Many of us grew up with the stern figure of a librarian standing between us and the riches on the shelves — disapproving individuals who exhorted silence and checked that hands were clean. Five minutes in the company of Rhodes Park library assistant Edith Mvelase is sufficient to dispel any residual images of librarians as people with pursed lips and dusty fingers.
Not only does she have apple cheeks and laughing eyes, Mvelase is also quite likely to have muddy hands from digging in the library’s food garden.
”The link between books and beetroot is not that far-fetched,” beams Mvelase, as she explains how the vegetables from the library’s garden are used to provide food for patients at the Zaziwe Hope for Life Hospice in Jeppe.
She came up with the idea of turning the library’s flower beds into a food garden after attending a library management course where participants were asked to identify problem areas in their branches. The library, which serves the suburbs of Kensington, Malvern, Jeppe and Bezuidenhout Valley, had a garden overgrown with weeds, no money to pay for gardening services and was witnessing increasing numbers of people in the community falling ill and dying from Aids and tuberculosis.
”Our former colleague died in that hospice and, while I was visiting, I got some ideas of how the library and community could work together,” says Mvelase.
She approached members of the Qedusize community garden project at Jeppe Clinic, who told her they needed more land to grow vegetables for their patients. She then called in the Greenhouse Project from Joubert Park, which provided three gardeners, seeds and tools to plant vegetables. It wasn’t an immediate success.
”The guys were from Congo where they don’t have the same cold winter as us,” chuckles Mvelase ”so initially we planted some of the wrong things.”
Undaunted by this early setback, the team persevered and was joined by volunteers from Qedusize. ”Now we grow basil, lettuce, beans, mealies, chillies, butternut, spinach, beetroot, tomatoes and mint, but we keep some flowers along the fence so it looks good too.”
All produce from the garden goes to the hospice and the library has since held workshops on permaculture, which Mvelase believes is the best way to grow food in Jo’burg.
She seems surprised at herself and her newfound green thumbs: ”I thought working in a library was just looking at books. I never thought I’d know about gardens,” says the former history teacher. ”The role of libraries is changing. Now we have books on gardening inside and a garden outside.”
The challenge of making the library more relevant and accessible to the community is one the Rhodes Park staff has risen to admirably. The library is increasingly becoming a resource and referral centre, where residents come to seek information about accessing social grants, basic services and finding hospice care for family members. ”The community around here feels free to come in and talk to us about any problem they have.”
It also runs a homework help desk for primary-school children who need additional support that they can’t get at home. ”Many of them are being raised by a granny, but if she hasn’t been to school she can’t help them with assignments and projects, so they come to us,” says Mvelase. ”They keep me busy,” she grins, raising her eyes heavenward. ”I’m running the whole day!”
And because learning doesn’t end when adulthood begins, the library also offers support to grown-up students. Saturday mornings see groups of men and women with their heads together in a special study area, working on their University of South Africa assignments. ”We also run literacy and basic English classes,” says Mvelase.
The constituency she serves is wide. Some are South Africans with no formal education, who live in the hostel in Denver and need to learn to read and write so they can advance in their jobs. The library also assists immigrants from other African countries, many of whom are highly skilled. ”Many are qualified in their own countries — there are physiotherapists and pharmacists — but they need help filling in forms in English and compiling their CVs.”
For many people in our country, HIV/Aids has been something to ignore or deny, a reason to retreat further into our personal space in an attempt to distance ourselves. For others it has been a call to arms, a reason to transform ourselves, community institutions and the way we interact with other human beings. ”Inspiration” is becoming an overused word, but Edith Mvelase is one of the few people who deserve that appellation.