April 2011 Archives

Nomathemba's Fire by Ray Leitch, Heineman, UK [1996] - Jaws Books, Illustrated by Marjorie Van Heerden.  A delightful story.

Ibrahim Coulibaly, putschiste en eaux troubles

Dounko stopped by Ouaga on his way up to Pobé with the machine FAVL uses to reinforce book bindings, which he wielded on the newest batch of books for Béléhédé, Pobé and Bougounam. When he was finished, the two of us made another trip to Diacfa for the Béléhédé library; it proved to be a much less stressful event than my previous solo expedition. In the amount of time I spent second-guessing myself on that trip, Dounko had already filled up a cart with books, providing witty plot summaries as he went along (apparently some of those trashy romance novels I was so skeptical of are pretty entertaining). He pointed out a series of children's books that incorporates HIV/AIDS education into its stories and mentioned how popular they are at the libraries. It was great to hear since we have been discussing how to incorporate more health and hygiene lessons into the summer reading camps this year.

Dounko stopped in Ouaga on his way back to Bereba after helping to repair books in the Pobe-Mengao and Bougounam libraries. I was able to talk with him and take his photos from Pobe. After my 2 years there, Pobe-Mengao will always be my second home, my family. So when Dounko says he had a great time and that the community is really embracing the library, it makes me proud.

What makes me even more proud and happy? That Dounko tells me he was surprised because he was expecting the book repairs to take several days, as it would just be him and Hamidou. But ends up more than a dozen people: library committee members, villagers and students, showed up to help out, sewing the books together with needle and thread.

Japanese designer Yusuke Suzuk created the Book Bed for his kids. Turn the "page" (a sheet) for the play area, turn the page again to sleep. 

pics from: http://www.furniturefashion.com/2011/04/18/the-book-bed-by-yusuke-suzuki-brings-two-of-your-greatest-passions-together.html

I remember the long and difficult process of trying to raise enough money so that the Pobé-Mengao library could be FAVL-managed. Raising $10,000 is NOT easy. But today it's obvious that having a FAVL-managed library was one of the best decisions for the library's long-term success.

FAVL staff is always there for the librarians. Despite living more than 450K apart, Hamidou (Pobé's librarian) and Dounko (FAVL's activities coordinator) have become very good friends and talk to each other every few days. Any time Hamidou has a question about anything related to the library, the answer is just a phone call away.
Just a few weeks ago Hamidou called me to say that due to overuse, some of the books were already falling apart: book covers detaching, pages falling out, etc. I honestly wasn't sure what to tell him. Luckily Hamidou also called Dounko and today, Dounko is currently in Pobé, lugging FAVL's huge book-repairing machine with him. The machine punctures small holes in the books, enabling the librarians to then sew sturdy string through them. This system not only repairs damaged books but helps them to last much much longer.

It's hard to deny how valuable FAVL is with ongoing library support. Because of this support, Hamidou is not only becoming a better librarian but the library has become one of the most popular spots in the village. I have zero concerns for the library when I leave Burkina Faso come September. I know that with FAVL, the Pobe-Library is in good hands.

And so that is why I chose it for the photo that Santa Clara University used for me as a Broncos Read honoree.  More about the program here.

When I was little, I remember having books that were different versions of the "Cinderella" story from countries across the globe including China, India and Mexico. Looking back now, it was pretty cool how the story varied between diverse cultures and traditions. While going through books that Charley recently bought for the Belehede library, I was caught by the African children's book "Mificao." I can't really say that author Marie Danielle Aka had "The Little Mermaid" story in her head at the time she wrote this but still, you can't help but see the resemblance.

Mificao is a young pink carp who lives in a river near the African village of Seyaba. Everyday she watches in envy as young children play in the water. One day her mother catches her crying and she confesses that she longs to be able to play with them. Her mother takes her to the "Genie des eau" who transforms her into a young (pink) girl. The girl befriends the young children and they take her back to Seyaba to discover life in their village. Mificalo loves her new friends but is horrified by their actions: leaving trash out to rot and stink up the village, hurting/killing birds by throwing rocks at them, cutting and burning down trees. So she teaches the villagers how to respect Mother Nature. Soon, however, she becomes incredibly homesick and misses her parents too much. In the end she returns to the river, transforming back into a carp to be with her family.

