Recently Israel was asked “what is your dream for your village?” Without much thought the 36-year old director of the Biblioteca Comunitaria Rija’tzuul Na’ooj in San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala responded “more educational opportunities for the children.” Israel, whose first language is tz’utujil, was recently one of the stars in a US west coast fundraising trip. Not only did he speak to groups in his native language as well as in Spanish he managed admirably all of the technology needs for a week of presentations.
Israel lives with his family including three of his five siblings, 26 or so chickens, three dogs and an internet connection. He credits his mother, who was an orphan who never was able to go to school, with the fact that he and his five siblings all have university educations.
During his first ever
visit to the US Israel handled chopsticks and dim sum, snow, donor meetings, Rotary Club presentations, a day at the Castilleja School in Palo Alto, a tour of Google and walked twice over the Golden Gate bridge.
Assisting Israel with Spanish to English translation, as needed, was Riecken’s Antigua-based Director of Sustainability, Romeo Rodriguez, who also contributed to the presentations.
Israel was rewarded for his years of service with Riecken with multiple trips to Apple Stores and the purchase of an iPad. When asked what he wanted on the iPad he asked for Skype, Kindle, a calculator and educational games for children. Within minutes of the purchase the Mayan techie was making Skype calls to his friends in Guatemala.
Israel and Romeo wanted to see libraries. They had a tour of the Green Library at Stanford University and Israel compared his library’s 8000 books (one for each resident of his village) to the more than seven floors of stacks with a grin. The two delivered sets of bi-lingual (Mayan and Spanish) books to Hispanic neighborhood libraries and also to one day worker center. In addition, to being the director of the San Juan Library Israel is the director of a cultural identity program funded by the Finnish Embassy of Central America and MACHI-INHERIT.
With great pride Israel showed the Castilleja School librarian Riecken’s collection of bi-lingual (Mayan and Spanish) books which put into print for the first time oral stories of the elders of six indigenous villages.
In his library there is a 16-year old who has suffered for years from malnutrition yet he comes every day to the library. Another child spends every day in the library while her mother works in the market. Israel wants more books, more computers and more staff so those kids can satisfy their yearnings to learn and become good citizens. Please donate whatever you can to help Israel realize his dream for the children of his village.
And when you are in the neighborhood head for Lake Átitlan and hop on a boat to San Juan La Laguna and go visit Israel in his library and see your donation at work. Ask anyone to point you to the “biblioteca.”
Israel and all of us at Riecken thank you in advance for your help.