New News

Hey everyone,
Haven't posted in a while, but a lot has been going on. Here's a brief overview:

Computers: buying 5 in good condition with new keyboards from Cesar at $300 a piece, using the money I received from Hopkins

Books: All kinds of stuff going on. Cesar found a market where they sell used books for really cheap in Tegucigalpa (the capital city) and so were going there on Monday.

Cesar also talked to the owners of a private school here in Sigua, who told him that they would be donating books and material as soon as they are finished organizing their own library and know what they no longer need for their school. But they are sure they will have things to donate.

Talked to the principal of the big public high school here, who is also the owner of the only book store in town. And happened to have founded two libraries himself 2 years ago. So he knows what he's doing. He promised to give me about 20 books, to guide me through the process of connecting this library to the national library network (which guarantees them about 80 new books a year), to show me which books to buy, and to give me a discount on any of the ones I buy from his store.

So the plan is: Cesar, Claire and I are going to his store on Saturday morning so he can show us which books we should be getting. We will take note, then check on Monday how many we can get secondhand. Then buy the rest new, and perhaps add our own.

The goal is to have a lot of books, so with limited funds I wanted to make sure that I could get a lot (hence buying used books). But I also want the library to be attractive, so I want to have a decent amount of new books as well. The teachers of the younger kids also wanted to have books to teach kids how to read, so I think we will be buying some of those, as well a some learning materials for the school.

That principal is also going to help me organize the community into what he calls a 'Comite' that is charged with keeping track of all the books and events, to make sure that the library stays up and running over time. Though he suggested that it only be run by youth, from my experience talking with the parents and how excited they are about the project, I think a combination of youth and parents to jointly organize and manage the library would be perfect. Next week I'll be working on setting that up.

Because it is so cheap and would be so helpful for the school, I think I will be paying to put electricity in all of the other classrooms. As of now they only have it in one room, and to extend that to the other rooms would cost about 50 dollars, something I think is worth it. That way we could house the computers in a much more secure classroom and wouldn't have to worry as much about people stealing them. Still some security worries though. Tey will have a new classroom built by December, and they will make sure that that one is secure so they can put the computers in there without worrying.