I try to go for a bike ride every day out past the reservoir on the Route to Kaya.  Having grown up on the East Coast, one of the hardest things for me about living in Burkina is the fact that it's a landlocked country - to be honest I'm not sure I'd ever visited such a place before the Peace Corps and I may have been skeptical had you tried to convince me that such a place even existed two years ago (I went to public school; atlases were hard to come by).  I quickly came to love the landscape in northern Burkina, where I spent my first year here, and I was often struck by the similarities between the Sahel and the Atlantic and I loved imagining that I was out sailing while biking between Béléhédé and Djibo.

Please join FAVL for a small reception to launch and celebrate publication of student books from the Reading West Africa 2010 program.  We have a selection of 28 books that will be printed and distributed to village libraries in Burkina Faso where students do service learning.  

Faculty in the French Dept. donated significant volunteer hours in the library-provided educational technology room, dedicated this year to the book production/editing process.  

The reception is Tuesday, April 26, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. in the Martin Room in the library at Santa Clara University.

Trust me, the books are excellent, with stunning photos!  You might even want to buy some.

Information about the Reading West Africa program is here:
http://www.scu.edu/studyabroad/burkinafaso/index.cfm

I recently came across a drawing that Elisée did five years ago for an educational campaign on the importance of sleeping under mosquito nets. Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, is the number one cause of death in Burkina Faso. Even if you are treated early, its flu-like symptoms--including headaches, nausea, fever, diarrhea, vomiting and coughing--are not a fun experience to go through. Fortunately, by wearing mosquito repellent, sleeping under a net and taking anti-malaria meds, it is relatively easy to avoid. In my three years here, I have yet to contract malaria (knock on wood).

Despite all the hoopla going on in Burkina right now with the government, I have to admit that they started a great initiative in 2010 to help combat malaria in Burkina. Last year the government led a huge campaign, distributing more than 8 million mosquito nets to rural and urban communities throughout the country. Research and follow up will ensure that the nets are being used properly and evaluate the effect the distribution has on decreasing malaria-related deaths.  Also nice to know that even before this government initiative, one of FAVL's own was helping to educate on the importance of mosquito nets :)

Lots of extracts here.  e.g. from Newton Ahmed Barry:

Certains pensent à un remake du projet de complot de 2003 avec toujours en point de mire quelques personnalités militaires, les mêmes et dans les mêmes rôles. Et revoilà le général Kwamé Lougué. Comme en 2003, deux postures lui sont attribuées. Certains pensent qu'il était le bénéficiaire "conscient ?" du complot. D'autres croient plutôt que le général est victime de sa popularité dans l'armée. Même loin des troupes, le général Kwamé Lougué aurait gardé le respect et l'estime des soldats. Cela en fait-il forcément le bénéficiaire du complot, si complot il y avait ?? Une chose semble certaine, le général reste un élément clé dans la reprise en main de l'armée. Est-ce cela qui explique qu'il a été reçu, seul, en tête à tête pendant près de deux heures par Blaise Compaoré, en marge des concertations avec les officiers supérieurs ?? C'est fort probable. Les récents événements ont montré au moins deux choses ? :

Primo, c'est la disqualification de la hiérarchie actuelle de l'armée. Après avoir frontalement contesté leur autorité, saccage de domicile et molestation du ministre de la Défense et du chef d'Etat-major général, on voit difficilement quelle autorité ces deux peuvent encore avoir sur l'armée. Secundo, il faut réorganiser l'armée. Les problèmes soulevés par les concertations Blaise Compaoré-soldats ne peuvent pas être solutionnés par la hiérarchie actuelle. C'est elle qui est globalement en cause.

On peut donc considérer que le général Kwamé Lougué devra revenir pour parachever ce qu'il avait commencé en 1999. C'est lui qui avait eu le courage de poser la question du statut du régiment de la sécurité présidentielle. Quand il a été limogé en janvier 2004, le champagne a coulé au Conseil de l'Entente. Les problèmes de la "compaorose", eux, n'ont pas été résolus...

Hah!  What's his face thinks he has cornered the market in "clever" variations on Mortenson's book.  But I am the original.  Back in 2009... a blog entry entitled Three Cups of Tea over Coffee. 

