But if
you want to know more, then read on.
How
online donating works: Donating to my project online is essentially the same as
giving the money to me directly. All of the money that you donate will go to
the project and none of it will go to
any outside organization. The only reason that I’m asking you to donate online
is because (1) it is easier to transfer money this way, (2) Peace Corps
monitors and helps with the grant writing process so we’re less likely to
embark on a project that is completely ill-fated and (3) it is against Peace
Corps’ rules to take money directly from friends/family because they would like
to monitor and help with our projects. All of the money will go directly to
Peace Corps, then Peace Corps will transfer the money to me and I’ll go to the
bank and take it out (in the smallest increments possible…it’s a 2.5-3 hour
bike ride each way to the bank, so it won’t be too small) stuff it down my shirt (safety first!) and then I’ll go
start spending it. Of course, everything I buy will be justified by receipts
and a final report, which will be due 3 months after the project is “complete”
(in this case, once the library is set up).
My
project: I’m setting up a library for my village and the two connected
villages. I’m working with a teacher at one of the primary schools. He
approached me about the library and when he told me that he already had a
building picked out, I was a little skeptical, but when I went to see it all I
could imagine was how the space could be transformed into a library and
community center. There are more than 8,000 people in the area and there has
never been a library, or anything like it. Classes at the local schools range
in size from 40 to 120 students, which means that it is not terribly surprising
that kids can leave school without knowing how to read. I don’t mean that they
“don’t know how to read” in the American sense when we say that about people
who do not have good reading comprehension or can’t spell particularly well. I
mean it in the very extreme sense that they look at a sentence and cannot
understand a single word of it. A short stroll around a Burkinabé classroom makes it very clear that some kids can’t read, sometimes it
is slightly harder to catch because they are very good (well, pretty good) at
copying their neighbors but when you point at a particular word and ask what it
is, they can’t tell you. Or it is obvious when there are essential words
missing from their notes or when there are scribbles that look like they might
be letters but they’re just poorly copied and when asked, the author has no
idea what they mean. It’s not the kids’ fault (sometimes it is…) but the fact
remains; the educational system is wanting.
The
library will be little more than a house with some chairs, some shelves, and
some books, but we’re trying to make it into a place where villagers can come
and learn. We’re going to focus on reading in groups, play games, do
sensibilisations (awareness campaigns about various topics like malaria,
nutrition, HIV/AIDS, etc), do arts and crafts, play sports and have some
one-on-one tutoring. We’re not, actually, going to allow the books to be
checked out. As Americans, we feel like that defeats the purpose of having a
library but (1) all of the books will disappear if we allow them to be checked
out, never to be found again, and (2) at this point, reading needs to be
guided. It’s hard to imagine picking up a book and not knowing how to use it,
but most kids experience just that. I always make kids read me the title and
the author’s name and only then can we start, but I stop them after every page
to grill them about what they had read. But, really, it’s because of reason (1).
All of the books will get stolen almost immediately. Seriously.
It’s
mind-boggling to see how little students comprehend, even when they are reading
aloud and it sounds like they understand what they’re saying. They just aren’t
accustomed to reading and they don’t see a book as a story with characters and
dialogue. I was surprised to find that average fifth graders didn’t know that
<<this>> meant that someone was speaking (in French the
<<things>> are equivalent to English’s “quotation marks”). How can
someone read a story and understand if they don’t know whether they’re reading
a description or if you’re reading what someone said?! Sometimes when the kids
are reading I try to imagine un-knowing all the things that have been drilled
into my head since I was reading Clifford books in elementary school and I can
see why reading is so difficult. It’s like learning a new language but no one
is telling you the rules or the “why” behind what you’re learning. Also,
there’s no way to practice when you’re growing up in village. There are few, if
any, books available to you and most of them that do exist are above your
reading level and/or completely irrelevant (some kids once found a donated a
book about a polar bear and his adventures… I had a real awkward time trying to
explain that one… « Il est un ours. Qu’est-ce que un ours ?
Uhhhhm un ours est un animal…comme un chien mais très très grand et il va
manger les gens ! Il habite dans la neige. Qu’est-ce que la neige ?
Uhhhhhhhm c’est comme la glace aux boissons. Oui, mais c’est partout ! Il
fait tellement froid ! Non, ce n’est pas comme la saison froide ici. Il ne
fait jamais froid ici. Il faut lire la damn histoire. »).
At any
rate, for both my sitemate and myself, we’ve been dying to address this
problem. We’ve tried setting up a library at the middle school (where Beth
teaches and there were previous volunteers who tried to put books in a room and
call it a library, much like we’re doing) but it is hard to keep libraries
regulated in this country. How are we planning on regulating this library, you
might be asking, and that is an excellent
question. I’ve been stewing on that for weeks. This is what I’ve come up with
(lower your expectations; it’s not much: we can (a) collect membership fees
(easier said than done) or (b) harass the mayor until he gives us money or (c)
set up some sort of IGA (income generating activity) for the library and we’ll
set it up in a way that the money doesn’t get stolen and that people are
motivated to actually do the IGA (definitely possible while we’re still here,
but after we leave…?) or (d) link up with some library in the States or
something that will be willing to shell out
180 000,00 F CFA ($360 USD) each year to keep the library going or
(E) something else? As you can see, this is not really a plan. It’s kind of a
vague presenting of options, but this is the best that I can come up with at
the moment. Why? Well, the truth is that libraries are a completely foreign
concept to Burkinabé so at this point they don’t know
what they want and whether or not a library is something that they would like
to maintain. I can try to explain it to them, but there’s really no substitute
for seeing something for themselves.
I can
offer one example in particular: last year we ran our flagship Camp H.E.E.R.E.
