Imagine walking into a room, a building, a space, only to see the future. Yes, the Es'kia Mphahlele Community Library is just that. Situated in the City of Tshwane, South Afrika, one cannot ignore the fact that we are competing on the global literary scale. People, We Have Arrived.
Sure, I'm a sucker for all things literature but the spaces I've been indulging my reads in haven't swept me off my feet, to use the cliché, except for my bed and sometimes a good green of grass with a good shade. That was until visiting this significant library. It wasn't planned, at least not from my side. My pARTner has been trying to say a lot about it to a lack of descriptive words, I could only understand, believe, by seeing. After trying so hard to take all that space in, to allow myself to be flooded by the future, it hit me that reading is more than just books. You see, space is important, comfort also, is of paramount importance. You don't want to read your book, study even, with a constant impatience to get to the last page because you're sitting on a wooden chair that is very rude to your bum - what a bummer! Okay, this Maktaba (Swahili for Library), still has an ancient hold to it because that's exactly how you read your books, and study. The WiFi sections, however, are what the future literally looks like. I'll conclude that it's this digital and information age that we're living in that has encouraged the idea behind this area. (While you're surfing the net, don't forget to download some reads. *wink*) It is made of comfort, comfort, comfort, and more comfort. Because you know - space. Now, let's fix the future - if the ENTIRE library was to have space and comfort, or maybe a leisure reading section as pARTner envisions it, how many readers buried between their reads at home on their beds, would flood to the maktaba, making known the reading lifestyle and having it spread like wild fire? Think about it. Being pART of community doing what you love, enjoy.
And, you see, the concept of Community was really taken into account at the Es'kia Mphahlele Community Library - they have a kiddies reading section that screams its lungs out about the future. The kids in the Tshwane neighbourhood grow with an idea of what the future looks like and actually become a pART of it. What better way to raise them - spare the rod - than to have them read? Okay, now that we know what the future looks like, or how it should look like, we can fix it by becoming a pART of it, or embracing it (I think the former works better though, no?). Here's to the future.
P. S. : Because of my previous experiences with public spaces like libraries, I failed to ask (for permission?) to take pictures of the sections that stood out, especially the kiddies section, I thus only managed to 'steal' a shot of the top view of the WiFi section from up the 2nd floor. My apologies.
#ForpARTnerAndthefuture
To the Future! 😍
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