[in French] Viviane offers some commentary on the summer reading camps

Le lendemain matin je me suis rendu à Sara avec Leslie. A 8 heures nous étions à Sara. A notre arrivée, l’animation avait déjà commencée. L’animateur principal de Sara qui est Ismaila, Dounko, Lucie et l’assistant du camp étaient avec les enfants sous le hangar de la bibliothèque, chantaient, tapaient les mains et dansaient à tour de rôle. L’ambiance était vraiment bon- enfant ! Apres cette animation, ce fut les jeux de ludo et de carte en groupe. Pendant que les enfants jouaient, je m’entretenais avec Dounko et Ismaila. Ceux-ci m’ont fait savoir que la première semaine du camp était décevant du fait du niveau très bas des élèves ; pendant les séances de lecture, lorsque un enfant lisait par exemple un paragraphe, à chaque mot, l’enfant marquait un point ; la lecture était donc totalement entrecoupée. Mais après une semaine, les animateurs leur ont appris à lire et c’est ce que nous avons constate au cour de l’activité qui a suivit les jeux, c'est-à-dire la lecture. Ismaila et Dounko interrogeaient les enfants à lire à tour de rôle. Lorsque un enfant finissait de lire et que les animateurs constataient qu’il à fait du progrès dans la lecture comparativement aux jours précédents, tout le monde l’applaudissait. Apres la lecture ce fut le coloriage des masques confectionnés la veille, puis les dessins libre. Les enfants sont de bons dessinateurs (confer images en photos et vidéo). Apres la pause, ce fut les discussions en deux groupes ; le premier groupe dirige par Dounko discutait de la vie chez le tuteur, et celui du groupe dirigé par Ismaila discutait sur l’importance de la lecture. Les enfants répondaient aux questions des animateurs et écoutaient attentivement les conseils de ceux-ci après les discussions. Apres toutes ces activités, les enfants se sont régalés en mangeant un bon plat de riz à la sauce d’arachide et au poisson fume. Apres le déjeuner sous le hangar, ils ont rejoints la bibliothèque ou les animateurs leur ont donnes des livres a lire a la maison ; ceci pour favoriser leur apprentissage a la lecture.

Thumbprints... because there are no sushi restaurants yet

On the sushi, see Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution, read towards the bottom of the entry.

Niankorodougou library plows on

Reading is like a field... you cultivate it and the reading grows. Gosh that simile didn't work at all. Any suggestions?

Here's indomitable Meghan Coughlin's latest blog entry...

In the month of July, we enrolled 30 new library members (18 students and 22 adults), had 139 books borrowed, and 753 library visits, more than 20 a day. That’s also more than two times the number of visits we had in June, and as I have said before all of these numbers will only go up with the end of vacation and the rainy season.

What is the What

If you are looking for a novel set in Africa that is actually closer to a true story, then I definitely recommend Eggers book published last year. I am going to lead several discussions about the current political situation in Sudan for some San Mateo County libraries (under the San Mateo County Reads program) and am looking forward to sharing impressions about the book. My first impression, which I had before I even read What is the What, was that Cormac McCarthy's The Road was actually a sly way to make people think about the experiences of the Sudanese and Rwandans... however horrific the slog was in The Road (grim I thought as I unbearably kept reading it) the real-life slog of people out of the atrocious violence in Sudan and Rwanda was every bit its equal. And unlike The Road's glimmer of a happy ending, for most people in Kakuma, Congo, and elsewhere the was no happy ending and they continue to live grim lives. So if that doesn't get you interested in reading the book what will?

Chris Abani in Voices in Wartime

A nice short video featuring a couple poems set during the Biafra civil war. Abani has a new novel called Song for Night.

FAVL director Leslie Gray visits some of the summer reading camps

Arriving in Sara to see the reading camps, the first thing I noticed was children jumping and singing, not reading. It dawned on me that this experience for the kids was much more than academic, it was social and fun, just like summer camp in the United States. The children were singing, doing art projects, theater, calisthenics, and spending a lot of time reading and discussing books. They got two nutritious meals a day, and a t-shirt, which is a big thing in Burkina Faso. The levels of ability to read were quite different, but I was told that many of the children had progressed quite significantly from the first day of camp. At the end of each day, children would take home a book that they would then read at night.