I confess I am not following this too closely.  Mortenson seems to be unable to master the American media; but how do you defend yourself against a billion dollar corporation? I'm bothered by the apparent charges, which seem to be: "We found that 15 of 30 schools were either not open, not involved with Mortenson, or had not received anything from Mortenson in years."  The last item- so what? Mortenson is real clear in Three Cups of Tea that he just cuts ribbons- one of my criticisms of the book at the time was that there seemed to be no follow through. So he never claimed he followed through.  Lots of projects (hello USAID and World Bank!) are just like that.  And then the other charge, that some were closed... well, did the investigators find out why they were closed? 

So until I know more details of the charges, I'm a little concerned they are hyped up.  On the other hand, Mortenson's group wouldn't be the first one to have really bad follow through and very inefficient spending.

Incidentally, many of FAVL's documents are posted here on slideshare.  And one of the reasons we emphasize monthly librarian meetings in Burkina Faso and Ghana, and supervisor visits, and UgCLA association member workshops in Uganda, and volunteers working in libraries, esp. university students, is so that the libraries and librarians get that regular oversight from outsider visits.

From the French wikipedia... on Laurent Gbagbo's wife....

Simone Ehivet est la fille de Jean Ehivet, gendarme de son état et de Marie Djaha. Issue d'une famille de dix-huit enfants elle a quinze sœurs. C'est une historienne, docteur 3^e cycle en littérature orale, chercheur en linguistique appliquée et syndicaliste marxiste très proche des milieux évangéliques américains.

We read Three Cups of Tea in the Reading West Africa study abroad program.  The charges that parts of the memoir are over-dramatized doesn't surprise me, but if the schools indeed are empty and unused that is a really serious charge.  CBS News better have done a careful job investigating. 

The charity's tax forms list the locations of its schools and how many students it serves. In the 2009 fiscal year, it reported 54 schools in Afghanistan serving 28,475 students, of which 21,165 were girls.

"60 Minutes" said it went to almost 30 of the schools and that roughly half were empty, built by someone else or not receiving any support.

Jeff McMillan, Mr. Mortenson's personal assistant, said that in some cases, the charity had paid for the building of the schools, while in others, it underwrites things like teachers' salaries and supplies.

He also said that the Afghan school year began on March 23. "I don't know when CBS was there, but if it was when school was out, the schools would appear to be empty," he said. 

Can Africa really be this bad?  That's the reaction of myself and fellow FAVL board members... we read Graceland, by Chris Abani, and discussed the hour before our monthly board meeting.  We agreed the novel is really interesting, but flawed in many ways. 

The subject matter, a grim coming of age story, is truly horrifying.  At some points the book reads like a litany of human depravity (organ harvesting, rape, torture, killing of a son).  Tt reminded me of Arlo Guthrie's famous Thanksgiving Day song Alice's Restaurant, where he ends up in jail with... well, if you're 1960s literate, you know who I am talking about.  But in contrast with Guthrie's sly humor, Abani is dead serious- very little humor actually in the book.  It's a frightening portrayal, all the more so for by and large being reasonably accurate.  Of course, Nigeria, the setting, is a huge country of a couple hundred million people, and only a tiny fraction experienced the sequence of horrors that constitute the main elements of the plot.  But many did experience similar stuff.  I see similar lives unfold, occasionally but regularly, in Burkina Faso.   

Beyond this stark realism, we weren't too sure about the literary value.  There is an abrupt shift to a mix of narrators late in the book, very jarring and seems to serve no purpose.  Likewise with a sudden magical realism, at the very end, that makes no sense.  The beginning of many chapters starts with recipes by Beatrice, the deceased mother of the main character, Elvis.  but the recipes didn't seem to mesh with the story, and if they were intended as a puzzle/clue device, well these three FAVL readers (pretty literate, all of us) didn't see it or feel the desire to untangle the meaning. 

Abani may have set out to write a "trashy" novel (at one point he alludes to the trashy fiction Elvie read and still enjoys as a child).  In that case, the novel might be read on a different level, as a kind of Toni Morrison-style blockbuster saga where readers will find themselves and their history.  Part of me says that the market test then is the only relevant one... but I can;t believe the novel sells well in Nigeria, though I could be wrong.

