Books For The Potrerillos Library

Three of the 32

I participate in two social cataloging sites–at least that’s what they’re called–Web sites that allow you to catalog books in your library and communicate with other booklovers.  One, the older of the two, is Goodreads and the other is LibraryThing (LT for short).  On my personal thread at LT, I wrote about the condition of the Potrerillos library and the fact that children here don’t get a chance to read much because the libraries have been set up mostly for school work.  Panamá does not have a culture of reading.  For her birthday last year, we gave Michele Cabellero, Luz’s daughter, a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Spanish–the first book she’s ever owned.  The Potrerillos library simply does not have much (if any) fiction, never mind anything as expensive as a book like that.  I had been looking around in what bookstores are available here for children’s books to donate to the library; I couldn’t find any–even Harry Potter seemed to have disappeared from the shelves of Hombre de La Mancha– and mentioned it on LT.  One thing led to another, and six people–Charlie Callahan in Arizona, Stasia Doster in Texas, Nancy White and Linda Koons in Pennsylvania, Linda’s daughter Laura in Tennesee, and Roni Cash in California–sent me a total of 32 books for the Potrerillos library.  The last shipments made it here Monday.

With amazing serendipity, this column appeared in current issue of The Panama News.  Jackson’s main point is that education, for various reasons but not helped by the systematic looting of the Ministerio de Educación by the Torrijos government (my instant dislike and distrust of the then-Minister last summer vindicated) has deteriorated badly in Panamá, in what he calls a “dumbing down”.  He specifically talks about the need for Teaching Them While They’re Still Young–and inculcating a love of reading early.

Yeah, sure–but how are you going to do that if kids have no access to books?  Thus, my original idea, which suddenly bore unexpected fruit by the incredibly kind donations from these people I’ve never met.

As I told them before this ball got rolling, I don’t expect that suddenly every kid in Potrerillos will be rushing to the library to read books.  That’s not realistic given the culture.  But maybe one or two in the beginning–maybe more later–who knows?  

I’m reminded (as usual) of my favorite saying of Mother Teresa: “We can do no great things.  We can only do small things with great love.”