What an incredible opportunity this has been for village children. Certainly this is the only camp that they will ever attend. In Bereba after the camp ended, many of the children were very sad. The camps have been so popular that parents have approached the librarians and said that they want more of them and would pay for them. Several of the camp teachers noticed changes in the kids. First, their reading improved. Second, they became much more vocal in giving opinions and third, they became very attached to the libraries. In fact, the children frequent the library much more than they did before. Overall, these have been an enormous success. We have to try to do this again next year!

Not out of Africa, but an interesting read nevertheless

On the plane back from Burkina read Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, by John O'Hara. Interesting technique employed, of not ever quite knowing what the novel is about, and then even at the end not really sure. There are multiple plots, and different characters take center stage at different points. You think the novel is about one person, and then that person never appears again. The sociological commentary on the well-to-do just as the Depression hits is very interesting.

Long-term effects of literary education on book-reading frequency

Long-term effects of literary education on book-reading frequency: An analysis of Dutch student cohorts 1975–1998
Marc Verboord
Department for the Study of the Arts and Culture, Erasmus University, The Netherlands

Poetics
Volume 33, Issues 5-6, October-December 2005, Pages 320-342

Abstract
We investigated the influence of literary education models on the book-reading frequency of students later in life, and how this influence can be explained. In total, 85 mother-tongue teachers in secondary education in the Netherlands were retrospectively questioned about their literary instruction in a random year between 1975 and 1998. Almost 700 former students of these teachers, spread over examination years and levels, were tracked down and interviewed about their current reading frequency. Multilevel analyses showed that the more student-centered the model of literary education is, the higher the later book-reading frequency. As the model gets more teacher-centered, the less students tend to read as adults. These effects do not vary over various student cohorts. Neither do changes in literary education over time explain differences in book-reading frequency between cohorts. Implications of these results are discussed.

More from FAVL - East Africa

Kate writes, apparently from the bus terminal in Dodoma on her way to visit Chalula library in Tanzania:

Dear Friends,

It’s been a busy summer (dry season in Uganda), and I have only been able to get to Kitengesa three times. But they were three wonderful weekends. On the first, the library was holding a Children’s Day. Cheldren from Lwannunda Primary School—the school next door to our own house—were there, playing games and reading books, and at the end Lucy, the librarian in charge, asked me to read them a story. It’s a lovely story, How Hare Stole Ghost’s Drum by Julius Ocwinyo. Julius is a friend of mine, and he told me that he learned the story while in primary school in Northern Uganda, in his own language, Lango. And here was I reading this story, in English, to Luganda-speakig children! It’s a great instance of the kind of interlingual activity the library makes possible.

My most recent visit, on 19-20 July, was extra special because we were playing host that weekend to a mobile computer center! This center is a project of the Maendeleo foundation (www.maendeleo.org or www.progressafrica.org), which is directed by my friend Eric Morrow. It consists of a van, equipped with solar panels on the roof, a tent, and five cmputers. Eric set up the show outside the library and on the first day the Lwannunda Primary School children came to learn how to use the computers; the second day was devoted to adult members of the library. On the Saturday, Dan set a DVD going on one of our laptops inside the library to keep the children entertained while they were waiting; and later I got to read them another story. Altogether, Eric and his team served close to 100 people that weekend—and since it was the first time he had taken his mobile computer center out, it was quite a triumph.

The middle visit was devoted to a meeting of the Kitengesa Community Library Board (of which I am the secretary). Our main task at present is putting up our own computer center. A student volunteer organization based on the University of British Columbia raised CAN$10,000 towards this project, and we raised another $10,000 ourselves last year. Now the walls are up and work is to begin on the roof next week. The whole building is to consist of a book room, the same size as our present library, a slightly smaller computer room (to house 9-10 computers), and a community hall. The idea is to rent the latter out so as to generate an income for the library.

We need more money, though. We had to start the project early this year so as to secure the Canadian grant, and I thought what I’d raised would be enough to finish the building. But prices, especially of cement, have gone up tremendously, and what we have will only complete the roof. I’m trying to get another grant, and the Maendeleo Foundation will help with the computers, but any additional contribution will be warmly welcome, if only to cover our running costs (the latter are about $3000 a year, while as much as $10,000 more may be needed for the building project).

Meanwhile, I’ve been spending a lot of time working for the Uganda Community Libraries Association. We formed this association last year because we realized that thee are many other libraries in Uganda founded, like Kitengesa, on local initiatives and serving mainly rural populations. We have held two workshops for the association, and it is wonderful to see how excited the people working in these libraries are about meeting others in the same business—and, as we hoped it would, Kitengesa is proving an example and inspiration for all. So thanks to all of you, our donors, for making this all possible!