Abani seems like a amazing individual, so while I am somewhat negative on the book (it just has too many flaws to be highly recommended) I did read it through over about four days, and it kept my interest.  I am looking forward to reading more stuff, hopefully more coherent, by Abani.

Dans quelle république sommes-nous ? La question mérite d'être posée au regard des évènements survenus au Burkina depuis fin février 2011. Pendant que le pays traverse une crise sociopolitique suite à la mort suspecte de l'élève Justin Zongo à Koudougou, une poussée de fièvre kaki vient confirmer que le pays a mal à sa gouvernance. Une fois de plus, le gouvernement s'est embourbé dans ses propres contradictions. Confirmant ainsi sa conception d'une justice à deux vitesses: l'une pour les faibles et l'autre pour les forts. Quel crédit peut-on accorder à un gouvernement qui prône la justice pour les uns tout en accédant à des revendications d'impunité pour les autres ? Pendant que les élèves et  étudiants sont méchamment punis pour avoir manifesté et revendiqué justice pour leurs camarades, des militaires revendiquent l'impunité pour leurs frères d'armes condamnés par la justice. Et de quelle manière ! Le hic, c'est que le gouvernement a accédé, avec célérité, à cette revendication anticonstitutionnelle. La preuve est désormais établie: le pays n'est pas gouverné; le pouvoir en place a atteint ses limites. Du même coup, il nous livre à la merci des militaires qui ont désormais le droit de se rendre justice eux-mêmes. Armes au poing !

By Boureima OUEDRAOGO.  The rest is here.

The last several weeks have seen significant unrest in Burkina Faso.  Students started demonstrating in February, after a secondary school student, Justin Zongo, was arrested in Koudougou and died while in detention.  His arrest was, apparently, a very banal affair involving a female classmate who happened to be the girlfriend of a police officer; so many suspected police brutality.  Civil society in Burkina Faso has been fighting a long fight against impunity, and the Justin Zongo affair touched a raw nerve (perhaps because his family name is the same as celebrated journalist Norbert Zongo, murdered by the military and Compaoré regime in 1998).  Secondary students all over the country went on targeted rampages, against police stations and government offices. 

The demonstrations and rioting were very political.  The regime, to its credit, did not respond with very much force.  But that "civil" response, however, seems to have spurred other, more unruly elements to see weakness.  Military garrisons around the country started rioting themselves, again in a fairly political way, targeting residences of government officials and government buildings.  Finally, on Friday, the elite presidential guard went on a rampage, this time carrying out a fair amount of looting.  The merchants of Ouagadougou, fed up, themselves rioted today and destroyed several government buildings. 

President Blaise Compaoré has sacked the chief of army staff and the government (Burkina Faso has a ministerial government that serves at the pleasure of the President and the ruling party).  President Compaoré, who has ruled since 1983 (at first as co-ruler with Thomas Sankara, who was killed in 1987) faces a serious challenge to his regime.  The outcome is now down to the micro-politics of Burkinabe society, and the highly unpredictable outcome of interactions among the 2,000-3,000 officers of the armed forces.  Civil society, however, is far stronger than in was in 1987.  As in Europe in the 1700s, a growing bourgeoisie is ready to tell those with weapons that if they want to continue to rule, they have to make concessions.

Transparency and accountability are seen now, vividly, to be more than buzzwords.  Without them, 20 years of moderate economic progress, increases in schooling, refinement of institutions for enabling investment.... all will vanish overnight, lives may be lost, infrastructure destroyed.  Five of Burkina Faso's West African neighbors have gone through this awful decline: Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea, Niger and Sierra Leone.

I am hopeful that Burkina Faso will weather the crisis.  The country has several good institutions: a very stable traditional ruling class, in the form of the Mossi kingdoms; a tradtion of ethnic and religious tolerance that seems impermeable to animosities that can be stoked by spoiler politicians; a sense that the political elite understands the lessons of the five neighbors, and won't risk chaos; a lively free press that is keeping the citizenry pretty well-informed; a small but active segment of the judiciary that tries its best to act as counterweight to the regime; a large class of professional former government officials- President Compaoré liked to cycle through government every five years or so, so there is a lot of "dispersed expertise."

I will be watching events unfold.  For now FAVL staff and volunteers in Burkina Faso are all safe and do not appear to be significantly affected by the unrest.  Villages are usually the safest place to be in troubling times.

