Recently in Volunteers & Partners Category

Dounko just got back from a trip up north, where he performed evaluations on the libraries and talked to the mayors about signing a contract to take over financial responsibilities for the libraries. They were very enthusiastic, and the mayor of Gourcy, a big reader himself, expressed his support for libraries.

Dounko writes:

Sur place le maire de Gourcy a instruit au S.G. de mettre une rubrique de récompense des meilleurs lecteurs à tous les niveaux scolaire de la commune dans le budget de 2013. Il a profité de cette occasion pour dire ceci :

« J'ai été 2eme meilleur lecteur de la Haute-Volta en 1969 grâce au concours de meilleur lecteur organisé par l'ambassade de la France. J'ai eu comme prix un vélo en son temps. Depuis lors j'ai aimé la lecture et cela m'a permis d'être major de ma promotion partout où je suis passé. Donc l'idée de la bibliothèque est bonne. Pas de soucis pour la signature. » 

At his office, the mayor instructed the S.G. to put in the 2013 budget a reward for the best readers at each scholastic level. He said:

"I was the the second best reader in the Upper Volta in 1969 thanks to a reading contest organized by the French Embassy. I got a bike as a prize. Since then I have loved to read, and this has allowed me to succeed everywhere I go. Thus, a library is a good idea."

The (temporary) mayor's office of Gourcy.

Elisee wrote:

Wednesday was the annual book sale of the Library of the Santa Clara University. More than 8,000 books were on sale for only $1 each. Let's say that this was a huge opportunity for students, teachers and all books lovers. This year, all the benefit from this book sale will go to Friends of African Village Libraries. Also, this was for FAVL an occasion to show off our activities. Amanda and Mark, two former students of the study abroad program RWA, helped us to host an information table where displayed some micro-books made by the students and edited by FAVL, some pictures of the village libraries activities and life in rural area in Africa. Thanks to the dynamic team of the SCU Library, over $2,000 has been raised in this book sale, and the money will be used to acquire more children books for the village libraries supported by FAVL. Thank You, Santa Clara University!!

From Brianna:

Last week my health literacy students took a few days off for Easter, and Lucas suggested we go explore Mole National Park. My days here are flying by, and I wouldn't have many more chances to visit, so I jumped at the chance. In addition to the park, I would also get to see the climactic differences across the country, and how the architecture varied from the Upper East, where we have flat-roofed square houses, to the thatched-roof round houses in the Northern Region, though both types are made of adobe and both are arranged in circular compounds.

After the sort of bus trip that makes you appreciate paved roads and any other form of transportation, we arrived at the Mole Motel. As a Seattle girl, I soaked up all the green I had been missing, and couldn't wait for the cool relief of a swimming in the pool.

We woke up early in the morning, and met our guides who would take us on our safari walk. We headed down the escarpment towards the watering holes to begin our day, where we had our first animal sighting: warthogs. I believe that whoever cast Pumba recognized the naturally comedic nature of an animal that looks too fat for its little feet, but is still armed with sharp tusks. We moved on, and I was pleased that I hadn't lost my natural ability to walk right behind the guide, no matter where I started from in the crowd. While this is the natural tendency of an annoying teacher's pet (no comment on that) it is also really useful on walking safaris to be in the lead, before the shuffling noisy footsteps of the group scare off the animals.

We were able to see a lot of species of antelope including kob, waterbuck, and duikers. We also saw many birds, including one of my favorites simply based on looks, the grey hooded kingfisher, with stunning blue wings when it is flying, and really difficult to see when it is still.

However, we had to head back for the day without having seen the big attraction, elephants.
We grabbed some breakfast at the staff canteen, while warthogs milled around by the women cooking. This family of warthogs was apparently unaware that they were supposed to be aggressive when they were with their young, since they completely ignored us in their foraging even when a human baby started spraying the warthog baby with a sachet of water just to see how it would react. It reacted like you or I would: surprised and a little annoyed, but hey, it's 100 degrees out so who can complain about some refreshing water.

Before we could escape the growing heat in the swimming pool, we got a call from the guide that the elephants had the same idea and were in the watering hole. You could see them from the viewing deck of the hotel, but we wanted a closer look so we scrambled back down the escarpment with the guide. As we approached, and the elephant got out, our guide warned us that this elephant was not one of the ones familiar with humans, so it wouldn't be friendly. We had to keep our distance. However "our distance" was surprisingly close, which caused a large number of our group to panic and start to run away when the elephant suddenly let go a large trumpet and stamped his feet at us. The guide was armed, and urged us to stick close to him. When the elephant got closer, our guide picked up a stick and threw it at the elephant. And the elephant went away. This awesome display of human/animal interactions showed us the cheeky bravery of our guide, and also provided me something to tease Lucas about for the rest of the trip ("remember when the guide yelled at you for trying to run away?") which we spent lazily swimming, reading, and watching more elephants from the comfort of the viewing deck by the pool.

