reading work
Dear friend,
On Friday we were blessed with a significant amount of snow—much more than the previous week’s winter storm had given us. We awoke to the fresh glint of new accumulation covering street and sidewalk and the scrape of shovels carving paths in the encumbering layer that was already deep enough to spill over the tops of winter boots. It was coming down steady and swift, and the whole day I don’t think it let up until after nightfall.
Usually I work at the climbing gym on Fridays (the sport side of our project) but recently I had an idea. My friend Brandi, a fellow American expat who has called the Jiu Valley home for over twenty years, runs a small but mighty children’s library in Lupeni, the next town over from where I currently live and work. Biblioteca Copiilor “Din Loc în Loc” offers a wide selection of “books that love children,” as librarian Brandi likes to say, and so I thought: why not bring some of our kids over to feel that love?
The library’s main program is a reading hour on Friday afternoons where children of all ages (including adults who were once children) gather in a little upper room lined with shelves and cushioned with tiny, colorful bean bag chairs and listen to a curated cluster of picture books and poems read aloud. After the readings, members are able to check out their books for the week. I decided that every Friday I would gather a small group of three or so kids from our programs and take a field trip to this biblioteca. It seemed wrong not to try to take advantage of this special community resource.
And so on Thursday afternoon—my day to teach English with the education side of our project—I asked one of my classes, a group of three girls around age 12, if they would be interested in that kind of excursion. After a resounding Yes! I started working on parental permission slips. But when I saw the state of our neighborhood roads the next morning, I nearly postponed. I had uneasy visions of dragging the girls through blizzard conditions, hoisting them onto the multi-town minibus with questionable winter weather capabilities (just last week when the first snow hit, one of the drivers suddenly commanded me and all other passengers to pile into the back rows so that she could get some traction on an upcoming hill). But at the assurance of a colleague that the roads were clear by late morning, we went on with the plan.
We tramped through the snow down down down from our neighborhood to the bus stop, following the paths made by the footfalls before ours. We were thoroughly frosted by the time we entered the minibus, filling the back row, the girls writing names and drawing hearts on the fogged windows. I was happy and excited because I have a childhood’s worth of memories of my mom taking my sister and I to the public library come rain, snow, or sleet, and this felt like one of those special moments where you get to watch your life draw a neat little circle. I’m drawn to literacy work because I know from my own life, back as far as I can remember, that stories change us, and reading together unites us, and libraries are little refuges in which stories may be shared and reading together experienced. It’s worth the time and the trek.
Happily, the girls agreed. After several snowy stories and poems were read aloud in the cozy little space and basic organization of the library was explained, they flocked up to me and asked if they might be able to come every Friday, please please please? How to say no to that? But we have over 100 kids in our programs and I'm sure a great bulk of them will want to experience this biblioteca as well, and so I have to figure out how to share the love with as many as possible. In the meantime, on Wednesday, February first (tomorrow) we will celebrate ZICI: Ziua Internațională a Cititului Împreună (international reading together day) at the gym. Before we developed our education programs and had separate classroom spaces, we used to have a weekly reading hour right in the middle of the climbing gym. These days our sports and education programs are more or less separated, although we will periodically read with smaller groups throughout the day if the kids tire of climbing, and for ZICI we will put aside some dedicated time to celebrate, as this year’s theme states, the power of “one book, one voice, many ears!”
In case it isn’t obvious, I am truly in love with my work here. It is ever-evolving and adapting and growing as I myself evolve and adapt and grow, and I am grateful for a place in which I can take an idea and run with it. Or, tramp through the snow with it on a cold winter’s day, hopeful in the possibilities of a new beginning!
With love,
Xenia