FAVL Ouagadougou coordinator offers the following simple guide...

Éléments pour réussir un rapport sur une activité menée

Quand je fais un rapport d'activité, je dois avoir à l'esprit que des personnes le liront. Et, si mon rapport est intéressant ces voudront bien le partager avec d'autre personnes. J'ai donc tout intérêt à ce que le rapport soit bien fait.  Lorsque je fais une activité donnée et que je veux en parler dans un rapport, je dois faire ressortir les éléments suivants :

1 - Qu'elle est cette activité? (jeu de scrabble, lecture guidée, conte, etc.)
2 - Quand l'ai-je fais (la date, évidemment)
3 - Pourquoi l'ai-je choisi ? (qu'est-ce qui me motive à faire cette activité avec les enfants ?)
4 - Quel peut être son intérêt pour les enfants ?
5 - Comment ai-je fais l'activité en question ?
6 - Quel intérêt les enfants ont-ils accordé à l'activité ? (comment ont-ils réagi?)
7 - Qu'est ce que j'en pense en tant que bibliothécaire ?

Voici un exemple très simple où j'ai numéroté les différentes parties :

Ce mois-ci, j'ai particulièrement mis l'accent sur la lecture de conte (1). Pour ceci j'ai choisi de travailler avec le recueil de contes intitulé « La Brousse et la Savane racontent» de l'auteur Souleymane Djigo Diop. Le jeudi 14 avril (2), j'ai animé une séance avec ce recueil dont la plupart des contes est facile à comprendre et ceux-ci mettent en scène des animaux de la brousse, bien connus des enfants (3).  Il y a un conte ou apparaît Leuk le lièvre et Bouki l'hyène, qui se retrouvent en danger de mort face au lutin lutteur. Ces personnages sont présents dans beaucoup de contes africains et suscitent généralement de l'intérêt auprès des enfants. (4) J'ai pu le remarqué chaque fois que je leur lis ce genre de contes. C'est pourquoi j'ai lu ce conte à un groupe de 10 enfants. Comme ce conte est plein de suspenses, il a particulièrement captivé l'attention des enfants.(5) Pour inciter la participation de ceux-ci, j'ai fais la lecture inachevée car me suis arrêté aux trois quart du texte. J'ai ensuite demandé aux enfants de deviner la suite. Ceux qui ont pu imaginer la suite de l'histoire, étaient tous convaincus que que Leuk réussirait à se tirer d'affaire. Ce qui était exact ! Leuk avec sa ruse légendaire a réussi à convaincre le lutin de lui laisser la vie sauve. Tandis que Bouki, reconnu comme un personnage stupide, a dut payer pour son imprudence. (6)  En tant que bibliothécaire, je crois que ce livre est un bon instrument pour animer une séance de contes car les histoires sont très intéressantes, faciles à lire, donne le goût à la lecture et amusent beaucoup les enfants. (7) Elisée Saré, bibliothèque de...

Conseils : 
1.   utilisez un langage simple
2.    vérifiez le sens des mots que vous utilisez dans le dictionnaire
3.    relisez votre rapport avant de l'envoyer pour desceller les fautes et les corriger
4.    signez votre rapport

Yesterday should have been an exciting and rewarding day for me as I went to Diacfa, the central Ouagadougou bookstore, to purchase the first batch of books for the Béléhédé library, having finally raised enough funds for the grand opening.  And in a way it was.  I've spent the majority of my Peace Corps service talking about the idea of this library with the community, assessing the need for and the feasibility of the project, raising funds, working with Alou to organize a library committee and train him to be the head librarian; so, as I was standing in the bookstore yesterday with an uncomfortably large wad of cash in my pocket, I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment for all of the work that everybody has put into making this enterprise work.

It is small!  I am always amazed at how little purchasing power is devoted to books; especially now that we know so much disposable income is spent downloading music videos onto cell phones and texting people silly Valentine pictures!

Kathy Knowles, of Osu Children's Library Fund, has an excellent portfolio of children's books, and her distributor in Ghana can barely make a profit, apparently, even at incredibly reduced prices for the books.  He not even sure he can sell Kathy's latest books (including a lovely book about a trip to see the hippos), the way a distributor would be if sales were growing 20% a year!   And this is at rock-bottom prices.

