Moving Boxes

The soccer tournament will not be done until this Saturday. Which means that there won't be any classes for another week. But none of the OFCB people, or even the students, seem to mind that there is a two-week break in class. People just sort of take things as they come here, and aren't bothered by the unexpected. So, hopefully, class will resume next Monday and continue for four weeks before I leave. Meanwhile, I have been trying to organize the "language lab" at OFCB. Some churches from the Charlotte area sent two bus-loads of boxes of books and educational materials/equipment, but all the boxes have just been sitting in the old church building, the building which was supposed to become a "language lab". A church had also sent some really nice listening equipment and cds/books for students to learn English on cd, and the idea for the lab was to have a place where students could go and practice their English outside the classroom. So, I asked Dimilsaint and Amilor if I could take a shot at trying to organize the boxes of stuff and get the lab up and running.

Last Friday, I started going through boxes. Most of the boxes contained stacks and stacks of old elementary-school textbooks that, I assume, are outdated. Hundreds and hundreds of the same textbooks, most of which are probably useless for OFCB (not because they're outdated, but mainly because they suck). Yesterday, Amilor told me that OFCB will probably end up just giving them out to the students in the hopes that they might find them useful. On the other hand, some of the boxes contained very useful books, books that will definitely be helpful for the OFCB students. Like 20+ volumes of an Encyclopedia Brittanica. Or an entire box of French/English dictionaries. So, I spent most of Monday labelling boxes with the type of textbook and moving the boxes to one side of the room to make space for the lab. And yesterday, after having sorted and moved over a hundred boxes, I was told that the boxes would have to be moved elsewhere, as the shelves they are sitting on may not be able to support them. I was reminded of the Bonner spring break trip when one group of Bonners spent an entire day moving planks of wood from one place to another, and then back to where they started. I'm pretty sure everything I have done so far will be undone in the near future, but at least the language lab should be up and running sometime soon. I've pretty much done all I can do, which means I now have absolutely nothing to do until Monday. I am back to feeling relatively useless.

Going through the boxes was actually fun at times. Out of every 10 or so boxes, 9 would be the same, boring textbooks, but 1 would be a suprise! I opened one box to find 40 pounds of beans. Another contained about 200 miniature cribbage boards (I don't even know what cribbage is). Another contained about a million band-aids. Another contained a copy of a "Where's Waldo?" book (which Amilor thought was pretty awesome). But the best surprise of all came when I opened one of the giant boxes and found every wonderful 90's family film that I could ever imagine (on VHS). The selection includes: Matilda, Mrs. Doubtfire, Harriet the Spy, Mulan, Pocahontas, Tarzan, Toy Story 1+2, five or six Olsen twins movies, and many more. So, with these videos, and the crappy old tv laying in the computer lab, and the crappy VCR that Yevens has, my movie-less summer has just become a little more interesting (or at least, nostalgic). Starting tomorrow night (with Jumanji!), I will try to make my way through the box and introduce some people around OFCB to some of the finest cinema America has to offer.