Sunday, September 18, 2005

My favorite "job" is taking the kids to the library. Another volunteer, Christine, and I investigated it on our second day here. It's a great library housed in a former bank. The vault has been turned into a kids' area where they can play and make noise and in addition to books, they have a large selection of puppets. I'm so glad the library is open. The kids are bored to tears at the shelter.

The library staff was not as cooperative as I would have liked - they let the adults get cards with a state ID, but insisted on social security cards for the kids to get library cards. And they wouldn't let the kids use the computers without library cards, or even let them use the computers with an adult who did have a card. I mean, this is supposed to be a community resource. But still, the rest of the library: clean, bright, air conditioned, and full of books, was available to us. And they promised movie nights and story hours. And it was so, so good to get away from the shelter.

It turned out that the mother of three of the kids actually had their social security cards, and all the kids got excited because they'd be able to apply for cards and then use the Internet, but... and it hurts me to write this... their mother said she was "not walking no two blocks to the library." Well. Christine, Michael and I checked out books and videos for them.

So every day it's "Miss Megan, can we go to the library today? Pleeeeaaase?"

The kids are so funny and energetic and enthusiastic about stuff that I forget sometimes what they have been through. But when they have to choose videos, it comes out. "Let's get this one!" "We have that one." "No, we don't, we lost it in the hurricane." And then one day the fight in the vault over whether or not they had a home. "We have that at home." "What home? We don't have a home!" "Yes, we do, the shelter." "That's not a home, it's a shelter!" and their fears that they'll never get a house because, "houses cost, like, a thousand dollars."

I have a $50,000 piece of paper that says I'm supposed to know the words to say to make this easier. But I don't.