An elderly woman waits patiently in line at the Duna Library’s front desk.
“I’d like to get a library card for my grandson,” she says, handing over her weathered ID to the library assistant. She dictates her details, pausing thoughtfully before speaking, revealing that she is from an informal settlement on the outskirts of Joza. She lives there with her grandson, her foster child, because his mother died.
An elderly woman waits patiently in line at the Duna Library’s front desk.
“I’d like to get a library card for my grandson,” she says, handing over her weathered ID to the library assistant. She dictates her details, pausing thoughtfully before speaking, revealing that she is from an informal settlement on the outskirts of Joza. She lives there with her grandson, her foster child, because his mother died.
“Where does your grandson go to school ma’am?” asks the librarian.
“Crèche,” she says, pointing in the direction of a pre-school down the road.
He is still a toddler. He is one of the squealing children in the library, with spiders and flowers and smiles painted on their faces.
It is Saturday 22 October and an animated buzz is emanating from the library. It is an unusually energetic atmosphere, and unusually bulging with guests. It is the library’s Open Day – an attempt to re-introduce the significance of literacy and invite the community to take ownership of this home of reading, writing and knowledge.
The old woman knows that the library is a space her grandson should belong to, an opportunity she thinks he should have. And she isn’t the only parent who feels this way. Behind her in the line stands a mother carrying her baby, and a teenage girl with her little sister at her side. They are some of the 43 new members who are joining the library this Saturday – 43 people with access to a giant room full of books.
But literacy is not only about reading. And the library is not only a space for little children and their parents. Newly selected library monitors escort all eager teenagers to a corner of the library, tucked behind the buzz. There sit two writing and editing students from the Rhodes School of Journalism, who guide the teens through a writing workshop.
To stimulate brain sparks, the co-ordinators begin with word association games. Each consecutive participant shouts out the first words that sprout from their heads, having heard the words of those before them.
Next, the words are transferred to their blank pages. Each is provided with one word that they slot into a sentence.
The combination of their mismatched sentences constructs a weird and wonderful narrative, acting as inspiration for even more weird and wonderful words. Two joined desks full of strangers are soon connected by their thoughts, creativity and shared adrenalin.
And everyone else in the room is connected by their new-found enthusiasm for Duna Library. With toddlers laying claim to the kids' section, families signing up for library cards and the teenage library monitors working enthusiastically alongside Duna Library’s staff, the new message is clear:
This library belongs to everyone in Joza.
