Alphabet Excitement

Well the library project was risen from the dead the second Akgul left to get married. I took a big leap, and went against what the locals told me. They want their stacks the way they are. The stacks that usually lie down, some with only a few pieces in each stack and some with over one hundred (and half of them belong to a different composer than labled). I finally was able to stand up straght and put in order! It took about an hour to free the top row and get some of the smallest stacks moved up. I'd suggested this idea many many times before but it never really stuck, except with Natasha who didn't get why anyone would NOT want books in order- how stupid!

I called in the director to take a look at my work thus far. There were still a few larger stacks I didn't include (Cherni, Chaikowsky, Mozart. . . ) but a good deal of movement was done. Well, she came in and decided that this was just fantastic. "It all looks just so pretty!" I explained to her where I had gotten each stack and why I thought the alphabetical system was better. She started looking around at what was left in stacks and suddenly got a great idea!

She says, "Well look, there are some other ones here that could also go in the alphabet. We could put ALL of the composers standing up in one big row and it would be so pretty! (Ta-da!) Look, this is Chaikovsky. That's 'Ch'. And wait, here is Ziling! That's 'Z'! Now Z in the alphabet is after, let's see. . . a,b,v,g,d,e,zh,z! It should go--over here after the d's!"

She literally went through every pile I'd left out and told me how it, too, could be part of the alphabetical system. After months of begging them to put things in order so we can find them. . . after weeks of working with Akgul knowing that if the book didn't fit into an already labled stack, she just put it on the bottom of the closest pile to where she was standing. . . finally they figured out how great the alphabet is!

Now that's Peace Corps. We're supposed to work together with the locals so that the final product is what they want too. Forget that! Just do whatever you want when they're not looking! They'll adopt the brilliance as their own!