We're pushing through, so far we've covered bookmobile service, collection development policy, open hours, performance measures and community assessments, space planning and we have just been here since Monday afternoon! We know how to have a good time. Today they told us that they only wanted to work 2 hours in the afternoon...we almost had them work an 8 hour day yesterday!
But the boss is getting wise, he's feeding us now so they get a break. There is a special steamed bun that Dawna likes that he ordered in. Katherine had the flourescent green pastry, which was surprisingly good. A lot of it is based on rice/gluten. This morning there was a dessert which was a banana wrapped in lime green gluten. It was sticky and very filling. It's just been great, we talked about a couple of things yesterday, such as putting the current edition of the newspaper in the newspaper rack and to place the rack near the newspapers...today it was done. Yesterday, I had a meltdown about how the 600s were in no particular order and this morning we saw someone shelfreading. They are really keen to do good stuff.
And for Sylph, yes, they did everything that we asked them to do in between missions. Everthing....a space plan, the performance measures, community demographics, photos of the storytelling competiton.......all done. It was amazing.
Adventures in the bathroom....or WC as they call it here. The bathroom that is in Muktar's office has a cistern and squatter and an alarming combination of dangling electrical wires. There is a sign near the wires and we asked Sosi, our interpretter what it said. We thought we were re-vamping of the electrical so they could have computers, who knew it was to prevent the library from blowing up.
Another really fun thing that has been happening in Sigli is that the local school children have been preparing for a special marching contest for Independence day. Groups of about twenty
children have been marching and chanting in the streets. We have been enjoying seeing them over the past few days. Today was the final competition and we happened upon the closing ceremonies when we went to the beach for lunch. It was so much fun to see the children so excited. It felt like play day when we were kids. And then we got happily swarmed by them as they wanted to say hi, have their photos taken and practice their English.
We ended the afternoon with the business plan workshop. This was the session that Dawna worked on the most and with Katherine's help, it paid off. Sosi delivered the presentation in Bahasa Indonesian and then the staff split into 3 working groups to prepare business cases for additional electrical infrastructure, a bookmobile and a new library.
Mukhtar knows the power of food to motivate and bring people together. This afternoon was no exception. He provided bags of sweet coffee, savoury food, fruit and sweets. He manages to create a very happy atmosphere and the staff (and the two of us) respond very positively. The afternoon went very well and the 3 business cases are well on their way.
Boy, do we have this Indonesian thing wrong. When we came back to the house, the very kind woman, Yulia, who looks after the house was watching Fashion TV and there were some very scantily clad ladies on the show. And then we heard that they show porn in a coffee house in Banda. Here we thought we were living in strict Muslim territory.
Tonight at the house it is just Katherine, Sosi and I as the other team has left for Banda. We are planning to have dinner with Simon and his family.
Another good day in Sigli.
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