Kitengesa library scholars

Kate Parry is just returning from Uganda, and she sends along a snapshot of the Kitengesa library scholars. These are secondary school students who receive a small stipend that is used to pay their school fees, and in return they spend time in the library helping out where needed. A nice way to reward the "avid readers" who will someday turn into "literary giants"!

A new writer from Nigeria

FAVL Treasurer Deb Garvey pointed me to a short story in the June 23 New Yorker, which we missed while we were abroad, by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie. The story is called "The Headstrong Historian" and employs an interesting technique of going slow through the rhythms of pre-colonial village life and then suddenly accelerating through seventy-five years of colonial and independence life. I get the feeling from the story that there is a deeper structure, and that more than likely she is riffing off Chinua Achebe, but I'm an economist not a literary scholar, so I'll leave it to someone else to map the arcana and enlighten her readers.

Librarything on Africa

I've just stumbled across the book-lovers sharing site called LibraryThing, and one of their groups is Africa related. As good a place as any to meet people interested in African literature and Africa-related books.

A point of comparison....

When I think about what my ideal conversation would be like with a library reader in one of the African Village libraries that FAVL supports, below is what I have in mind. If you are in Africa and are friends with a super-reader like florality, or are one yourself, make a little video and send me the link!

The Book of Not

A sequel to Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangaremga's first novel, The Book of Not definitely is no match for the first book, which was wonderfully crafted in prose and story. This novel unfortunately reflects the main character Tambudzai's "teenage" mentality... jumbled, unsure, mixed up, unable to make much sense, lots of hidden stuff, and very self-absorbed! Not really a good read, though the terrific opening scene- the beating of Babamukuru, gives the reader enough answer to "I wonder what happened..." to leave me satisfied for years.

The best books!

Kathy Knowles and Osu Children's Library Fund have been supporting our summer reading camps and other summer reading programs. One third of the 4th grade students in the five villages where FAVL runs libraries are receiving "personal" books that are theirs to keep, and Kathy remembered that her Ghanaian publisher had some overstock in French, so she sent them up to us from Accra. Here is our Ouagadougou representative, Viviane Nabie, with the two books that we distributed, Fati and the Honey Tree and Sosu's Call. These are the kinds of books totally adapted and indeed written for the intended audience, and that will be read 100 times. Bailey School Kids In Trouble Again, however... hmmmm.... there's room for both of course!

How to track and classify books in small community library

Here's my input- what I think is the simplest way to catalog and organize books:
1) Start an "accession book" (a good hardbound notebook)
2) Each page is divided into 5 columns
a- Unique number for each book (doesn't matter if is a second, 3rd, 4th copy- every book has to have a unique number... absolutely necessary for doing inventory.
b- Book title
c- Book author
d-Dewey number if whoever trained the librarian insisted on this and you don't want to contradict the previous training (otherwise simple book category)
e- remarks (i.e. destroyed, noted lost in inventory of March 2009, patron lost 5/08, sent to Dodoma for binding)... remarks are best written in pencil so that can be erased (if book found!)

Best categorization system is to use color tape- cut small piece tape (and over with clear tape) on edge of binding (so facing outwards from shelf can see color. Dewey number can be written on tape for further classification).

The most important thing is for every book to have a number- and the numbers should start in order, from 0001 through 3987.... that way, when doing an inventory, the following procedure can be followed:
-obtain from FAVL copies of "list of numbers"- a set of pages that consist of all the numbers, in order, from 0001 to 3987 (if that is how many books are in the library)
-one person starnds at the shelves, at one end of the library, and reads aloud the book number, working through the shelves
-a second persons sits at a desk, and checks off (cross out) the numbers as they are called
-all numbers that remain unchecked must then fall into one of three categories
1-book checked out (and these may be subdivided into those late)
2-book in "storage" (where damaged books go)
3-book lost/stolen

For a 3000 book library, the inventory might take a full day, and librarian should get a compensation for self plus assistant.

Kate Parry adds....
In East Africa (or at least in Uganda, and I think it will work the same in Tanzania) the least expensive way to buy books is directly from the publishers. Therefore it's very useful to have a record of the publisher of each book. At Kitengesa we keep our records on a database, so we can easily generate a list of our books arranged by publisher, which makes it easy to check what titles we already have when buying new ones. The information is really only important for local purchases, but that's where most books in the library should come from in any case, especially in the early stages.

