Today I am busy working on getting some money to ship books to an African Community Library. The specific libary that we are currently working with has a building and a Librarian, but no books. The library is in, or near, Mbinga near the site where Joseph died. The building is recently completed through the work of the Teatea organization, which is six ex-Peace Corp volunteers who have an idea to build a girls school in the region, but have decided to start with a simpler project (aka the library) as a test.
In Tanzania, the younger grades are taught in Swahili, and then when the students are roughly equivalent to Junior High School age (or maybe High School?) the language of the school and the textbooks, becomes English. This adds to the difficulty of teaching anything in Tanzania! The purpose behind these libraries is to encourage people of all ages to read in English for enjoyment, with the hope that this would enhance the school experience. There are so many road blocks to the concept, but if the books are there, maybe they will be used.
One of the novelties for the Mbinga library is that there is solar lighting, so maybe, just maybe, the people will want to visit, if only to enjoy the electricity.
