On Tuesday, May 1st the OT People's Library MOD (Mobile Occupy Device) took the streets with thousands of other Torontonians in the may day march for no borders, and decolonization.
Then, in Alexandra Park at the Cultural Event (amazing performers by the way), the people's library set up shop: we lay out most of our books on shelving, and invited passersby to come explore knowledge with us. About 8 books were lent out on an honour system loan, and many more amazing free skule conversations were had...the hype is building!
After, we marched with Occupy Toronto to the 24hr occupation site at Simcoe Park, a small, mostly concrete park across the street from the metro convention center. We set up the library on top of the marble-esque barriers that surrounded the park. I was a wonderful outreach and inreach tool all night and day. even the coppers were reading our books!
On May 2nd, we started our day early (although for many of us no sleep was had the night before as the cops were waking us up every 15 minutes or so). Sunni led a beautiful meditation class. We walked around the park a few times, down through the food court bellow us in the path, around the park again, and then sat for a contemplative 20 minutes in front of a large congregation of police.
Following this, Laura led us in yoga, and then Ian taught de-escalation, as Laine taught theatre and creative writing on the other side of the park. We then had a break for a wonderful Barrick Gold Protest, through which we also learned a lot!
At 1:30 we had our first free skule general meeting, where we went through what free skule means, and our organizational structure. Then, at 3pm, Jo Grey lead a thought-inspiring Human Rights Class, Anne from C.O.M.E.R. led a fabulous economics discussion, Alice a meaningful homeslessness and occupy class, and Jeff and Erin a truly revealing class on the mysteries of life.
The library was busy in these final classes. The police, because of rush-hour, told us the MOD could not be in the streets, on the sidewalk, or in the park. So, we began to pack up the books aaaassss slllooooooooooooowwlllyyyy as possible - we made it take over an hour and a half, and managed to keep the library going for the rest of the occupation which ended at 6.
GOOD JOB EVERYONE, and I CAN'T WAIT FOR MORE SKULE!
