Deep in the jungle in the Mexican Yucatan is Chumpon, a village of 600 inhabitants. Seven years ago a partnership developed between the Jacinto Pat primary school in Chumpon and the residents of Paamul, an RV park near Playa del Carmen where retired Canadians and Americans spend their winters.
Originally the partnership consisted of gift packages at Christmas for each of the 137 children in the elementary school. Each child would receive school supplies, a stuffed animal, candy and small toys. It was during these Christmas visits that it was noted that the children did not have any books to work from. Mayan is the children’s native language and they begin learning Spanish in Grade 1. They didn’t have books in either language. A photocopier was donated to the school to help the teachers with handouts.
The residents of Paamul decided to build a library on the school grounds and retired Okanagan College instructor Dale Urquhart of Vernon was asked to head up the volunteer construction crew, made up of Canadians and Americans aged 60 to 75-plus. The area had to be cleared, a small building demolished and materials brought in from Tulum.
There were many challenges — permits to obtain, many delays, no cell service/phones, therefore no way of contacting the school directly. Calls had to be made to teachers who lived off site in the evening and most times through an interpreter. Loads of sand and gravel were dumped in the wrong spot and had to be moved by wheelbarrow 50 meters in the tropical heat.
When the crew arrived on the first day of construction after a one-hour drive, there was no electricity, no water and the washrooms were locked. All three were soon overcome. April saw a halt to construction as most of the Paamulians headed back to Canada or the U.S. for the summer.
Work continued in the fall of 2010. Meanwhile Larka Tetens, a retired teacher and Paamul resident from Texas, was speaking in the U.S. to anyone she could to try and find the funds to purchase new and used Spanish and Mayan language books for the school. The men of Paamul built shelving, the women of Paamul painted murals on the building, catalogued books and readied them for distribution. A Chumpon resident was contracted to build a table and chairs.
Former Armstrong resident and world-renowned children’s author Margriet Ruurs of Saltspring Island was asked if she’d be part of the project by coming to Mexico and taking part in the dedication ceremonies.
With her husband Kees, she came at her own expense. Margriet has 27 children’s books to her credit, including the successful Emma series and My Librarian is a Camel. During the Chumpon library dedication in March 2011 she read Emma’s Eggs through an interpreter and had the children enthralled when she produced a life sized puppet of a chicken.
The library also includes reference books and books for adults including cookbooks, as it was decided that the library should become a community library, not just one for the children. One third of all adults in the community are considered illiterate. The shelves are only partially full at this point and we need more books.
The next project? Phase 2 in Chumpon. Imagine 20+ preschoolers using a building that has no running water, no toilets, no lockable storage, and recently two poisonous snakes and several tarantulas were found inside. A site has been selected with the blessing from the village council who will put in the water and sewer lines. Dot Ewan of Gibsons, B.C. heads up the overall project and Dale and his crew have another building project come this fall.
If you’d like to help purchase appropriate Spanish language books for the library, they can be bought through: Bookdepository.com, who will ship anywhere in the world free of charge, or through ebay or Amazon.com.
For more information, see www.booksformayans.org or call Dale or Sue Urquhart at 250-545-5624. Donations are tax-deductible and can be made through PayPal, with 100 per cent of all donations going directly to the project.
Sue Urquhart is a freelance writer in Vernon.
