I is for improvisation

Installment #3 in the “Bolivian Libraries Program ABCs”:

I is for improvisation.

I don’t remember whether "ability to improvise" was part of the job description for MCC Bolivia libraries program educator. Since I’ve held this position, however, I’ve realized that it’s one of my most essential job skills. Sandra and I improvise our travel plans when it rains and the roads become impassable. We improvise our visits to the community libraries our program supports, dropping by unannounced when there’s an opening in our schedule, talking with the librarians about whatever joys or challenges they’re currently experiencing, then leaving when the conversation has wound down. And although we plan our workshops fairly carefully so we can fit in everything we want to share, sometimes circumstances force us to improvise there too—sometimes quite a bit.

Take our April 28-29 teachers’ workshop in Huacareta, a small, dry, dusty, but picturesque town in the departamento (province) of Chuquisaca. We had fit this workshop into the tail end of our trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, so we didn’t arrive in town until the day of the workshop—two hours before, to be exact. But everything seemed to be going according to plan. The Peace Corps volunteer who’d made the arrangements for us to come showed us to our room in the girls’ boarding house where we’d be spending the night, then went with us to settle some financial arrangements at the mayor’s office. We then returned to the boarding house to get our workshop materials before making our way to the school, where the workshop was going to be held.

That’s when the plan started falling apart. When we knocked at the front door of the boarding house, one of the girls stuck her head out a window alongside and informed us that the girl in charge—the one with the keys—had gone to the school to practice a folk dance her class would be performing during that weekend’s town festival. I should explain that this boarding house, or internado, is where girls and young women from the surrounding countryside live while they go to Huacareta's middle- and high-school, the only one for miles around. So security is understandably tight; not just anyone has permission to let outsiders in. Unfortunately, that meant that we and our pens, butcher paper, and photocopies were on opposite sides of a locked door.

So we waited for the head girl to come back…and waited…and waited. Our workshop’s scheduled starting time was now just minutes away. Finally, one of the girls from the boarding house had a brilliant idea: with our permission, the girls could go into Sandra’s and my room, get out the bags we needed, and pass them over the fence. (Security may be tight but is apparently not insurmountable; I didn’t ask whether they’d used this method on any other occasions.) We gladly gave our permission, described the bags we needed, caught them as they were hoisted over, and walked briskly across town to the school.

Sandra and I hurried to set up as the teachers drifted in and took their seats. At this point we realized that a few crucial items must have been in a different bag, because they weren’t in the ones the girls had handed us. We conferred in whispers about which activities to postpone until the second day of the workshop, and which to go ahead with but do in a different way, with the materials we had on hand. All right. We turned to the school principal and let him know we were ready to start.

The surprises hadn’t ended yet, however. After introducing us and offering some gracious words of welcome, the principal politely asked us if he could say something before we started. This weekend was extraordinarily busy for the teachers, he said: many of them had some last-minute pre-festival rehearsing to do with their students the next day (Saturday), and grades for the current marking period were due Monday. Was there any way that we could extend that day's portion of the workshop (say, until 7:00 or 8:00 instead of 5:00 p.m.) in order to finish by noon the next day, instead of going all day Saturday?

Sandra and I looked at each other, looked at the principal, looked at each other again, and said, “Sure, no problem.”

So we moved things around again, shortened a few activities and discarded a few others, and plunged in. And you know, this turned out to be one of the best-paced workshops we’ve led. It was even fortuitous that we had less time than we’d counted on: we’d somehow neglected to discover beforehand, in our conversations with the Peace Corps volunteer, that the school had no grades 1-5, the level for which most of our typical workshop activities are designed. If we’d have had a full second day, we might have run short on things to do!

It’s not always easy for me to improvise—particularly, to be cheerful in the face of inconveniences and avoid “freaking out” over the need to change my plans. (Come to think of it, that’s a challenge I face in other areas of life, too!) But thanks to my involvement in the libraries program here, I’m learning—I’m learning.

Photos:
1 - A street scene in Huacareta
2 - Sandra and I, enjoying a more relaxed moment at the infamous boarding house door
3 - Girls from the internado play "addition bingo," a game Sandra and I taught them

What questions do you have about the MCC Bolivia libraries program? As I continue with the “ABCs” series, I’d be happy to answer questions and take requests. Just respond to this entry (or any other in this blog) by clicking on “comments” (below and to the right) and typing in what you’d like to hear about in a future entry.