From FAVL volunteer Brianna Osetinsky, in Ghana:

A few Saturdays ago there was a perfect storm for poor attendance to the health literacy class in Sumbrungu library: it was market day, there were two important funerals, and also it was the Saturday before Palm Sunday,
 
When class time rolled around, there was only one student present. When 10 minutes had passed, there was still only one student present. I decided to swallow my annoyance at the other students, and focus on making it the best private tutoring session for the one dedicated student Beatrice, who has never missed a class.

I grew up surrounded by books, and some of my favorite childhood memories of my father come from us reading together, despite his penchant for picking age inappropriate books (reading your seven year old The Pearl pretty much guarantees she will grow up with a stark view of human nature and greed). However, for people who didn't have that exposure to reading, books are somewhat of a foreign object no matter how much we encouraged the students to use the library to practice reading. I decided in this private lesson Beatrice and I would read a book together, since reading with someone else can be very pleasant and educational, and it can break down the distance between the new reader and the world of books.

I picked one of the books from the Reading West Africa Program, What Work Do You Do? by Brian Lance. This book was fantastic for Beatrice, who has only recently mastered her letters and sounds, and has been working on sounding out and identifying words. The sentences were formulaic so she could start seeing patterns, and the pictures were both accurate and interesting to help her identify and understand the larger words like butcher or mechanic

The first several pages I would read the sentence, explain it to her, and then she would repeat it. After several pages of correcting herself as she repeated the sentences, Beatrice correctly read a new sentence all by herself. With my help she stumbled through the rest of the book, and at the end I don't know who was more proud between the two of us. My favorite teachers have told me about the intrinsic rewards of teaching, and I have volunteered and tutored in the past, but I was still unprepared for the amount of pride and happiness I felt in my student finishing a book and being able to read sentences on her own.

Now literacy doesn't come in a day, not even during a one-on-one reading session, but that moment when Beatrice realized that she was capable of reading sentences on her own and of finishing a book will help carry her through the frustrations that come with learning to read, especially as an adult. It also reminded me, like a saccharine after school special, that even in the failure of having most of my students miss class, I could find a lot of joy and merit in my work.

She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Suriname.

The days have been long but the months have been short. It is hard to believe that we only have about five months left of our Peace Corps service. Half of our villagers talk as if we are leaving tomorrow and the other half insist that we have become so Saramaccan that we cannot possible go back and live in America. Though I appreciate the integration compliment, let me assure everyone back home that there is no doubt that we will be returning to the states this summer. ;) Like much of our time in this extreme, cultural challenge, emotions are high. One moment volunteers in my training group are exhausted from almost 2 years of washing clothes in the river and just want to go home now. The next they are close to tears at the thought of not waking up next to neighbors they have come to love. My heart is also being pulled in two directions.

What I WILL miss about my life in Suriname: · Our neighbor girl, Lefurny. I don't know how I'm going to be able to leave her. L · Simplicity. · The richness of spreading information to people who have not heard it before. · Being able to wear flip flops and tank tops every day. · Having it literally not matter what I wear because the person next to me is wearing a lady's see through nightie as a daytime outfit. · The creek by my house. · Green everywhere. · The amazing and strong women here. If I start to think about all of them and the work we have done together, I will be a blubbering mess. · Being so close to nature. · My porch! · Getting to hang out with my hubby so much! · Learning firsthand about the realities and challenges of development work. · Being able to learn new things about Saramaccan culture in my everyday life. · Not having to constantly rush from one thing to the next. · Not having to pay rent, water, electricity, and phone bills. Eek! My fellow Peace Corps Volunteer friends. They are the only ones who truly understand what I've experienced here.

Le mardi 06 mars 2012, dans la matinée la bibliothèque de Béréba a eu la visite de Daniel Alliot président de l'Association Crotelles au Faso et de Gisèle Alliot. Cette visite a duré environ 30mn.  Après la présentation de la bibliothèque et son fonctionnement ils ont posé des questions sur l'arbre à lecture, le public qui fréquente le plus la bibliothèque. Des explications claires leur ont été données. Ils ont remis symboliquement du matériel de fabrication de collier et des crayons de couleur et nous ont invité de passer prendre des cartons de livres et autres dans l'après midi.

Ils nous ont demandé ce que pensons des dons de livres qu'ils nous livrent de temps en temps. Nous leur avons dit que ces gestes nous vont droit au cœur car  ceux-ci  aident nos populations et nos lecteurs  à sortir de l'ignorance en amélioration le niveau de l'éducation. A leur tour ils ont dit que l'objectif de leur don est d'améliorer le savoir scolaire surtout de permettre aux populations de partager le savoir des autres en combattant l'analphabétisme en milieu rural. Ils se disent soucieux  des difficultés à trouver  les romans d'auteurs africains mais aussi ils sont satisfaits de la bonne utilisation de ces dons.