About categories: we began with a list of about 6 categories, which has now expanded to about 30 (most of the expansion, though, has been in response to foreign donations, which really mess things up!). We put a label on each book with the accession number and the category name and arrange the books on the shelves by category, and within that by number; we label the shelves by category too. This arrangement makes the inventory a little more difficult, but it means that library users can more easily find the kind of book they want. I think is the most important factor, unless you want the librarians always to find the books for them. I was discussing the issue of classification with one of the librarians at our UgCLA workshop yesterday, and we agreed that the Dewey decimal system doesn't really suit our purposes because it is so Euro/Neo-Eurocentric. For example, Kiswahili is lumped in with "other languages", in contrast to, say, German, which has a number of its own. What we need to do is to have a workshop developing an Afrocentric system and send the results to the publishers of Dewey. That, however, will have to be several years down the road!

The car mechanic calls back

I haven't written much about our road accident on the main Route Nationale Numero 1, the two lane paved road that is the primary "axis" of the country connecting Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso. Trying to repress it. Sukie still asks when we go out in the car whether I have "two hands on the wheel"? (Hey, I wasn't even driving- remember driver rule number 1?).

After the accident a nice young mechanic in blue overalls eventually arrived to where our car was broken down. he had come from Sabou, after a passerby had kindly called him when stopping to "inspect" our accident. Pierre, was the name. So Pierre worked on the car for several hours. Image never to be forgotten: 2000 lb. Mercedes by side of road, held up by small jack and a couple stones, Pierre flat on back underneath car, as trucks lumber by, swinging a heavy mallet (did say he was flat on his back?) to punch our wheel struts back into usable form.
As the day turned into night, and we have finished with the solder guy and then the tire guy, the time came to negotiate Pierre's compensation for the afternoon and evening. He started at 10.000 CFA (about $25) so that meant 3.000 would be fine, but as I later explained to a Burkinabe colleague:
"When the man called Pierre after stopping at our accident, he didn't tell him that there was an accident and some people needed a mechanic. He said that a white person (nassara) had an accident and a nassara needed a mechanic. The reason Pierre dropped his work in Sabou and took the first bus to our accident site was because I was a nassara."
So common courtesy dictated that I pay him "above scale", and I was happy to give him 6.000 (over my driver's objections).
Early the next morning Pierre called my cell phone. At first I thought it was an exaggerated hey we're friends now can I come to the U.S. kind of call. But we got cut off, and he called back. This time he went right to the point.
"If my brother calls, you tell him you gave me 4.000, not 6.000."
I thought that was cute.
I apologize that it has nothing to do with African libraries. Or does it!?!?

Experimenting with the XO in Ghana

Steve Cisler, who passed away last April, had obtained an XO computer- the ones designed specially for children as par tof the One Laptop per Child program- through his work a Santa Clara University's Center for Science, Technology and Society. They passed it on to FAVL, and I left it with Lucas and Darius, our two staff persons in Sumbrungu Community Library. Lucas is already giving basic computer lessons using a desktop, so this will be an added attraction. They will keep us posted... and someday the rabbit ear antennas will find a companion.

Crossing the Burkina Faso-Ghana border

It doesn't have anything to do with libraries, but a lot to do with why working in Africa is often viewed as unrewarding by "high-power" people: it is frustrating. So the field is left to naive first-time development workers, or feisty people who delight in petty challenges, or good-natured people who think that this is the best use of their time ;-)

We arrive at the border, myself and Adama, the driver. Since this is Adama's first time to cross the border, he hangs back. A good driver would immediately start backslapping the policemen in hopes of finding a connection, a network, somewhere just in case what is about to happen, happens. Note Rule 1: It is always the drivers fault... that's what they are paid for, to take all blame!

