The small two-story building near the beach on San Pancho’s main street, Tercer Mundo, was home to entreamigos for three years. Children gathered out front for art projects at tables under the grand mango tree in the center of the street. Traffic slowed to creep around it. Massive branches provided shade.
A small, hand-lettered sign led to the “Biblioteca, Library.” A narrow hallway with brightly painted murals. Uneven concrete stairs. Children’s voices. In the largest room, shelves filled with books in Spanish lined the walls; large, colorful picture books beckoned eager readers. A long bench with chairs provided desks for studying and homework help, and amidst tangled wires, computer stations brought the world of the internet.
The dimly lit smallest room in the library held the English collection for adults and children. Here books overflowed the shelves and leaned haphazardly at odd angles, stacked and propped; keeping order, my nemesis. As the volunteer librarian, I was uncompromising; fiction separate from non-fiction, non-fiction organized by topic. I vowed that someday the Dewey Decimal system would prevail.
But entreamigos’ lease had expired, and we had to move. We filled boxes and boxes with books. Carefully, at first, labeling “Libros, espanol, ninos, books, Spanish, children.” Then later, rushed, we simply wrote “libros.” We rolled up the colorful posters, gathered the toys, and took down the shelves.
The small, hand-lettered sign above the door now reads “Se renta, for rent.” The mango tree is gone, a casualty of the newly repaved Tercer Mundo. Entreamigos is a strong and committed organization, however, whose work in San Pancho will continue. We will have a new home in one of the old warehouses in town. In time there will be a new library, and I will be in it, trying to keep order once again.
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