Chatham Hall in South Africa 2008

We arrived at Lawrencia School at 8:00 a.m., with a light rain falling, and immediately formed three work groups—one to prepare the morning’s breakfast for the three hundred students (a sandwich of baloney and tomato, a bowl of maize, and an orange), one to travel with Carol on her rounds to visit AIDS patients in the township and at the township’s hospice, and one to determine what we might do in terms of creating the School’s first “library.” I am in the last group.

The night before Ann Beal, Sherry Slayman, and I had headed to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront looking  for books in both English and Afrikaans for children in grade school and middle school. We arrived at Lawrencia this morning with a stack of these books. A beginning. Books in search of a place.

Our team (Ann, Ken, Axi, Hae Min, Vickey, and Rebecca Schwartz) entered the room that was being proposed as a possible library—stored papers everywhere, unused tables and cabinets like misplaced persons, a dysfunctional electric heater, walls covered with grime, a bulletin board  covered with pencil marks, and many discarded items. We began by empting the junk (with help from some young boys at the School), keeping a large wooden piece with cubby holes that might function as a bookcase, some cabinets that might work, a couple tables. Simply emptied the room became promising.

We talked … If we placed a rug at the middle of the room, we could create a center, a focused space. No way we could fill the whole room. The cubby-hole piece on its side could be a room divider. Perhaps we could find bean-bag chairs somewhere. And a few reading chairs … Without much difficulty we persuaded the administrative head of the school to head off with us to shop … The walls? They need painting. But we had the janitor clean a small section, and the difference was noticeable. We would wash all the walls, not paint them this year. Off we went in our van …

First ended up at a curious monstrosity called the HyperMarket—a more-than-Walmart kind of place. Two girls went to the paint department to find a swatch that matches the walls in the room (kind of lime green—dirty lime green at this point …) We peeled back stack upon stack of rugs, from single-color to geometrical patterns to bold abstractions. A red-rust abstract pattern caught our eye—we purchased two of them. On our way to the furniture section, we found cleaning brushes and buckets.

It took us three furniture stores to find the chairs.  Orange and white bean bags (four of them). Small metal chairs with colorful woven seats for small people. And four chairs in the shape of hands (bright, bright colors!!) that made us laugh. And two pillows with covers of the South African flag.

Done, or at least tired after almost three hours. Still need those chairs for the tables, and perhaps a couple just for comfort for sitting and reading by the older kids. Maybe tomorrow. Then, one stop at a Home Depot kind of place on the way back to the school for cleaning agents.

The students emptied the van when we returned, carrying everything on their heads. They oooh’d and ahh’d, and applauded. The rugs went down. The cubby-hole case was moved to its side, filled with the books, and some books, opened, were place on top. We placed the chairs and the bean bags around the rug. Quite abruptly, the empty room found a center and a purpose. The children filled the chairs. They gathered our girls into a circle on the rug and began teaching them chants and dances. Children picked up the books as if they were magical, looked at and read them, and placed them back delicately.

After they all left, I closed the door to the room, arranged everything in order, and looked. A beginning. Tomorrow we scrub.

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