This summer I flew to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to sharpen 1,492 pencils. A long trip for such a chore.
But readers of this column know I’m involved with the Chispa Project, which outfits libraries for children in Honduras. My daughter Sara Brakhane directs the project.
Those sharpened pencils were needed for Pedro Nufio Elementary School, home of Chispa’s 88th Honduran library.
Chispa volunteers finish the library mural at Pedro Nufio Elementary School in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
I hoped my daughter might schedule me for some high-profile job—an important speech or lecture. After all, what’s nepotism for?
But she assigned me to count pencils, sharpen them and place them in 421 school backpacks.
I wasn’t the only volunteer from Northern California. Raina Dittmer came from Sacramento, joined by my Auburn neighbor Ysanne Rarick, among others.
Under the direction of Chispa employee Lester Reconco, volunteers helped paint a large mural, bringing a library wall to life with bright colors.
The mural features a Honduran boy in an oceanside scene, reclined on a wave of books while reading. On a field of blue, volunteers added a sailboat, swan and many fish.
Meanwhile, my pencil sharpener overheated and forced me to join the painting team. My job was to pour various paints into red Solo cups, lug them to the artists and wash brushes. My nickname was Pour-Pour-Norris.
Suddenly, I became an irreplaceable team member.
I know this because I begged others to replace me. They refused.
After two days of painting, the moment came to shelve books in the new library.
From the school parking lot, volunteers, including 12-year-old Maggie Miessler of Grass Valley and her grandmother Diane Miessler, worked an assembly line, offloading 850 new books from our bus.
They carried books through a playground of kids racing after a soccer ball and running through girl-chase-boy games.
Several kids stopped to hug us. We were soon surrounded by children grinning with unrehearsed wonder. They wanted to see the books we were shelving.
If you know the excitement U.S. children express over a new video game, you can imagine the enthusiasm building in these students as they saw their first children’s picture book.
On the final two days, volunteers hosted a library inauguration, kind of an all-day birthday party. Students enjoyed puppets, science experiments and storytelling.
I never gave my speech or lecture. But I can tell you the volunteers embodied Chispa’s belief that changing the environment can make education enjoyable and effective for all students.
Books affect that change.
Pedro Nufio Elementary exists in an environment that needs changing.
The rural school sits near a landfill where many parents collect trash, operate the landfill’s incinerator and commute by bus to laborer jobs.
When we left Honduras, the new library was painted and filled with rows of new books.
Chispa’s slogan encourages us all to “help change the story.” Each book we shelved represents a new story. And each sharpened pencil can write one.
Norris Burkes can be reached at comment@thechaplain.net. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento. Burkes is available for public speaking at civic organizations, places of worship, veterans groups and more. For details and fees, visit thechaplain.net.
