Sunday was a full day of work on the new web sites for the library and HJH program — after a trip to church, that is. Shortly after I got up in the morning, I heard the warning bell for the mass at the Catholic church across the street from the library. I hadn?t actually graced the door of a church in San Juan del Sur, so I decided to give it a try.
The church in San Juan del Sur is a large building with a yellow exterior, a red domed steeple, and an interior constructed primarily of timber. It has church window-shaped openings with shutters that open to allow the breeze to flow through, and at the front there are ornate figures representing Jesus, Mary, etc.
I walked in just a few minutes late, and sat down amidst a fairly full house. The mass was somewhat familiar from my staunch Lutheran upbringing, but being slightly different and in Spanish, I had a lot of trouble picking up the responses being uttered by the congregation. So I mostly followed along mutely while as the service progressed. The homily given by the priest focused on the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist — I was able to pick up the gist of it, if not all of the details. At the end of the service, the priest took time to let the congregation know about the VOSH (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity) group which is here running a clinic. (He also said a personal thanks to them in Engish: ?I love you, and I love the work you do.?)
The VOSH folks have taken the town by storm. Jane?s hotel is full to the brim with students from UC Berkeley who are volunteering with the group, and David Gullette?s Simmons group has also been working at the eye clinic. Even the Biblioteca has gotten involved.
To understand why, one must first consider the weak communications infrastructure in place in rural Nicaragua. In most of the communities served by the Movil, there is no newspaper delivery, no landline phone service, no Internet, and even no electricity. Postal service exists, but according to one of the hotel staffers, few people get letters. Communication tends to happen most frequently by word of mouth, or by various other makeshift means.
One very interesting example of makeshift communication are the sound trucks run by ?Vado Publicidad.? The company has a fleet of loudspeaker-equipped vehicles that cruise the town and countryside blaring announcements in a unique singsong cadence. It is possible to pay them to make announcements ? Jane has done this on occasion to publicize events. But clearly relying on a hired sound truck is not the most efficient way to provide reliable and effective publicity.
As an organization focused on offering personalized, appropriate information services with a presence at least once a month in 27 rural communities, the library is in a unique position to serve as an information conduit for the campesinos.
In the case of the eye clinic, librarians Heidy and Ruth have spent much of their time over the last few days working to ensure that groups of campesinos in remote villages are able to take advantage of the free clinic. They have formulated announcements, driven to the communities in the library?s truck, and used their existing relationships with the residents to spread the word about the clinic. (They also formulated a message to be announced by Vado Publicado ? the invoice below shows that the announcement was made in 9 communities.
The librarians then coordinated transportation services to bring rural residents into the clinic and helped walk them through the process once they arrived in town. This is the type of “above and beyond” public service that make the library a crucial part of its community. And it?s not an anomaly ? the Movil frequently helps with transportation to and from its communities in response to various needs. (When we were out with the project last week, we carried a child with severe asthma and her mother back to town with us to visit the public clinic.)
The unique relationship of the library with the rural communities points toward interesting opportunies for new information services. For example, the possibility of adding a solar-powered electronic communication network to the library’s services. The addition of Por Fin to the library’s portfolio is an exciting step in this direction. Jane and I just had a late-night brainstorming session about the information network idea, and I?m hoping to pursue it further.