Space Walk

In the library a drama activity we use is called Space Walk. The objectives of this activity help actors to get to know their space as well as practice using their bodies in different ways.

Our stage is changing. This week we move to a historic building in Mala Panjim built in 1908 as the first Marathi school by the Mushtifund Saunstha. The building has been unoccupied for the past two years and needed hours of work to become a habitable space.

We were very blessed to have a recently graduated architect in Tahir Noronha who took on the project of measuring, drawing and understanding the structure and then designing and supervising modifications to make us utility, pantry and washroom spaces that will serve the Bookworm team and its many users.Our library services closed on the 2nd of September in Taleigao, ending a five-year chapter in a half red house that has witnessed a lot of growth, footfall, excitement, tears, comings and goings. If the walls could tell stories, we would be there for the next five years  – listening.  We celebrated the space with a gathering on the 3rd and within a few hours that space is already changed. It is a huge mass of boxes labelled and awaiting the moving day.

So, we needed to space walk in our new premises and it was Anandita who suggested that we do this as a team. Her suggestion came from the need for all of us – close to 25 people to work together towards a new library space and today we did just that.

Armed with buckets, mops, gloves and masks for seven hours we scraped, cleaned, dusted, wiped, polished, scrubbed, shined, swept, mopped, swabbed, washed, brushed and vacuumed the inside of the library.

Each and every Bookworm actor, space walked with a complete and total dedication to the cause, giving of their best physical energy and self. As we cleaned what will birth into our new library, the energy in every room began to change and by the afternoon we owned the space in a way that no other activity can bring.

Today is also the day that we celebrate as Teacher’s Day, and I cannot think of a more fitting and powerful way of symbolising the day than in preparedness for the teaching and learning that will happen in the library to come.

Tomorrow our books and shelves and our resource material of the past decade and more arrives in the building and I know we are ready. We have space walked and we are energised. Only good things can come from this and we await all of you as we re-open our library services in Mala on the 18th of September, 2018.