This experience echoes our own inability to interest third-parties in our (also excellent?) RWA books in Burkina Faso.  People love them, but very few people want to pay, and no distributor wants to take a chance on trying to make a profit.  The market simply isn't there. 

I think the market happens when the diaspora starts to buy books, as happened with the Somali community.  Anyone out there interested in starting a distribution company targeted to New York and other East Coast diasporas?

Not so much...

A note from FAVL regional coordinator Koura Donkoui:

Une rencontre avec les maires serait la bienvenue. Comme vous l'avez si bien dit les maires ne s'impliquent pas sérieusement dans la cause de la prise en charge des bibliothèques. Lorsque nous les approchons ils disent oui la bibliothèque c'est une bonne chose ça aide beaucoup nos enfants. Cela se limitent à là. La rencontre que nous allons initier va nous permettre de les informer de la situation actuelle et je pense qu'ils seront sensibles à la question. 

Nous avons eu une rencontre avec le maire de HOUNDE sur les tansferts de compétences aux mairies. Nous avons vu que le secteur de l'éducation de base a une grande partie qui est gérée par les mairies à savoir le personnel;la dotation en fournitures aux élèves et aux enseignats. Les fonds les sont directement virés et ils lancent les appels d'offre. Cela temoigne d'une pétite évolution sur laquelle on peut s'inspirer. C'est juste un exemple ... parmi tant d'autres.

On April 6^th, 2011 The Pobé-Mengao Library celebrated its one year anniversary. We are extremely happy and very proud of how the library has been running so far. Out of all the FAVL libraries in Burkina, Pobé-Mengao is the most visited library after Bereba and the second highest in library subscriptions.

I (okay more like Elisée) put together a video about the library with students, villagers and officials of the Pobé-Mengao community. A special thanks to Dounko for taking video recordings during his most recent visit to Pobé! The library is off to a great start, but as the speakers will point out, there are still many things lacking (only 734 books!) and still much to be done.

The success of the Pobé library is due in large part to the continued support of you, the donors. Help continue this success by increasing the number of library books and adding more furniture to keep up with The Pobe-Mengao Library's growing number of visitors.

Donate now!

Les 16 livres de la collection "Petites mains" reçus nous ont permis de faire des séances d'animations dans nos bibliothèques. Il faut noter qu'à l'ouverture du paquet j'étais touché de voir des livres transportables partout et qui répondent aux besoins des enfants qui aiment la lecture. Avec un français très simple, de courtes phrases et des illustrations bien faites. Ceci ma poussé à programmer des séances de lecture avec les enfants aux seins des bibliothèques pour les enfants moyens en lecture enfin de leur donner le goût de la lecture. La première séance a eu la participation de 17 enfants du primaire et a eu lieu sous le hangar de la bibliothèque de Béréba. Avant de finir la distribution tous les enfants étaient concentrés à la lecture tellement ils étaient impressionnés par la forme des livres. Chaque enfant a pu lire avec moins de fautes le livre choisi, avec satisfaction. Ils étaient fière de pouvoir faire chacun un petit résumé. Les livres avec pour titres Le zèbre et le crocodile et Les devinettes sont ceux que les enfants ont appréciés ce jour compte tenu de leur contenu aussi simple à comprendre. Ali Kafando (un lecteur), depuis ce jour est devenu un de nos fidèles lecteurs, car ce jour même, il a pu lire 6 livres. Depuis lors les enfants viennent pour consulter ces livres. Pour moi cette collection attire les enfants à la lecture.

Sanou Dounko (animateur, Amis des Bibliothèques de Villages / FAVL)

After the now 7 months that I've been working in Ouaga, I can say that one of the biggest lessons I've come to learn and understand, especially in the world of development, is the power of networking. I know that I've written about this before, but I truly feel it bears repeating. It's just so true! Last night's events were just more proof to me of how socializing and networking is key.

A while back we had a not-so-great presentation (meaning it never happened) to the Ouagadougou Expatriate Association. Despite this, an OEA member contacted us soon after, expressing interest in FAVL and the work we do in Burkina. This led to a dinner party invitation, which resulted in another guest at the party donating 60,000 cfa ($130) to FAVL!
Last night this same OEA member invited Charley and I to her house, along with about 7 other guests, for dinner. People there asked numerous questions about FAVL and expressed a lot of interest in the organization's work. When the guests expressing interest are high-up embassy personnel and people who work for large organizations including UNICEF...this is definite plus.
 