(which many of you donated to, which, by the way, thank you…!) and no one
really knew what a camp was or why one would want to do a camp. My village
watched while Beth and I biked around with stuff piled on our bikes and thought
(or so I imagine) “there goes those crazy white people again……….” However,
after camp, the kids were SO happy (we could hardly get them to leave) and a
number of local officials who had been skeptical about the project were over
the moon about what a great thing this was for kids in the region. They were
talking excitedly about Camp H.E.E.R.E. 2013 and Camp H.E.E.R.E. 2014 and
BEYOND and we were like “right….we’re exhausted and the thought of another camp
makes us just want to vomit… but love the enthusiasm, thanks! And now…we’re
packing up and sleeping for 12 hours straight… but hang onto that enthusiasm!”
The point here is that they didn’t know what a camp was and we had tried to
explain it, but it took having it and having the community to participate for
the explanation to really sink in.
Thus,
with the library, I think that the same will be true. They can’t decide if they
want it or not if they don’t see it and experience it for themselves. I can’t
guarantee that the library will survive after Beth and I leave; but I can
guarantee that there won’t be a library at
all if we don’t get it started while we’re still here. If the village
decides not to maintain it and laisser tomber, then fair enough, it just wasn’t
meant to be. Personally, I will be devastated (I literally have nightmares
about the library falling through and that I can’t get into grad school (or pay
for it) and I just end up wandering the streets hopelessly…I always wake up
kind of crying. Also: I am on some pretty strong anti-malarial drugs that make
my dreams abnormally distressing. So. There’s that.) but the fact remains if
the community doesn’t want/isn’t ready for a library, then it is not. So we’ll
have to laisser tomber. However, on the off chance that they are ready and do
want a library, I’m trying to get another volunteer to replace me so that the
new volunteer can regulate the library until someone in the village is ready to
take it on. It could take years. That honestly would not surprise me; in fact,
it would surprise me if it didn’t
take years.
Beth’s
Project: Completely by coincidence, my site mate is launching a similar project
at the same time as me. We talked about it, however, and we’ve realized that
the projects go hand-in-hand perfectly so we’re going to be working on both
projects together. She wants to purchase a set of books for each of the primary
schools which the teachers can check out and use in their classrooms. She also
wants to do a formation which will teach teachers how to use a set of books to
do small group reading or other reading comprehension activities with their
classes. The formation will, if things work out, be held at the library where
they can also learn about the library and what sort of things we hope to make
available at the library. As you can see, this project and mine are closely
linked and, honestly, it will only be an extension of what Beth and I are
already doing with the kids in our communities (except this time it will be
funded!).
How much
I’m asking for: I’m asking for $3,100 and my site mate, Beth, is asking for
$2,200.
What
that money will purchase: For Beth, that money will purchase a set of books for
each primary school (probably in the form of “Bouba and Zaza” books which are
kids’ books that are written in French, illustrated, geared towards West Africa
and always have some good messages). She’ll also purchase a shelf for each
primary school (no, they don’t already have shelves. They barely have desks for
all the students. Keep those expectations nice ‘n low, where they belong).
For me,
it will pay for tables, chairs, paint, screens for the windows, repairing the
ceiling of the building, a hangar for outdoor learning, portable chalkboards,
fencing, a latrine and other essentials for the building and then I have 100
books in the budget, which is not a ton of books, but it is a pretty decent
start, especially for here. I also have budgeted 4 000 F CFA ($8) for
“labor” and when the teacher that I’m working with saw that he was like “that
is not nearly enough!” and he laughed because he thought I’d made a typo. Nope.
I was like “you, me and everyone else will be working for free but the $8 is
for some Nescafe and snacks…Hope you have a shovel and are ready to get dirty.”
And he looked at me for a second, clearly thinking “girl, you’re out of your
mind…” then he shrugged, shook his head and was like “…Americans....” and just
let me write it. He’s learned a valuable lesson; it’s better not to argue with
deranged American girls on a mission.
All of
the materials will be purchased by myself, Beth, the teacher (Zephirin) and
other volunteers (and my counterpart, who is not technically a volunteer, but I
have his phone number and I know where he lives so he often gets conscripted
into my crazy schemes) and transported by the same people. I’ve carted a chair
around on the back of my bike and a different time I transported a table. Ten
bucks says that I can do both at the same time. If I can’t, some confused
children on a donkey cart will pick up the slack. At any rate, by donating,
you’re giving the bare minimum for materials (and I’ll be purchasing them from
local sources, whenever possible, because I don’t want to transport them very
far). It’s probably the most bang for your buck that you’ll ever get if you’re
donating to any charity, ever. I promise that I will haggle a good price on all
materials… I’ve got enough local language and cute smiles to get a decent price
and, if that’s not enough, I’ve also got a pretty solid amount of RAGE if all
of the niceties fail.
Conclusion:
I hope you’ll donate. It really is going to a good cause. This is my pet
project, my baby, but 17 months in this country has taught me not to get too
attached to anything (if you do, it will undoubtedly get stolen, broken, or
otherwise demolished) so if the library doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. Do
what you can. Direct others to the project. But otherwise, don’t stress about
it. I’ve been in the
eating-raman-noodles-sleeping-on-a-cot-stealing-ketchup-packets-from-restaurants
phase (actually, I’m still in it…but I’m in a lower budget version…I WISH I had
raman noodles and ketchup packets…!) and if I’m incredibly lucky I’ll be in it
again (grad school…?) so I totally get it if cashmoney is tight. But if you
have cash to spare, hope you’ll donate to myself and Beth.
Links
(for donating):
Also, if
you donate, PLEASE leave your name! If you type your name in, it will only go
to me (or Beth, if you donate to her project). Otherwise, I will have no idea
who donated to my project and I won’t know who to thank!
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