Buying the book wasn’t an easy decision, since it cost about a third of my monthly Peace Corps stipend, but I love it, from its detailed descriptions of goat entrail divination and banana leaf raincoats, to its complete non-coverage of the war. While that can seem like an oversight, it’s great to have something that validates the fact that Rwandan history and culture did not begin and end in 1994. We happily added it to the stack of books on our coffee table—books that we use for learning Kinyarwanda, like a Kinyarwanda comic book and our phrase books, but that we also like sharing with guests, who will look at them for hours. Rwandans are hungry to learn English, since the government switched from French to English as the official language really abruptly in January of 2009 (our Kinyarwanda-English dictionary will be in tatters soon). Moreover, people have just not had access to books in Kinyarwanda, aside from bibles and hymnals.
While I was prepared for Rwanda to be poor, I was not prepared for the level of “book poverty.” Books here are scarce and expensive. I can probably count on my hand-- maybe even one hand-- the number of bookstores in the country, and while there is a library project in the capital, it has yet to open. Because I grew up in a rural area, I compare my experience to that or rural kids here all the time. For instance, I loved the public library. Tiffin had a wonderful one, and it was where I gained my interest in a broader world. In junior high, when I went to school across the street, I went there almost every day. In recent hypothetical baby name conversations with Tom, my request for girl’s name is both the name of my favorite author and my children’s librarian. I am that kind of person. When I saw a Rwandan coworker rapt, flipping through my bosses’ kids’ copy of Pat the Bunny, for the first time,* it made me want to hijack a bookmobile and bring it here.
Rwanda is dependent on the knowledge and skills of its people to survive. Farming is already incredibly intense here, there is little in the way of mineral wealth, its hope lies with its people, and there are a lot. This is the most population dense country in Africa, after all. Some of the skills they need to compete in a global economy are language and computer skills. These are things that a library can provide. But libraries and books, and, importantly, programs that promote and optimize the use of libraries and books, can promote a love of learning, as well as just providing a source of joy. For this reason, I am really excited about an initiative started by Peace Corps volunteers, the Books for Peace Project. 14 volunteers, 14 different communities, are working with Books for Africa to deliver a cargo container of books and computers to their villages, scattered across the country. Communities agree raise a certain amount themselves, for example, by hiring a librarian, and building a space for books to be kept and used. Because there is community ownership of the project, and a volunteer dedicated to the project, they will avoid some of the problems I have seen, where there are books, but no interest in them, or no access to them. Books are expensive and irreplaceable here, I understand, but it was so sad to see a collection of books, lovingly donated by an American, sitting pristine and untouched, locked in the cabinet in the school headmaster’s office.
These resources are going to help add to the educational experience of poor rural kids, as well as urban street kids, and provide resources for staff at health centers. The program has raised a considerable amount of money, but has over $7,000 to go. I hope you’ll visit their site and consider contributing (you can also contact the point person listed there for more information).
As I switched sites, I am not involved in this round, but plan to be involved in participate in the next, and try to bring a little booklove to my new home. I’ll keep anyone who’s interested updated here.
*The realization that they had probably also never read The Velveteen Rabbit was devastating.
