Manglarito Library Continues to Flourish, Thanks to Altos del Maria Residents

.Up in the hills of Altos Del Maria there is a tiny village called Manglarito which is worthy of time and attention. At least Connie Hess, Chris Mann and Terry Phipps, three Expat residents of Altos del Maria thought so. The little community of Manglarito has no electricity and only a generator or two to run the few fridges in the area. The town is still very traditional with most of the women staying home to raise the children while the men take the 30 minute trek out of the valley, either by foot or by horseback, up to Sora or Altos Del Maria to work as gardeners or employees of Melo.

Local expats Connie, Chris and Terry, all residents of Altos Del Maria, began work back in 2009 to open a library for this little community of approximately 300 people. Chris Mann has a Masters Degree in Library Science and her knowledge of how to run a library and where to obtain books was invaluable. Chris's background gave her access to knowing when Scholastic was having their huge sales. Chris was able to bring back Spanish books from the US at a significantly decreased cost. The first shipment of over 440 books, helped launch the library.

The concept of a lending library is new to the small community, and it took some time to for them understand that yes you can take a book home but it needed to be returned to the library by a certain time. The Expat team taught the residents how to use the old fashioned card catalog method of keeping track of books. Students were charged with in keeping the books in order. As for the library building itself, Altos residents put in the time to lay floor tiles and build bookshelves to house a growing volume of books. In the year, since its inception, the library has continued to grow and so has the school, with two teachers and two classrooms.

If you live in Panama, you already know that the humidity and books don't mix to well. Up in the Altos mountain, the percentage of humidity is higher due to a rainforest effect. However Connie says that after being open for a year the condition of the books is better than expected, besides they would rather have some books even if they don't last too long, rather than none at all.

Being situated in a rainforest, the library does deal with some little visitors that perhaps the rest of us aren't used to seeing in our libraries. So far they have shooed out poisonous snakes, some bats and as for the geckos they are permanent residents.

The Manglarito library is a community run program. It is run by volunteers and donations are needed to keep the library and literacy programs running. Connie Hess, Chris Mann and Terry Phipps have put their hearts into this project that educates the children of this tiny village and gives them a chance at a future. The ladies all agree that the little rewards of seeing the kid’s eyes light up when they receive new books or seeing the pride teachers put into maintaining their library and classrooms makes their time and effort worthwhile.

The Manglarito library is always looking for Spanish books for children of all ages. They can use your support in the form of donations. To lend a hand, contact Connie Hess at connie438@gmail.com / 6723 7502 or - Chris Mann at cvbmann@aol.com

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