So we go see the passport and car police persons. They have a little house by the side of the road. Inside the dusty room, a bench and a couple chairs. A dirty office (dusty, old calendar askew, ripped tape on the wall, etc.) where the supervisor presumably sits, but usually empty. I present my papers to the middle-aged gentleman with reading glasses. He glances at me over his reading glasses while he fills out the large rulebook. He looks at my "Carte Grise", the vehicle registration card (we are driving a gray1986 Mercedes 190D, newly soldered together after the accident, though still with a large rusted out hole in the undercarriage below the passenger seat). So, he glances up over his glasses,
"Who is 'Leslie Gray'"
"That is my wife."
Pause.
"And where is your procuration?"
"Oh. I didn't know I needed one. What is it?"
Impatient.
"A letter that states you have permission to drive the car. It has to be stamped at a police office. It just takes 30 minutes to do. You can do it anywhere."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have that. I've driven over with this car many times before and have not been asked for it."
"Is now before? Before we didn't have computers, now we do. Before we didn't have Internet, now we do. Things change. Just because you didn't have it before, what does that mean? And do you think they will let you in Ghana without a procuration?"
"Yes, I see what you mean. but my wife is in Ouagadougou. How can I get a procuration? Do I have to return to Ouagadougou?" The return trip is a three hour drive.
"Well." Pause. "You can have her fax a procuration."
"Is there a fax here in Dakola?" Dakola is the small frontier town.
"Just outside, and another one down the way."
So I exit and head over to the fax place. I call Leslie, tell to to get a letter ready. The fax place doesn't have a working machine- who does, nowadays? He sends me to a transport society office. The guy, effusive, sits me down.
"OF COURSE YOU CAN USE THE MACHINE! A procuration? Hmmm. Well, I guess you need it!"
The fax arrives. A short letter signed by Leslie. The fax machine, by the way, is from 1985... those ones that use the roll of heat-sensitive paper? But it worked, though barely legible.
Back to the border agent. The man before me has just presented his car's insurance card.
"But where is your CEDEAO insurance? This is for Burkina. You are going to Ghana. Where is your Community of West African States insurance? Or don't you have it?"
"Yes sir, sir, this is the Burkina insurance," looking at the floor.
"Noooooo. It is not possible! Go away. How can you cross the border without the CEDEAO insurance? Go away."
He turns to me.
"Yes what do you have there?"
Reading glasses come down further on the nose. Tsss.
"What is this? This is nothing. Nothing."
He turns the letter upside down and around.
"This is nothing. Where is her identity card?"
"Er, I thought this is what you said, a letter from her saying she gave permission."
(Here a man enters, and there is a brief exchange, and the man sits down behind me on the bench.)
"A letter, of course. But her address, and her identity card, and more specifics, and the whole form of the procuration!"
"Perhaps then you could tell me exactly then what I need so that I can ask her to send it?"
He looks me up and down.
"Sit down then while I help this man."
The man was the one who had come in before. When the man had come in before, he entered the room and asked, in a general way, if this was the place to register a car. The policeman looked at him over his reading glasses, and then returned to me and didn't answer. The man asked again, looking more directly at the policeman, who now grunted assent. The man looked at him in undisguised annoyance, the kind that says I know your type, and then asked in a rather cold way whether he could at least not sit down, leaving out the part about how ordinary courtesy would have led the policeman to ask him to sit and wait while he finished with me. The policeman now locked horns, and looked at him, and just said "Oui" the way Burkinabe say it sometimes meaning if you are an idiot then yes I will tell you to your face yes you can sit down what are these chairs and benches for. So the man reached for a chair and started to sit down.
"Is that the chair for the vehicle registration desk? No. That is for passports."
"So thank for telling em. So where are the chairs for your desk?"
"Can't you see the bench there."
Now this man, whom I judged a man not to be trifled with, carried out his business in 2 minutes (that is all it takes when there is no problem). Then he was back to me.
"This letter needs to say that your wife gives permission for you to take the car across the border."
"But that is what it says."
"Yes, but look... 'to go to Ghana'... what does that mean? That is too vague. Vague!"
Here of course the dreaded Kevane "I see dumb people" gene took over at last. I looked him cold in the eye and knowing I shouldn't be saying what I was saying I said it anyway:
"Is it your business where I am going in Ghana? It says Ghana. That is all it needs to say."
He won.
"Ah! If that is your game, and the way you behave... I was doing you a favor. Ordinarily it has to be completed in a police station. But now I see. Just go. Leave."
"What is your name please"
"I don't have to tell you my name. Go."
"Who is your boss? Who is in charge here?"
The boss was outside. An amiable senior officer who seemed to know the character of his employees and every peasant crossing the border. In a low voice, after some hemming over Leslie's letter, asked me to just go and get a fax of the ID card of Leslie, and he would stamp it and I could go. From beginning to end, two and a half hours. On the way back, Adama did befriend one of the policewomen, who expressed shock that we were held that long over a simple procuration that isn't even necessary. As I knew full well, on the Ghana side I was greeted with a smile, "Good day sir!" and went on my way to visit the community libraries.