I have been meeting all kinds of people from all lines of work; from rich expats working for lucrative companies and don't speak a lick of French to a missionary couple who have been here for 12 years, speak the local language fluently and live in conditions that even Peace Corps volunteers would complain about. After last night's dinner party, I chuckled to myself on the bike ride home, realizing that I would probably never again find myself at a dinner party where all of the guests (asides from Charley) are Swedish.
Between the parties, the delicious foods, the tasty wines, the meeting of truly diverse people....networking continues to be a lot of fun and of great benefit to FAVL.

More great blog entries from Laura and Lauren in Ghana... most recent about their trip to Burkina

We also got our Western food fixes by eating pizza, a club sandwich, and fries at a nice restaurant called Paradisio. Afterwards, the power miraculously turned back on just in time for my favorite activity of the entire week: catching a Burkinabe flick at an outdoor cinema (see Charley's FAVL blog post about the movie). Nothing could beat this quirky ambience. In the parking lot, people were selling bananas and mangoes presumably for movie snacks. The comfortingly familiar Big Dipper was clearly visible, hanging upside down directly above the screen. Occasionally, a HUGE airplane from the very very nearby international airport would pass right behind the screen. The evening temperature was enjoyably cool while the metal chairs were unbearably hard and uncomfortable. All this for the low low price of about $1! Bonus: I think I understood most of the French/the movie.

If you are still reading this, you are a trooper. I'm about to launch into some long-winded stuff on cultural differences, so go grab some snacks.

To provide some background (or at least my basic understanding of it) on the aforementioned "interesting conversation": there were some...um..."interesting" things going on at the national level for Burkina while we were there. First, there had been student demonstrations that turned a bit violent in the weeks leading up to our visit. The students were upset about another senior high student who died in jail, allegedly due to mistreatment. We actually headed to Bereba village really early Saturday morning to avoid a planned student demonstration near the FAVL office in Ouaga (but this one was pretty subdued). Second, military personnel in Ouaga were unhappy about a comrade being jailed, so they decided to riot (meaning, shoot guns in the air and loot stores) the night before we returned from Bereba. Third, the following day merchants were demonstrating in protest of the looting from the previous night. *NOTE: we ourselves never actually witnessed these things, but were given great updates from FAVL/Peace Corps and felt very safe our entire trip.* Fourth, set this against the backdrop of the uprisings in North Africa this past month. President du Faso Blaise Compaoré has been in power for the last 30 years via a combination of coups and elections...sound a bit familiar? Throw in the fact that historically Burkina has close ties with Libya. Compaoré and Colonel Gaddafi are close friends.

Just got back from a presentation at Dublin Rotary Club.  My Rotary friend Charlie Wasser and I are doing the rounds looking for DDF funds for a project to establish a media center in Houndé where we (FAVL) would produce 5-10 books a year, authored and illustrated by local talent.  this would really get the "reading culture" of the area off and running. We need $15,000, which would then be matched by Rotary International.  We have semi-commitments for about a third of that, so need some more partners.  Any Rotarians out there in the audience!  Contact me.

Also we've been putting final touches on a proposal to the Chen Foundation, based in Hong Kong, to fund summer reading programs and book distribution programs in the three Ghana libraries in 2011-12.  This is a $35,000 proposal.  The Chen Foundation generously funded the Ghana reading camps in 2010, so we are hopeful.

Our local FAVL book club (gotta have some fun too while we are volunteering) read and discussed Nii Ayikwei Parkes' Tail of the Blue Bird last month.  All agreed it was an excellent book.  Next meeting we will discuss Chris Abani's novel Graceland.

Finally,  Reading West Africa students and volunteers (and me!) have been spending many hours getting the RWA 2010 books loaded into fastpencil and printed.  You can check out the books here.  I can't wait to see how the kids in village like these books- an excellent selection.