Avant de partir ils ont noté respectivement dans le cahier de visite les mots suivant : "Nous continuerons de faire le maximum d'expéditions au projet des bibliothèques. Nous vous remercions du respect de notre action et bon courage.  Félicitations chaleureuses pour l'installation des bibliothèques. Vous avez beaucoup de motivation et de courage."  Au nom du Coordonateur Régional et de FAVL en particulier nous leur avons remercié pour le soutien apporté afin d'œuvrer pour développement de nos localités.

A 14heures nous avons fait le retrait des cartons contenant des romans, des manuels scolaires, de bics, de markers, de jeux (dominos, puzzles) et bien d'autres Object d'animation. En attendant de faire la répartition pour les bibliothèques nous sommes très satisfait de la visite et du don, en même temps nous lançons un appel à tous les donateurs de faire un geste pour combattre l'analphabétisme dans nos milieux ruraux.

Sanou Dounko
Animateur de FAVL

From Lucas Aligire: These are more pictures about the foundation visitors. They presented some picture books to the children at the various libraries and asked the them to read the books to them. The books were written by Kathy Knowles in China and later translated to English. The foundation Co- chairperson addressed the kids in the libraries, she encouraged them to make the library their place of reading and entertainment. Both of them were so impressed with the children s ability in reading.

Last week, from Monday until Friday, Dounko, a mason from the village of Béréba and I attended a training about Hygiene, Sanitation and Latrine Construction. The training was located in the village of Baskouré, 25 km from the eastern regional capital of Koupéla. There were 12 volunteers present, each of whom brought 2 counterparts (at least one of whom had to be a mason). During the training, the faciliator discussed about the importance of handwashing, using a latrine properly and drinking clean water; the risks associated with unhygienic behaviors like not covering water containers or defecating in your courtyard; and how to build Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) and EcoSan latrines. The participants were not only trained on the information, but also trained on how to transmit the information to their communities.

At the end of the week, we got a pleasant surprise! Each counterpart received a canteen full of materials to help them build a good latrine (a square, iron thread, a tape measure). AND! Each volunteer is receiving 100 000 FCFA ($2,000) to buy the rest of the supplies necessary to build a latrine (concrete, sand, etc.). We decided that we're going to use the money and materials to build a new VIP latrine at the library in Béréba (the old one is in sad shape). We plan to use it as a model for the community for how a latrine should be properly maintained and used.

During the training, each group of 3 (volunteer and two counterparts) was asked to present a plan of action about how they are going to share the information with their communities upon their return. Peace Corps will make periodic visits to each of the 12 villages to assess the progress of our plans. Our team decided that our first priority will be training the librarians so that they will be able to hold regular activities about hygiene and latrine usage in the FAVL villages. You can check out the rest of our plans below in our official "Plan d'Action."

My lack of posting has been do to the fact that I was at a latrine training in a village in eastern Burkina, but I'm back now and with lots of exciting FAVL Burkina reports, photos and videos!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Christine Allot-Bouty, from the French organization Res Publica, joined me on a tour of the libraries in the southwest. They currently have two libraries in small villages of Burkina. She was here on a site visit, and after having come across FAVL's website, was interested in seeing our work firsthand. In the course of two days, she visited the libraries in Boni, Béréba and Karaba. It was interesting having someone who also has experience with village libraries in Burkina visit and comment on those affiliated with FAVL. Christine really liked the libraries she saw and commented several times on how our strong suit was definitely activities and getting the community to participate and come to the library. She made several suggestions based on her experience, a lot of them organizational, (like chronologically ordering the cards from books that are checked out so that it's easier to see which books are late), ofwhich the librarians and Dounko took note. She commiserated over the almost-prohibitive price of African novels in French in Burkina. She would like some of the RWA photo books to put in her own libraries. During her visit to the FAVL office in Ouaga, she asked a lot about the reading camps, and Monique gave her a lot of information about them.

I received an email from Christine, which included several photos. Here's what she had to say:

J'ai aussi eu beaucoup de plaisir à rencontrer la jeunesse américaine et échanger avec vous.  Pour Favl, tu ne peux que transmettre aux responsables mon vif intérêt pour votre travail. J'ai apprécié l'installation et le projet de chaque bibliothèque. Nous avons de notre côté deux installations et je ne peux que regretter le manque de temps sur le terrain.  On voit que FAVL a un projet pensé et structuré.

[It was a pleasure for me also to meet and exchange with young Americans. As for FAVL, you can pass along to your superiors my interest in your work. I appreciated the installation and work of each library...You can tell that FAVL is a well-conceived and structured organization.]