“When you return to the States, people will ask you if you are sick. You will say, ‘yes, I am suffering from Africa.’”

Am I suffering from Africa already? It’s possible. I’ve begun to walk slower. My work ethic has become worse. I give a non-committal “eh” when I mean yes. I stare at white people. And I arrive late sometimes. Oh and yesterday, I accidentally punched a hole in my window. I swear it was accidental. Some kids were tapping on my window and trying to enter my house so I “tapped” back a little too strongly.

This blog is about an incredible organization called Books for Africa. Peace Corps Rwanda was lucky enough to be contacted by Books for Africa and most of the ed volunteers received large shipments of books to their primary schools. I honestly am not sure where the funding came from. Going through the books was a delight and these were just a few of the jewels I found:
George and Martha: One Fine Day
A Sherman Alexie book
Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
10 Ten Most Influential Rappers
Spanish books about killer whales and sharks (I’m keeping those)
Phantom Tollbooth
Goosebumps
Glow and Gleam
A book about the life of Angelina Jolie
A book based in Littleton, Colorado

My high from receiving all these books was instantly crushed when I had a conversation with officials and teachers from the primary school. They appreciate the books but need dictionaries to understand them and shelves to house them. They won’t be read while they collect dust in boxes. The school has no money for either of those, nor do I. There are two ways to look at this dilemma. I am using both viewpoints now as I decide what to do.

The first way of seeing this problem is this: “I can show you the way but it is up to you to go.” I can bring you food, but it is not by job to feed you myself. So I’ve helped you receive these books, here, it is a gift but now it is up to you to build shelves and see that they are used. The opposite way of looking at this problem is that I have ultimately failed them. And this is how development often fails Africa. I have facilitated this delivery of English books to meet the need of their new English curriculum but without a dictionary, how can they understand them? Without shelves, how can they use and organize them? Without instruction can they use them? Though my primary responsibility is teaching at the secondary school, I will make an effort every week to see that there is progress with the library. I will hound people (headmasters, education directors) about shelves and dictionaries. I will see that the books are stamped, organized and USED by the teachers and pupils. In this way, I’m finding the middle ground between those two outlooks on the shipment that I talked about above.

Books for Africa is an incredible organization. They sent containers of used/new books to Africa and the recipients must fund 25% of the shipping cost. We are currently working for a new order for our secondary schools. The need is great at my school because the school has many books for “ordinary level” (S1-S3, provided by the government) but has little to no books for the advanced level (S4-S6). Teachers at my school have had to skip whole sections in their curriculum because they do not have the books to teach. We hope to overcome this problem by the end of the school year in October. Support Books for Africa if you can!

See this article about Tressa's school and Books for Africa: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=14243&article=28496