I think this is a fair title since I’ve just come from a bike ride to our farm. In Ghana as in many countries the farmers live in the towns and cities and go outside the town to work the land. The farmland Hilda inherited from her mother lies about twenty minutes walk outside the town. I love to ride my bike there because it’s faster, good exercise and a little exciting. From the dirt feeder road running past the farm you follow a winding dirt path about 400 yards into the forest, so I get a little cheap “dirt bike thrills” in the course of the visit.
We planted about a hundred grapefruit root stock ten years ago and then grafted on Valencia orange and tangerine. We have about forty surviving viable trees, but for the past two years we haven’t harvested a single orange. Our grove lies so close to the path that passersby pluck them before we can harvest them, or rather before our nephew can harvest them since by harvest time in September we are still in the States. In addition to oranges we have some pineapple, cashew, coconut, palm nut, banana and plantain trees. We also grow cassava ( a root crop from which tapioca is made) and cocoyam. There are a few cocoa trees the source of chocolate; Ghana is the world’s leading producer.
On another topic, Hilda and I are excited about two visitors we had yesterday. One man came from a small town on a hilltop in the Volta Region called Teteman-Buem; it is on the same latitude as Jasikan but 20 miles east. The other visitor was the chief of the small town of Woe which is also in the Volta Region of Ghana, but located on the coast close to the town of Keta on the eastern coastline. Both men represent towns which came to us last Saturday when we held a meeting of all the applicants for books in 2006. We had representatives from eleven towns. Each town was required to prove that they were ready to receive books by showing us pictures of bookshelves, tables, benches, fans and lights. Unfortunately, only one town attending the meeting was able to qualify. We gave the rest three weeks to come again with photographic proof to qualify. We stated that the first to come would be the first to receive books up to our quota of six libraries for the January through March work period.
The visitors brought the proof that we needed yesterday and so we have added those two very rural towns to our list of towns to be served in 2006. We were really excited for them. We all just thanked God for the opportunity that the library would bring to their townspeople. It is no small thing to bring such a rich resource to a town where most of the students don’t have books in their primary and middle schools. When a library appears in these quiet, sparsely populated areas, the children close from school around 2:30 pm and go and feast with the books in the library. The secondary students from the surrounding areas are a bit better off as far as textbooks, but the libraries in secondary schools are poorly stocked if they exist at all. So into these out of the way places we can bring your gifts of books and resources. I have seen the secondary and vocational-technical school students sitting at tables in the library at mid-afternoon pouring over library books and laboriously copying notes. It is a stirring sight and making these resources available is an exciting thing.
Last week we made two runs down to the capital Accra and to the port of Tema. We believe the container of books has now arrived at the port but our papers are not yet ready. We have more offices to visit, papers to be stamped and signed, collated and stapled. It looks like we go again this coming Monday, November 28th and probably one more time before we go the final time to bring the books from the port to Kukurantumi. The final day is always the hardest… eight hours in the port, and four or more getting the container on the tractor trailer and hauling it back up here. I take a resigned attitude with it; the books get here when they get here.
I just took a call from another small town way to the north, Ta-am puram. You have to travel six miles north out of Bolgatanga and then branch off on a dirt road to the right for another six miles or so. A far place it is. The man called to thank us for hosting them last weekend and to say that they had almost finished the bookshelves. Such efforts on behalf of Ghanaians to help themselves make it all worthwhile.
The reality behind Books For Africa Library Project is that here in Ghana and there in the USA people have made some sacrifices and have done the work to bring valuable resources to the poorest and weakest in society. There’s a lot of little work and a lot of little sacrifices, annoyances and secret blessings involving many people in the process, but in the end there is a gift of God brought into being. The work by many hands is a work of love and that makes the whole thing a benefit to humankind and a glory to God. Thanks for joining us in the work.
Yours,
Kirt and Hilda
