Growth Continues Locally

by Shana Ogren Lourey

After serving in the Peace Corps from 2007-2009 in Malawi, Africa, I did not leave with hopeful thoughts about my two years of contributed service.  In part, that's because I left the country suddenly and unconsciously from the result of a severe accident.  There was no goodbye or establishment of a long-term plan for the work that I had started. But also, it is because I have always been awake to the reality of one individual's limited ability to change another individual. 

Yet people can change themselves.  So I teamed up with people.  A local Malawian friend of mine had come up with the idea of starting a community (or what we call a 'public') library.  As a result, he and I helped three villages —  Mwansambo, Mkaika, and Mpondagaga —  open up their own community libraries.  I served as the resource of traveling into the country's city to sign us in as members of the Library Association and to pick up our boxes of checked out and donated books.  Local village members did the rest of the work.  Those active in the project were chiefs, students, parents, children, carpenters, and teachers.

My expectation for the future perseverance of the libraries was small —  due mostly to money, resources, and fear of change.  But I had the pleasure of receiving photos this month from my old Malawian friend and library partner.  Three years after it began, the Mpondagaga Community Library in the Nkhotakota district of Malawi, apparently, still exists.

Oh, what I would like to ask and investigate:

How many members are there?
What do you do if someone returns a book later than its due date?
How many books have been checked out?
What are the library hours?  Are they regular or different every week?
What do you like most about your library?  What are the largest difficulties?
Are any nearby organizations aware of the library efforts?

I try to use my computer keys as investigative tools.  Can I zero in enough on aspects of the photo of the library room to confirm somehow that it is currently in use?  Can I spot dates on anything?  Is it possible to in some way see if the books look as if they are being read often?  I am highly aware of the use of a good picture.  A picture can mean nothing —  just a practiced, manufactured image of a moment.

But I also know that my Malawian friend and library cohort is still there working it – checking on the libraries and, at the very least, encouraging them through doing so to keep the library somehow alive.  And that impresses me.  For a village to go from no libraries to one library, that functions even partially?  Halleluiah! 

Well done, Malawi.