Progress

At last, the bookmobile truck is nearly ready! After three months of stagnation (me going to see the mechanic; me seeing that no progress had been made on the truck whatsoever; me yelling at the mechanic; mechanic swearing he will start right away - this cycle repeated many times, to the point that everyone at the mechanic's garage knows my name) the truck has been mostly repaired. It's an old delivery vehicle that we are transforming into a moving library. So, sliding windows were installed up top to provide ventilation and light. Just recently they painted the truck bright red, with cheerful white lettering on the side: Book Mobile, it says, "Books for the Community", along with the 10,000 Girls website address and logo. On the reverse side we plan to put a quote: "Educate a girl - pathway to Paradise" in four different languages: Arabic, English, French, and Wolof. Hopefully that turns out well too. Then, just a few more mundane repairs to do, and the installment of shelves to store the books, and we are ready to hit the road!
This afternoon I am in Kaolack, with a script written in French and Wolof of the story "The Frog Prince". The Kaolack Volunteer has a weekly radio show, and this week I agreed to help him out. There have been a variety of topics: health/nutrition, American culture, local-language shoutouts (for those Pulaar and Serere minorities!) and, now, story hour. The story, in French, is followed by a summary in Wolof (I did my best, though I don't know how to translate concepts like "princess" oe "bad fairy" in that language...hopefully people don't get too confused), and encouraging people to seek out books on their own. Unfortunately, books are not readily availible. There are little "librairies" selling whatever random texts they may have come across. Also, deep in the Kaolack market there are vendors with tables of books for sale, everything from old school textbooks to American novels left behind by God-knows-who ages ago. However, these are often expensive, the selection sporadic, and not easy to come by. Some schools might have small libraries, and there is a collection as well at the Alliance Francaise. But, for most people, books are a rarity. Just this weekend, we spent two days doing an intensive cleaning of the house. We ended up culling all the magazines older than 2007, which made a huge stack outside our front door. Just last night, walking home after buying sandwiches, we passed by a group of maybe twenty young men engrossed in our old magazines. Every page was gone by morning. Reading is good!