It is hot in the libraries

German library science student Claudia Entrup did survey work in our Ghana libraries last spring. Here is a little of what she wrote:
In connection with the survey users were asked about their satisfaction with the library services in Sumbrungu and Sherigu. Results were predominantly positive and thus confirmed the libraries to be on the right track. There are some aspects though that were criticized and therefore demand attention. General conditions in the library such as opening hours, furniture, lighting and air were rated by the users and have clearly been found satisfactory (with over 80% in each of the conditions to be evaluated) – with the exception of the air in the libraries. 44.7% of Sumbrungu and 54.1% of Sherigu primary and junior secondary school students stated to be dissatisfied or even very dissatisfied with the air conditions. Even though both libraries have a solar panel that energizes the lights, the panels are not strong enough to provide electricity for fans. However, the Sumbrungu library features fans in each of its three study rooms which could be used, an appropriate electricity source provided. While during the day the library buildings protect users from the torrid sun, they are extremely hot in the night as the heat has been stored within the walls of the building. Concentration becomes very difficult and users frequently have to interrupt their work to get fresh air outside.
I know just what she means… we need electricity and some fans. Help support our move to the “electrified” Sumbrungu Women’s Center!

Sumbrungu Women's Center

Elliot and Sukie in Dohoun library

More reading

Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall…. Breezy ? I can’t really recommend it. Good fun, but so unsubstantial. And sometimes atrocious. Like a novel for the summer at the Hamptons, about the Hamptons… people must have read it to see if they were in it. Bartelby and Benito Cereno… by Herman Melville…. Both take you back to bygone eras. Pirates ? Slave ships ? Scriveners ?

Read-a-thon in Vermont

FAVL wants to thank Wanda Stetson, Anne Lessard and Glenna Coleman and the 7th grade class and parents at Woodstock Union Middle School for their very generous contributions to FAVL after their Read-a-thon at the school. That is the best: Reading to promote reading!

More second goat race

Newspapers are life in a rural village

FAVL would love to have every library with a good selection of newspapers. People are really interested in reading the daily papers. But they are hard to get. In Sumbrungu and Sherigu, Lucas and Bernard have to ride their bikes about 10 kilometers each way to go into Bolgatanga town to pick up the copy of the Daily Graphic- there is one kiosk in town that serves subscribers to the paper.

Second goat race

Another watercolor from Elisee…

He’s getting close to Maoist ‘the heroic people reading together shall overcome’ sentiment… but I like it !

Lucas and Darius in Sumbrungu and the Women's Center

Thought I would share some pictures from my recent two day trip across the border. The Women's Center that will house the library is coming along nicely. You will notice the electric boxes- the library will have electricity, an enormous plus. But there is no photo of the septic tank. Why not? We need a donor! Five hundred dollars will go a long way in rural Ghana. Please help! The whole building is already an amazing example of international cooperation between Roden Werkgroup in Netherlands, Osu Children's Library Fund in Canada, and Friend sof African Village Libraries. Lucas and Darius, Sumbrungu librarians (sporting their SCAAP t-shirts just sent by SCU volunteers Mia and Jenevieve). At least three volunteers will be staying in Sumbrungu this summer to help work on moving the library and starting some summer reading programs for children and adults.

The first goat race

Daisy Miller

I was not sure what to make of this short novella by Henry James, that Gina, Leslie's Fulbright colleague teaching at the University of Ouagadougou, assigns to her students. At surface level there is the relevant, for Burkina, theme of breaking with convention, and sudden death from malaria. The writing as normal with James flow beautifully. But I wondered whether there was something more, some deeper meaning or irony that I missed? SO why not consult Wikipedia? Nope, nothing there.

A few more photos from Dohoun

Now that we have the piercing machine, what next?

One of the most pressing problems in Burkina Faso is the low rate of girls schooling. By providing reading and mentoring, village libraries have a large role to play in keeping girls in schools. FAVL envisions a couple of programs. First, a Read with your Little Sister program encourages older girls to bring younger girls to the library to read to them. Second, after school homework clubs encourage older girls to tutor and mentor younger girls. Each of these programs will provide incentives for both older and younger age students to participate.

Care to help? Make a donation to FAVL... go to www.favl.org for more info.

Buy a book, help FAVL

Athse Publishing - "Publishing for a better today", at donates 50% of royalties to designated non-profits. FAVL will be the beneficiary of "The Hundred Year Old Boy".... Elliot liked it...and Sukie liked the dog waiting at the table www.athsepublishing.com

Librarians meet again

Our small meeting room in Hounde is getting its money's worth (rent is $15 per month). And that is our newest innovation... the cushioned bench, with pesticide -laden local cotton...

The machine we did buy....

Librarian superstar, and big reader, SANOU Dounko found (with some help from Mohamed Maiga of the Centre Culturel Francais de Bobo-Dioulasso, merci!) a "machine a percer" to make holes in paperback books so they could be rebound. It seems to work excellently.

Elliot in house in Ouagadougou

Books in Burkina Faso

Lefaso.net is the main source online for articles and news about Burkina, and they have a small section featuring the latest books published for the Burkinabe reading public.

Anthropology of an American Girl

Leslie’s childhood friend Hilary Hamann’s novel Anthropology of an American Girl accompanied us on the trip and I’ve been working through it. A little Proustian for my taste- capturing the protagonist’s thoughts as they happen… but still I find myself reading 10 page chunks practically every day… If you are my generation, born in the 1960s, then an interesting read that captures the times very nicely. Hamann has all sort of clever observations about "people I knew."

Apocalyptic reading

Quite depressing really. But The Road by Cormac McCarthy has stuck with me for months, since I read it on the airplane coming over here. Just sad all the way through. The unredeemably bleak picture of where we might be heading. Children of Men, by P.D. James, by contrast has the feel of light fiction. The situations and pontificating are so awkward that you don’t constrantly aware of reading, but as usual with James, the story moves along in such a compelling way that you skim your way the end anyway. Ask yourself, you the literature reader: there are not 100 people out of 14 million in Burkina Faso who are reading this quality of fiction. Should that be allowed to continue? Isn’t it our obligation as reading humans to get another 900 up there, and then to look forward to reading a Burkinabe author’s take on the world… I remember when I first was introduced to Cuban literature (Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy, Cabrera Infante) in high school and college… OHMIGOD it was so good, so sophisticated…. Tsitsi Dangaremba’s Nervous Conditions… a book to wait a long time for, and savor over a weekend. Coetzee- my mother and I discovered his work about the same time: writing that makes you re-read sentences three or four times, just for the sheer enjoyment of the phrasing. “Precise,” Amos Oz says about Teacher Zelda. Enough!

What were Elliot and Sukie doing in Dohoun?

Having a hard time sitting still, when there were so many pigs and rams and goats to see, and flies to capture in glasses and then crush with napkins stuffed in the glass, and village elders wanting photographs, and children following them, and being stared at !!! But all in all a nice village visit. We had lots of wind and thunder and lightning and light rain, and slept outside both nights, and dogs came to visit, as did some pigs and goats… And both learned to use pit latrines… very easy after a little practice.