Support Nepal climbing school

We looked around at each other nervously, wondering "Have we done a good thing or not?"

Fifty kids, ages 1-17 were feverishly playing with wooden trains, pop-up books that look like bouquets of real-life splendor, magazines published just for kids, and electronic word puzzles that sing the alphabet in rhythm. It was a cacophony of excitement, curiosity, and pure learning pleasure, a free-play session in a high altitude library set up to bring pleasure to children through the written word.

The Khumjung School Magic Yeti Library was established less than a year ago and it's evident that the enormous effort - from dusty bookshelves in family homes in the USA to a busy one - room library in the largest Sherpa village in the Everest region -- has paid off. The children are no longer afraid to take books off the shelves and, in fact, the biggest challenge for the new librarian, Pasang Doma Sherpa, is that the kids tend to put books back on any shelf they can find, leaving a confused jumble of unorganized, mis-shelved books in their wake.

"This is a good sign," we try to convince Pasang Doma. Improperly shelved books shows us the kids are actually using them. This is a start, for promoting literacy.

For the better part of 10 days, volunteer Stephanie Graham, and I sat in the bitter cold January confines of Sherpa homes, cataloguing 10 yak loads (700 lbs) of books and then shelving them in the library with the help of Pasang Doma and volunteer students from Khumjung. We could only stand about 3 hours at a time in the library, as the temperatures were well below freezing. We understood, only later, why we got strange looks when we wanted the floor mopped up. It created a slippery ice-rink effect atop the newly laid linoleum.

This is the time of year when the school is closed (January and part of February) due to the unbearable cold, providing kids and families a chance to find warmth in Kathmandu or by their fires. We thought we could handle the cold, but I admit it got the best of us, ("This is colder than I felt in Antarctica!") and we consumed countless cups of hot tea to keep our cores warm. Electricity was brought in for the first time to the library and a small heater made the work go a little faster as the students huddled around, filling out catalogue cards.

Finally, the books were all shelved and a new reference section and small children's interactive toy area was complete. We invited the community's smallest children to come and see their new library (click here to see the video). I don't think I've ever seen such excited faces - learning how a wooden train can glide across wooden tracks, plunking out Rasampiri, a Nepali folk song, on a small glockenspiel, and opening up a world of pictures, characters, and ideas within the hundreds of books in the tiny Magic Yeti library.

Our future plans? We'll continue to augment and supply the Khumjung library with the best books we can provide. Next year, duplicate books and excess supplies will be carried up to the village of Phortse, our next location for a Magic Yeti Library. Here, children go to school until 4th and 5th grade at which point they go to Khumjung for higher education. A community library space exists in Phortse now, but there are few, if any, books. We plan to bring books up, build new shelves, paint the library, and finally shelve the books in the early spring of 2009. Any volunteers? Fill out our volunteer questionnaire here.

Liesl Clark -Director
Magic Yeti Libraries

A very special thanks to our Sherpa Student volunteers: Lhama Phuti Sherpa (Class 6), Nima Lhamu Sherpa (Class 7), Ang Phuti Sherpa (Class 7), Dawa Passang Sherpa (Class 8), Nawang Fingo Sherpa (Class 8), Gourag Mangar (Class 7), Bumeka Mangar (Class 5)

Links:

• The community visits the Magic Yeti Library

Pictures:

• Kids read and enjoy! (JPG)
• This MYL Library is in the village of Khumjung, Nepal (JPG)
• LIesl, Phoebe and Mahendra at the opening MYL ceremony (JPG)