A cautionary tale....

A library supporter involved with a stand-alone project in Kenya writes:

The library is stagnating a bit because the mother of the woman who runs it has fallen ill and she has returned to her home village for a while-- it's amazing that it really can be something as simple as that that can affect a whole project like this. I can't even get in touch with the woman...

Building the institutional counterpart to the physical building, so that there is a whole mesh/web/network of people involved in assuring/securing a local community library is way more difficult than starting up a library with four walls and 2,000 books... As FAVL gets more experience I realize this more and more every day- that our mission isn't really about "building libraries" but rather about setting up the "servicing company" that will endure for decades as a friend to these small libraries, ensuring that they survive the thousand and one obstacles to small-scale projects in rural villages. African villages have so much risk and change- completely different from the image most people in developed countries have of an unchanging village...