Independent library movement in Cuba

Marijke van der Meer of Radio Netherlands also reports, May 16, on the independent library movement in Cuba and the support it has received from the Dutch-based Pax Christi. Marianne Moor, a spokesperson for Pax Christi, says:

What we do is send volunteers to see what is needed and then we ask Dutch tourists who go to Cuba to take the books with them in their backpack and personally deliver them to one of the independent libraries. One tourist we spoke with dropped off books in a library they found in a very small house in a poor neighborhood in Santa Clara, and she said the experience was both "very special" and also "a little bit freaky":

A man opened the door. He looked very nervous but he was happy to see us and to hear that we were bringing books. He then very proudly showed us his library, a small room with two bookshelves and a small table. He also showed us very proudly a box with cards in it, with the names of the people who come to borrow books, and he told us it was not safe to have this box in his house. So every night he brought it somewhere else so that when the police came it was not clear who was borrowing books.