It's impossible for me to return from France with more than thirty African children's books and not sneak a few peeks! Some I've really enjoyed, with beautiful stories and pictures that I'm sure the children will love. One book that stood out to me was "La fete de l'arachide" by Kammo Melachi Francoi and Katia Castanie; a short, easy-to-read story with colorful drawings. It's about a young boy who comes to visit his grandparents in village and witnesses the peanut festival/celebration. His grandfather shares with him the entire process of how peanuts are cultivated and harvested.

The book's creation has a pretty cool story. The book was initiated through Culture Sud, a cultural exchange association between France and Cameroun. Their goals seem to be right on par with FAVL and RWA in terms of creating and publishing appropriate children's books. For "La fete de l'arachide," a contest was held and 18-year old Cameroonian Kammo Melachi Francois was chosen to illustrate the book. There's a nice, short article (in French) for more info.

I found this BD at San Jose Public Library... I vaguely knew Bilal is a bigwig in the BD world.  Pretty confusing, I have to say.  A riff/reflection off Sarajevo/Balkans... must be a lot more subtext than I could get.  Stick to Africa.



Enki Bilal Le sommeil du monstre by kataplasm

We've been recently working on a fundraising campaign with local mining companies. It's a looong and tedious process: creating sponsorship pages, writing letters, preparing every envelope to send out to each company (note: there are 126 mining companies in Burkina!) etc. We're hoping to be finally finished by next week. I recently made a map to help point out where the FAVL libraries are in Burkina so I just thought I'd give my hands a break from the dreaded glue stick and post it up on the blog.

We had our first "activity session" with JHS Form 1 kids tonight. These classes are focusing on the Junior Graphic Newspaper/Current Events, and it went REALLY well. We're excited to continue the next 3 weeks, and more to come on that. Also, things seem to be working for our first week of phonics-focused mini-camp at Gowrie. They've learned short vowels and we just started long vowels ("magic e", or as we called him, "Boss E"). We'll see what they
retained over the weekend...

We had the opportunity to visit the 7 FAVL village libraries in Burkina Faso this past week. Our general impression of the Burkina libraries was overwhelmingly positive. Each librarian diligently showed us every book section and cahier (record book). We were particularly impressed by the high level of organization at the libraries, with a cahier for subscribers, lost or damaged books, checked out books, and detailed notes on activities. In contrast to the frustrating task of locating the correct inventory in libraries in Ghana (and knowing or rather NOT knowing which books were checked out/removed for damage, etc), this was a pleasant surprise and something to aspire to.

The librarians all seemed very proud of their libraries and the spaces were very neat and orderly at the time we visited

Additionally, the decorations in each library were fantastic, particularly in Koumbia with the paintings from a local artist and large masks. There were also abundant homemade decorations that Dounko taught us how to make. Hopefully we can make some of these with the kids in Ghana when we return.

As for library activities, we had the opportunity to take part in and listen to a few. The children really seemed to like the contes we heard from both the librarians and Dounko at Karaba and Dimikuy. Dounko is super animated in storytelling, and he should keep it up. It was great to see how much the kids loved him. We liked that Burkina has an "animateur"/activities coordinator whose sole responsibility is to run activities at the libraries. A big personality like Dounko's seems to be a good way to attract children to the library. The librarians themselves were a bit less animated in their story telling, but still elicited a good reaction from the kids. We also enjoyed hearing the riddles or "devinettes" and seeing games such as alphabet hopscotch (hop on a letter and say a word that starts with that letter). At Boni and Dimikuy, we were able to teach the children and librarians the Hokey Pokey (or "Hougie Bougie") en Francais! They seemed to like it a lot.

We were very impressed with the reading level and comprehension of the students present at Douhoun library's activities. They seemed well beyond anything we've encountered for that age group in Ghana (CM1 or 2 level). However upon further reflection and conversations with Charley, this has not been experienced by other visitors to the libraries. It was a very small group of students, and we're not sure how anomalous this was but we were surely impressed.

The libraries in Burkina Faso were open about 20 hrs per week and often had two librarians or assistants sharing the responsibility. This is very different from the system in Ghana, but it appears to work well for the libraries in Burkina. It is clear they are able to accomplish a lot even with this small amount of time.

There was a large ratio of adult to children's books at the libraries. Again, in contrast, the opposite tends to be true in the Ghanaian libraries. We imagine there may be less French children's material available in general?