Last week, last things

Well things always speed up as I'm getting ready to leave.  Damien, our IT person, finally got around to looking at the new scanner that was bought for the library using money from NPC's Mission Gifts at Christmas Market.  It was a driver problem, and now it is working like a charm.  It is a book scanner which allows scanning of pages of books as you turn the pages, and enables getting rid of unwanted fingers in the image.  Click here for the short propaganda video.
The video makes it seem so easy, but it is NOT that straightforward.  On the other hand, an IT workshop participant from SIL-Cameroon saw it and is interested in buying one for the library there.

Here's the scanner

The scanner will enable us to upload scanned documents to SIL's  Repository for Electronic Archiving and Publishing (REAP) website for shared knowledge and resource preservation, and eventually to the SIL-BF website as well, which will be more user-friendly and handier to use.  There are already some scanned images of SIL publications on the SIL-BF test website.

On the proposed website, by clicking on a particular document, it could then be downloaded in the form of a pdf file.

It will also enable students to scan documents to a file and put it on their flash drives rather than having to pay for photocopying, which is a big deal here.

I did hear back from Kathryn Seay in Mali, who is not temporary but getting ready to go on furlough, and was attending a 3-week workshop. She gave me a synopsis of the SIL  Library in Mali, including some background information.  Apparently Dan Brubaker, who has worked in the library, will be soon returning from a furlough, so I'll just wait awhile and see how things pan out. Maybe a thought for a future visit.

Sunday was a visit to Simon Nacoulma's new library--now over 9 months old, and heavily in use.  I've mentioned him and his library project in an earlier posting. The library plays a major role in Simon's community organization, ICCV/Nazemce located in the Cissan neighborhood of Ouagadougou.  Janet Guizzetti drove DeJene and me there and we chatted with the librarian,  had a look at the collection, and saw the enhancements that hadn't been there last year when I visited and it was still under construction. The old library had been a popular place, and the new library building allows it to expand and play an even more important role in the community.

JeDene with the librarian, Safiata Yerbanga

children's paper crafts

The play area could use something colorful on the floor

A child's model of the library 

The atrium allows for classes and workshops

the stairs that double as seating for movies and performances

Simon describes the new books to the children  

children posing with the new books from "Auntie Pam,"

and a roof-top view of the neighborhood

I must say that it is looking very different now with shelving, furniture and books.  A year ago it was just an empty space.  And it already looks well-used!

Simon then joined us in his restaurant, La Jardinière where we were served local organic cuisine; the vegetables and herbs grown both at the restaurant, and nearby.  JeDene, being the SIL Literacy Consultant for Burkina Faso, peppered the head of one of his agricultural teams with questions about literacy levels among his workers, as he was eating nearby, and asked about the availability of local programs teaching reading in Mooré, the dominant language.  She found that those programs available were often ad hoc in nature and of short duration, when a 3 - 4 year commitment was really necessary.
 

Maquis-Restaurant Le Jardinière

locally grown organic cuisine

Janet holds up the menu so we can see what we are eating.  The beef brochettes, marinated in moringa leaves, chives and herbs, were very good. Our dishes included gaooré, zamné, baagenda and grillades au moringa. Except for the last item [the beef brochettes], I think think the names of the dishes are in Mooré, the language of the Mossi people, the dominant group here in Burkina Faso.

grillades au moringa

the kitchen manager

Pam donates some children's books to the new library

today's [beer] specials

Janet photographs the herb and vegetable garden

Painted above on the green panel are some of the local dishes we sampled while we were there.

Just a word on literacy in Burkina Faso.  JeDene commented that the participants in her recent workshop seemed less literate than those that she was accustomed to working with in Togo.  That may be attributable to the fact that in 2012, the adult literacy rate, defined as "the ability to read and write with understanding as short simple sentence about one's everyday life" was around 29% here in Burkina Faso [although projected then to to up to 36% in 2015], one of the lowest rates in Africa.  Adults are defined as being over 15 years old.  The rate is also higher for men, lower for women.  These sobering statistics are from the Unesco Institute for Statistics (UIS). Sadly, over half the adult population, those over 15 years old cannot read or write at all. 

Below is the photo of a donkey cart that JeDene took on our return trip.  Since all of my photos of donkeys, donkey carts and camels seem to have the heads cut off, or have blurry images, I am posting this one here just for fun.

Donkey and cart seen on the way back

On March 8 International Women's Day is celebrated in Burkina Faso. It is a major holiday here, when women are especially honored and fêted. I've mentioned this before, but special fabrics are made for the occasion, and many women [and some men] have  clothing made with the fabric to be worn that day.  I didn't do anything to commemorate the holiday, but the following day I went to the bank with Pam Morris, and there was a huge line so that people had to take numbers to queue up to see a teller.  It took about an hour to get Pam's transaction taken care of.  The guard jokingly said that those in waiting needed to pay for the previous day's expenses. . .

The bank queue dwindles down

On my birthday I joined Idda Niggli the the REC Center [mentioned in an earlier post] for the water aerobics class she runs.  She has always been very active, and health conscientious, trying to keep her fibromyalgia symptoms at bay.

She and Urs then had me over for lunch and a birthday "cookie/cake".

Idda and Urs Niggli

I was saddened to hear that their friend, Alice Bosch, a Swiss missionary woman that I had met 4 years ago, had died. She had visited two of the FAVL libraries near where she was working [in the village of Mangodara in the Tuy Province] because of what I had shared with her at the Niggli's home in Ouaga. I mentioned her in an earlier posting at the time because of her interest in libraries, having started her own library in the village where she was working...

My birthday "cake"

 I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up a few things in the library.  In the evening there was carry-out pizza and cribbage at Kate's place.

And the following day I was taken out for lunch to a Chinese restaurant...

 

 One thing I must say, I have not lacked for food here in Burkina Faso during my stay here...

P.S. We're not going with ResourceMate hosting our catalog since we don't have an up-to-date website to host it on, but if you want to see the demo catalog, it will be available for the next week at the following link.  Have a look...