Don't misinterpret the story. Burkinabe are 95% wonderful and friendly, like people eveywhere, and they instantly recognized the character of the border policeman: aigre (sour). And indeed he was. But someone like that has a lot more capacity to harm others in a society that is very poor (like Burkina) because so often there is no recourse (What if there had been no fax machine? End of trip?). And I am not objecting to the reasonable policy that in some cases an agent might demand a procuration, and if the driver did not have one, the agent might ask some more questions. but the agent has my passport, so a thief who was carrying a fake passport could surely have a fake procuration...

An "animator" asks for a loan

FAVL receives email all the time from people who are in the process or who have already started small community libraries in villages in Africa. Everyone has lots of questions, and I won;t say we are the experts, though we have learned a lot. The most common advice we give is that the hard part of managing libraries is managing people after the library is inaugurated. It is easy to build, easy (and fun!) to buy books or open and classify cartons of books, easy to order shelves and chairs. But making sure that librarians do a good show (show up on time, encourage readers, manage accounts, track inventory) is really hard in places where rural populations have little experience with "office work" and with separating the "office" from their personal lives.

One of the reasons it is hard is that there is a huge discrepancy between the "status" of the typical expatriate library social entrepreneur and the library workers. A case in point. Last week we started to reading camps in the villages. I had recruited a young man who had experience doing similar literacy programs in Ouagadougou. He is a extroverted, fast-talking, talented young man who has his hands in many pots. As we prepared for the camp, he would occasionally mention this or that other activity he was involved in, and there was a last minute "rush" to the bank to receive or cash a check. I tried not to pay too much attention. So then it turns out he received the check but it was destroyed in the huge rainstorm of last Friday. He showed it to me- a semi-washed out check for a sizable amount, and asked if when we returned from the village we could have it delivered to the issuer to get a new one. We did that. Then I got an SMS... can he borrow $600 to cover his other project costs? I replied categorically not. Then he called, and started on the explanations. I was successfully peremptory: "No."

The point, though, is that several years of experience of making bad decisions (trying to help by giving loans here and there) prepared me for this exercise in people management. It is hard to say no, but for the sake of the institution it is necessary. Just like firing people. Very hard to do, but if you don't, the common purpose of the institution is compromised. Easy and glib enough to write... very very hard to carry out in practice.

Can a book change your life?

Elliot was sick all day yesterday, lots of vomiting. A stomach bug that Leslie also had. Fine today, but low energy. So browsing the Ouagadougou "FAVL guesthouse" shelves, he came across Where there is no doctor and he has been reading it non-stop for about 8 hours. The illustrations are, of course, superbly interesting to a ten year old, and he finally gets to learn about how the body actually works. This ain't fourth grade anymore! As any expat knows, normally this is read at age 20... with the same shock of discovery. Calling all FAVL volunteers- the books can be ordered online from the publisher... please do take initiative and order copies for our libraries and others- English for Ghana and French for Burkina Faso. Send them to FAVL headquarters or to the libraries direct- the addresses are on the website, www.favl.org.

Thanks to local donors

The expatriate community in Ouagadougou (including especially Beth Jacob, the original Burkinamom)donated several boxes of books for our Ghana libraries. I will take them over tomorrow when I visit Ghana. Here's Tony McGowan, a neighbor in Ouagadougou, with some of the books... Tony and Kirsten are heading off to Bamako... Bon Voyage!

Why the kids enjoy Burkina Faso

OK so Elliot is really sick, and we had an awful traumatic (for life) road accident two days ago (no one hurt thank god)... but this clip gives you an idea... bring the family to volunteer for a few weeks next summer.

What kind of world do we live in?

Where when I do a Google search for the following:
"reading camp" africa
FAVL's own very small effort, initiated just this past Monday, is the very first result, and, quite possibly, the only relevant result out of the 1,130 results. OK, let me try it in French:
"camp de lecture" afrique
Now really hilarious... only 7 results. One suggests as reading Bilbo le hobbit. Hmmm... Another site I got excited about- apparently a video from a reading camp in Burkina Faso- incredible! Nope... turns out to be the video we posted a few days about about making masks.

