentry.

All I could think was, ‘…carrying the knots. You are learning to carry the knots.’

Today, in the library, outside of the usual book reading and artistic masterpieces there were two lovely marionettes built, and a diagram of the denominations of biology drawn. One little one skipped away with glee pulling the threads of her ballerina and watching the appendages twitch, and a shy adolescent learned how to look up a question, summarize, and create a diagram out of a paragraph.

I did my best to keep the kids out of the halls, but I did not have them clean the bathroom today, as planned. I placed the soap I brought to clean the bathroom next to the hammer and nails. They can start that next week, they rebuilt their wall today.