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| Library of the State Scool Library Service, Uyo, Nigeria 1973 |
When I was young I never thought about
being old. I'm older now than my grandmother was when I was born but she
always seemed very old to me so I suppose I seem very old to the children
around me now.
I
think I made the most of my youth. George Bernard Shaw said that youth is
wasted on the young but I don't think so.
One of the most exciting things I did as a young woman was to go to Nigeria on Voluntary Service Overseas. I was a newly qualified librarian when I flew to Lagos in September 1973 to help set up school libraries in the area which had seen the Civil War just a few years earlier. Schools had been commandeered as army camps by both sides and such libraries as there had been, had been looted. I helped set up a model library and train library assistants who had never seen a library until they were employed to run one!
My VSO came to a very abrupt end in September 1974 when I was in a motorcycle crash and I had to be repatriated.
VSO always sounded like a great experience. Sorry about the crash!
ReplyDeleteAn exciting youth then, well done you. I was a student nurse in the 60s and loved it and am still in touch with some of the 'girls' I trained with!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds so exciting and a wonderful way to spend part of ones youth.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
What an exciting adventure, one of just many I am sure. Well, except for the motorcycle crash. I would love to hear more because I am sure it is a story of a life well lived. And you aren’t old — remember, I am older yet! And yes, to young people I seem old too, they have told me — I think our Girl Scouts thinks they are in the company of actual antiquity when I am around.
ReplyDeleteWhat an exciting adventure, setting up libraries in Africa. I am a retired librarian and I used to say "I am getting old" and I now say with a smile "I have achieved old."
ReplyDelete