Building Bookshelves

When TFABB was here in June, they purchased materials to make 10 bookshelves for the school and asked the PTA Chairman during our lunch with the village leaders if men from the community would volunteer to make the shelves. I was just as excited as Anne was when they went to the school to measure straight away after the lunch meeting, but honestly hoping the enthusiasm would last long enough to finish the project. This may or may not come from my own inability to follow through and finish things or it could have been from hearing stories of other volunteers not feeling supported by their community. Anyways, I was happy when the lumber made it on the market bus and to the school and surprised Mr. Chub by picking up a board to move it to the library to store. He even started the conversation, "You know what I think, Miss Amy?" "What do you think, Mr. Chub?" "I've come to find our that Americans are hard workers." I laughed a little and went on to tell him that's how we're raised in Nebraska, which made him laugh. So all the boards, nails, paint, etc. was ready to use, just waiting to be put together and I started to wonder if I would have to remind Mr. Max how nice it would be to get those shelves made while they were still not as busy at the farm, because that would be typical and I've heard it before. People in other places have a hard time finding parental support and community involvement with the school. But I was forgetting where I am and shouldn't have worried at all because before I knew it I was waking up to the noise of a power saw coming from the school. I then noticed a few men checking out the preschool windows so I figured this was the day they would fix the windows because taht was on the agenda, too. I decided to walk over and find out what was going on for sure and since Lilly (the volunteer in the next village, missed her bus but could catch one to Santa Teresa so she stayed a night with me. How fun!) was here so she went with. I found Mr. Chub right away and saw the beautiful shelves being made. Yay! Yay! Yay!


I took a few pictures which the men had fun hiding from and posing for and asked if I could help paint. "Yes, Miss Amy." I went back to my house with Lilly to help her figure out the phone situation, calling her community phone to make sure the bridge was passable because of the rain the night before and saw her off, borrowing my bike, then told Elisha (my planned PC visitor) I was going to paint and she was more than welcome to help, but if she wanted some time to rest and read that was fine, too. She was such a great sport, coming along! That girl better get a vacation day back because I worked her hard! We painted four shelves by noon then went to Mr. Chub's for lunch. Elisha was able to catch a ride with the doctors to San Antonio to visit more of us Toledo folk and I headed back to the school. I started painting again and told one of the guys watching that there was another paint brush... hint hint. He seemed nervous to help and said, "I'll give it a try, Miss Amy." I was surprised to find out he had never painted before. I didn't even think of that. Of course they would like me to help with the painting. I mean, some of them had painted before and it's not a hard thing to figur out, but still I was trying to think back to the first time I painted. Geez. It made me smile to hear "chabil" (pretty) when I helped finish a shelf, but I didn't like when they said "tybiru" (ugly) to describe their own painting because it wasn't true so I would try to correct them saying "chabil" myself which only made them laugh more. My Ke'kchi pronounciation hasn't improved much. Another thing that made everyone laugh was when the village chairman found a standard VI girl's exercise book with love poems inside. Here I was painting with most of the men in my community all listening to, "When you go fishing take your line, when you go kissing take your time," of course it was a hoot. So yes, not only was I surprised that they started making the shelves already but even more so that they finished in one day! AND they fixed all the windows, too! It probably helped that 20 or so men came to help. Elisha even made the comment while talking to the PTA Chairman of being impressed by all those willing to work. Oh! And it gets better, if you can believe that! We ran out of nails so luckily some were found and used, but we also ran out of lumber. A few of the boards were bad and Mr. Chub had taken them back to the lumber yard but wasn't given replacement boards yet. So instead of calling it a day, the men were able to use boards that had been donated to the school by the Santa Teresa logging group. Ta da! The group had donated lumber to the school to fix the windows and there was still enough to make two shelves, so two of our classroom library shelves are made with very local materials-beautiful mahogany. Now I'm so excited to get the books! Loves and Hugs!