A book by a Darfuri woman... would be great to have in Ghana libraries

The recent International Criminal Court indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir continues a slow march to the "end of impunity" that so many African residents have been fighting for for decades. A little irony about the whole Darfur issue is that Burkina Faso's Foreign minister, Djibril Bassolet, is now the African Union mediator. Burkina indeed has a number of lessons for Sudan, and I'll write about them next week with my colleague Alain Sissao, I hope (I do have a long drive to visit the Ghana libraries ahead of me).

From The Guardian

• Mark Tran
• guardian.co.uk
• Tuesday July 22, 2008

Victims of Darfur atrocities find a voice

Halima Bashir, a Sudanese doctor who escaped to London from Darfur, tells of the ongoing tragedy in her country. A member of the Zaghawa tribe, Bashir puts a human face on a situation where the number of casualties is so large as to be incomprehensible. The conflict between the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum and black Africans in Darfur, in western Sudan, has left about 300,000 dead and created as many as 2.5 million refugees, according to the UN. Bashir, 29, said Tears of the Desert, written with the journalist Damien Lewis, who won an award for his reporting from Darfur last year, was her chance to speak out about the atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government against black Africans in Darfur. "My story is not the only one," she said in London, where she lives with her husband and young son after a long battle to win asylum. "There are hundreds of thousands of other stories more painful than mine. With this book it is as if I'm telling this story for Darfuri women. I will keep on talking – it is the only thing I can give my people."

In Bashir, the victims of what the international criminal court has described as a policy of genocide by Sudan's leaders have found a soft-spoken but iron-willed representative. Bashir arrived for our interview at a hotel in central London with her round, youthful face uncovered. But she was firm about not revealing her face to the world, particularly to the Sudanese authorities. While she remains safe in Britain, she fears for the safety of her mother, sister and two brothers, who joined the rebels in Darfur. She still does not know what happened to her family after they fled their village when government troops and the notorious Janjaweed militia attacked. The men of the village stood and fought to buy time for the women and children to flee to the forest. Her father died in the attack. Bashir does not want the Khartoum government to use the knowledge of what she looks like to track down her family – if they are still alive.

Because of fears for her family, Bashir talked to us with her face covered by headgear, hastily purchased around the corner from John Lewis. Only her eyes were visible during the interview. Tears of the Desert is not just an account of the atrocities committed by the government-backed Janjaweed – or devils on horseback – against black Africans. The first half of the book describes a happy childhood in a close-knit Darfur village, although it does not gloss over Bashir's hideous circumcision at the age of eight. For the most part, however, growing up was a happy time for Bashir. Family scenes that feature her much-loved grandmother and her best friend, Kadiga, are vividly brought to life. Like little girls anywhere, Bashir played with dolls, although these were rag dolls made from old clothes stuffed with straw. Her father had big plans for Bashir and she was the first girl from her village to go away to school. Eventually she became a doctor, but she ran into trouble with the authorities for telling a reporter that the government should help all Darfuri people regardless of their tribe.

As punishment she was transferred to Mazkhabad, a village in the remote north of Darfur, and put in charge of a clinic. This is where she saw and experienced at first hand the atrocities of the Darfur conflict. Not even in her darkest nightmare had she imagined she would witness such horror, she wrote, as she treated girls as young as eight who had been repeatedly raped. Bashir had to care for more than 40 girls who were sexually assaulted at their school while government soldiers cordoned off the premises. Parents were kept standing outside the school as their daughters' screaming pierced the air. A rape victim who was a teacher told Bashir: "They were shouting and screaming at us. You know what they were saying? 'We have come here to kill you! To finish you all! You are black slaves! You are worse than dogs. The worst was that they were laughing and yelping with joy as they did those terrible things." The Janjaweed eventually came for Bashir herself. Three men in khaki uniforms took her from the clinic to a military camp, where she was beaten and repeatedly raped. The ordeal went on into a second day with Bashir retreating in her head "to a faraway place where my God had taken me, a place where they couldn't reach me". One of her captors told her: "We're going to let you live because we know you'd prefer to die. Isn't that clever of us? Aren't we clever, doctor? We may not have your education, but we're damn smart, wouldn't you agree?"

