Kitengesa Community Library receives books (and paper cranes) from Japan

Kate Parry writes from Uganda:

Two or three years ago I was visiting a friend in her office at Makerere University when a young Japanese woman walked in. Her name was Robin Sakamoto, and she was studying in Uganda before going back to teach English in Japan. The conversation turned, as it often does, to my own library work, and I told her of what we were doing in Kitengesa. Then she wrote to me about a year ago saying that she wanted to arrange a book donation project with her students. I gave her the information she needed and forgot about it – but recently I got a notice telling me to pick up a parcel at the post office. I picked it up on April 28: it is a box of the most beautiful books, all in English, though one is a translation of a Japanese manga comic book. Each book is carefully covered in plastic and contains a note from the student donor saying why she (or he) chose it; and then there is a string of carefully folded paper cranes. I wrote to Robin at once, of course, to thank her, and yesterday, May 1, she wrote back to say that she’d like to do it again, with her present group of students , and inviting me to send a list of books that we’d like. I’m often cautious about book donations, but I cannot resist this one – the books are so beautiful, and it is such a marvelous example of international cooperation around a library.