Kigali Public Library

There is no public library in Rwanda. Most schools have something they call a library, but to be honest what they have do not do the word justice. Therefore one of the projects of the Rotary club here is to build a public library. This had been going on for a while, but I believe things are finally on their way, the building is actually being constructed and books are starting to be donated.
My school has a chapter of the interact club(the school version of rotary). Therefore when a shipment of books was donated a group of students volunteered to help sort the books. Being more familiar with books and how a library is set up my roomate and I volunteered to accompany the girls not only to supervise, but to also work. And let me tell you, work is what we did.
We worked from approximately 9 am till 3 pm(with a lunch break).
The first thing we had to do was sort the boxes of books into subjects. On the floor using chalk we wrote labels, therefore creating piles of books all over the floor as we sorted. Before we started we had told the girls to come to us if they weren't sure about what category a book should go into. Well, this resulted in my roommate and I being consulted for I would say 80% of the sorting. At times this was frustrating because I felt some of the girls were not even trying to read the titles or the back of the book/book jacket, they were purely picking up books and coming to us for the answer. Of course me being me was all over the place with doing my own sorting and helping the girls. Another hard part was that we only made so many categories and sometimes we would be unsure where to put a book because we knew where it would belong in an American library, we just hadn't made all those distinctions in the genres(but you have to start small). One of the worst categories was Novels. In here we put everything from biographies, memoirs, classic literature, to actual novels. At times it was very frustrating but there was just no way to separate them out more without my roommate and I doing it, because the girls just don't know enough about books and how to distinguish them apart.
As the day wore on we were joined by some university students who are also in interact clubs. I had hoped they would really be a help. I think that it was about 50-50. At times they would be great workers,and at other times all they would do is stand around and browse the books,not to mention that they too had to ask us what categories books belong in.
After we had sorted a massive amount of books we then had some of the girls start to record them and box them up. The girls did this very well, but at times finding the author of the book was not easy for them(I would like to thank Edgewood Elementary School for taking us to the library and having to learn all about books and how a library functions).
Overall though I was very proud of the students for working as hard as they did even when they weren't familiar with the system.

They only thing I have to complain about is what happened at the end of the day. I was very dissapointed in my students. As much as I understand what they did, and why they did it, I just cannot agree with it, no matter how much they, or someone attempts to convince me.
So here's the deal.
The man in charge of the public library committee for Rotary is the nicest person ever. He actually cares about everyone, and especially the students at my school. But, that doesn't mean that students should take advantage that he will do whatever they want. Some of the girls wanted to take novels for themselves. I told them no, these were books donated to the library, and they are going to have to wait untill the library opens. Well what did they do, they went and asked, and of course the VERY nice man said yes and he knew that I did not agree, so he came to talk to me. He said we would make a comprise and that instead of giving the books to the girls, he would donate the ones the girls took to the our school's library. I said fine, because at this point the students already had the books. I told the girls this, yet as we were on the bus back to school I saw students writing their names in the books and I asked them why, and they tell me teacher its my book, and I was like you are selfish, those books are supposed to be for the school library.
That is why I was dissapointed. I know they are young and that they are students who always just care about themselves, but they are 17 years old, and its time for them to act responsibly. Those books were donated to a public libary to be used by many, not to my students for their private usage.