Hard as it was for her to go over such painful memories, Bashir said the process of writing her memoir help her come to terms with her terrible ordeal. More importantly, she wanted to tell the whole world about what was going on, especially the atrocities committed against young girls. "These men were not normal," she said. "No normal people would do such a thing to children. I wanted to tell the whole world what was happening." She could only explain the actions of the aggressors as an extremely virulent form of racism. "It is because of the colour of our skin, it is because we are black," she said. "Even at school they give us nicknames and make jokes about us. It is something that has gone on a long time." Bashir cited her experience at medical school where she had a reputation as a swot. The corpses students worked on were exclusively black. One of her friends said: "Arabs do not give a damn about us when we're alive, and even less when we're dead".

Some foreign policy commentators have criticised the international criminal court's decision to charge Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, with genocide and crimes against humanity. They say it will make a peace deal between the Sudanese government and the rebels harder to achieve and warn it could jeopardise the already troubled deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. Bashir, however, has no reservations about the court's decision. She told an audience at the Royal Festival Hall: "I can't explain how happy I am for the ICC case," she said. "It is now more than five years this has been going on and very little has been done. It's as if we've been talking to deaf people. For me this is a step for justice."

Another for the to-do list

I try to never link to the NYT (why run with the popular crowd?) but this was too good...

Other researchers have determined that mirrors can subtly affect human behavior, often in surprisingly positive ways. Subjects tested in a room with a mirror have been found to work harder, to be more helpful and to be less inclined to cheat, compared with control groups performing the same exercises in nonmirrored settings. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, C. Neil Macrae, Galen V. Bodenhausen and Alan B. Milne found that people in a room with a mirror were comparatively less likely to judge others based on social stereotypes about, for example, sex, race or religion.

“When people are made to be self-aware, they are likelier to stop and think about what they are doing,” Dr. Bodenhausen said. “A byproduct of that awareness may be a shift away from acting on autopilot toward more desirable ways of behaving.” Physical self-reflection, in other words, encourages philosophical self-reflection, a crash course in the Socratic notion that you cannot know or appreciate others until you know yourself.

So every library needs a mirror! Now, what is the optimal size?

First day of summer reading camp

We were down visiting all the five libraries (very briefly) over the weekend, and stopped by in Bereba for the first day of the reading camp that FAVL is hosting and that we are piloting as a kind of evaluation project. In general I hate taking pictures of things like this, but I am the only one with the camera often (though not always... ). The reading camp team is handling all the activities... part of my effort to be more "arms-length" in all local FAVL activities... that is them in the picture. The gender imbalance is not deliberate- the young woman is the "best reader" of Bereba and is doing a kind of apprenticeship as a camp helper. The guys are Dounko (second from left) and Donkoui (far right) whoa re FAVL's local management team. The other guys are a team from Ouagadougou who have been doing some small literacy and theater projects with urban kids (from left Flavien, Rodrigue and Ismail). It was their first time, apparently, in a small village, and it was kind of funny to see them acting very tentative and out of their element. but they will settle down soon. We're hoping that they'll pass on some "city" skills to our rural-based team. it may well be the other way around, though. Donkoui and Dounko did an excellent job working with me all last week to organize the camp program, prepare all the materials, etc. After Bereba the team will split into two and run two-week reading camps in the other four villages. Needless to say, we're very exciting about this experiment, because it might be a very replicable model for all of Burkina. In the regular school year and curriculum there is so little time for "fun" activities and quiet reading.

Preparing for a reading camp is hard work

Sanou Dounko doing his homework. Wonderful books from Librarie Mercure in Ouagadougou.

Exhilaration and depression... "We'll take them all"

First reading camp starts on Monday, as do the discussion groups. Today we had the odd experience of going into one of Ouagadougou's four bookstores, Mercure (the others are Savanne, Diacfa, and Libraries de La Jeunesse). We looked around at the selection of children;s books- 4th grade level. Found some wonderful new books from Cote d'Ivoire, a series by Fatou Keita. Really nice "chapter books"- nice illustrations and prefectly adapted text.
"Oh, these are wonderful. Do you have more in stock?"
"We may have some more in stock."
"We'll take 25 copies of each." (There were seven books in the series.)
"Sorry, I just checked and we only had fifteen."
"We'll take them all. Can you get more?"
"Ca sera un peu dificil..."

So we bought the whole stock. Exhilating, and a bit depressing. But boy did it get the reading camp animators excited. Some very nice large format hardcover picture books too, for the reading aloud and shared reading sessions.

Making masks in Ouagadougou

Some of our summer reading camp "animators" making simple paper masks. Are Sukie and Elliot going to be helping out? Unfortunately not... they have to get back to San Jose.