And the Winners Are…

The month of November was previously designated as the reading competition month for the 6eme (equivalent of 6th grade) students in Niankorodougou. Moussa and I passed by all of the 6eme classrooms at the start of the month to announce details of the competition… all 6eme students were invited to participate by either sitting and reading at the library or by signing up as library members to take books home. Each student had a list of books they read. After finishing a book, students would return to the library and give Moussa a short summary of the story and characters and he would sign off on their reading list.

 

I am happy to announce the three top readers of the 6eme class. Drum roll please!

 

Moussa Ouattara

 

 

Coming in third place, Moussa Ouattara read six books. His favorite book was Le Fete du Lion. He liked reading about the lion who didn’t have any friends and was always alone.

 

Yasia Ganame

 

 

In second place, Yasia Ganame read seven books. His favorite book was Les Trois Jumeaux because it was a funny story about triplet brothers with the morale that you shouldn’t mock other people because you never knew what might happen to you.

 

Soumaila Ouattara

 

 

And our first place reader was Soumaila Ouattara with eight books. Soumaila preferred the book Afi et la Tambour Magique because it was interesting and had magic in it.

 

Each of these students received a notebook and ruler and were given stars on our “Reading Superstar” poster hanging in the library. The students were especially excited because the notebooks and rulers were sent from America.

 

All secondary students have break during the month of December, so we will be continuing the competition for the 5eme class (equivalent of 7th grade) in January.

Another Busy Month: November at a Glance

The month of November continued the trend for growing numbers of library members, visits and borrowed books. This past month we:

 

·         Signed up 40 new library members (34 students and 6 adults)

 

·         Had 348 books borrowed and

 

·         Had 2767 library visits!

 

A Little Late But Still Grand Opening

As many of you may already know, we first opened our library doors in June of 2008 and have been signing up members and lending books since then. Throughout the summer months the majority of community members, adults and children alike, were out working in their fields and government employed teachers and officials went to larger cities for vacation. And so we never had an official opening ceremony.

 

 

With vacation over and everyone back in village now, the library committee and librarian were thrilled to host a grand opening at the library on November 9th. Village officials, teachers and members of the parents’ school boards, students, friends and family were all invited to join us for the celebration. The mayor, librarian and I gave speeches on how the library started and how it would serve the community and the librarian organized a short theatre skit with several regular library visitors. Local musicians performed for the audience between speeches. And then we had a ribbon cutting by the mayor and school inspector.

 

 

 

        

 

   

 

 

Everyone invited came to the ceremony and many people who weren’t “officially” invited stopped by to join in the festivities. All of the speeches and the theatre skit were done in the local language so that everybody present could understand the benefits of the library. Once speeches and the theatre performance were finished, I was pleasantly surprised that everyone who came waited around to get a tour of the library with Moussa (the librarian).

 

I couldn’t have been happier with how the ceremony turned out, and the most gratifying part of the day was when over an hour after we had finished four older ladies from the community were still sitting in the library reading over our collection of books in local language! These women have just recently learned how to read as part of an outreach program going on throughout Burkina Faso but they had never been to the library before then. I’ve told them about the library many times in my limited local language but apparently they never understood what the library was for. But now they know! They know that the library is there for them and the rest of the community and I can’t wait to see them back reading.