Acclaimed Colombian Institution Has 4,800 Books and 10 Legs - NYTimes.com Marvelous story about a man and his wife who started a library-- on his donkey in rural Columbia. Imagine giving your life to such a cause. Every week Luis Soriano takes books with him by donkey to loan to villagers miles from his home.
His lending library has grown to 4800 books - and he does all this on $350 a month. That's his income for the month for him and his wife, not what he makes as a librarian.
There ought to be some gifts from the States to make his day, don't you think?
How would I get him some Good Nature posters and a check as a gift for his good works?
Any ideas?
The subtext of this story is the healing, transformative gift of words. In the midst of a country ravaged by war, drug dealers, thugs and thieves, people still make their effort.
I am reminded of the end of D.H. Lawrence's "Terra Ingcognita:
" and eyes so soft
softer than the space between the stars,
and all things, and nothing, and being and not-being
alternately palpitant,
when at last we escape the barbed-wire enclosure
of Know Thyself, knowing we can never know,
we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort
and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight
as the fuchsia does, dangling her reckless drop
of purple after so much putting forth
and slow mounting marvel of a little tree."
by D.H. Lawrence
Best fishes,
Timothy
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