Paget's Belize Journal
The Preliminary Trip-
It Begins The Actual Stay-
Help for library |
Oct 14, 1999 What we Need and Too Much RealityI talked to Mrs. Ciego the librarian yesterday and she made an eloquent plea, which I am passing on to you in hopes that someone can help. What we need is some school supplies. Pencils, pencil sharpeners, ballpoint pens, rulers, protractors, 3-hole notebook paper. All that stuff you had to take to school in grade school. Maybe art supplies, but that would be a luxury. The library serves as a study area for children after school. It's mostly the poorer children who have no place to work at home and have no money for school supplies, so the library has been providing as best they can. Mrs. Ciego recently lost a major benefactor, from Canada I think, who was sending most of the school supplies (it's not clear what happened to her, just that there's a hole in the "system"). I've actually been there twice at study time and it's interesting. There are children everywhere, filling all 15 or so chairs, leaning on the window sills, sitting on the stairs (the library is sensibly on the airy second story of a wooden building), sprawled on the floor. Mrs. Ciego and her assistant serve as sort of combined study hall monitor, reference librarian and parental overseer, checking homework, answering questions and pointing out the correct reference books. And when I'm there I get asked too. It's as if any grown-up in the library is fair game and I try not to disappoint, but sometimes I can't understand what they're asking. I'm sure anything you can come up with will be put to good use. Mark the package "School Supplies" and I don't think there will be customs fees. I found in my research that for small packages, the postal service is really the most economical. Please mail to: Mrs. Cornelia Ciego You might put in a note that you're sending them because I asked you to, so we can keep track of whether anyone else is still sending to her or not. And please drop me an email letting me know about what you sent so I can tell her what to expect. I'll try to buy enough here to tide things over, but the quality is bad and prices are high. On the domestic front, there have been a few setbacks. I came home from work yesterday to discover that my water had been turned off. Mr. Serano was very sorry, but apparently clueless. Actually it wasn't turned off, it was literally dis-connected. They came and took out a section of the pipe that supplies water to the upstairs. No one seemed to know why at the water office, but they were pretty sure the field man would know when he came in in the morning. So I have now (re) learned how to take a bath in a bucket and to "wash" my hair with this handy-dandy dry wash my sister gave me for the jungle. Somehow the bucket bath seemed like a lot more fun when I did it as a child out in the yard with my cousins. I was pretty discouraged last night, still kinda sick and just disgusted from dealing with the ants and cockroaches. And like garbage men the world over, our recently privatized garbage company owner/driver just loves to roar and bang around at 5:00 am. The truck is black and red and very shiny, by far the newest and best-cared-for vehicle I 've seen in Dangriga. I was not able to make out the slogans lovingly painted on the sides, but I'll try again next week when I know what to expect. (You have to look fast.) My location has another slight disadvantage. Even when it's not garbage day, the worker buses (in Oregon this would be a "crummy," don't know what they are here) start early in the morning and I'm apparently near a pickup point. Most of these are old school buses from the states. We have one from Wisconsin and one from Arizona that I've seen. They're old and they're noisy and they drive them about 40 miles an hour down the street accelerating from my corner. It's not citrus-picking season so I don't know where they're going, I just know they're loud and there are quite a few of them. I hope I learn to sleep through them, but I suspect that I'll just get up early. Anyway, despite his apologetic confusion last night, Mr. Serano
got it together and got the water turned on today, so things
are looking up. I sprayed last night and again this noon and
I have many giant dead cockroaches and ants now. Which is to
be preferred. But I still have to sweep them up and dispose of
them somehow. This begins to look like the right time to invest
in a nice bottle of Caribbean rum. Or a ticket home. Just kidding.
I have been assured that someone is making my bedframe today.
So if I can get through one more night of sleeping on the floor
being lurched into by sick bugs, I should be okay. See now, the
rain isn't so bad, is it? |
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