It’s been exactly 18 months now since I left the village of Niankorodougou and Burkina Faso. I’ve missed everything and everyone there but have been happy to know what amazing things have happened in my absence. Adelaide has kept me up to date about all of the goings on of the library and the community. [...]

It has been awhile since Adelaide or I have posted an update about all of the great things happening at the library. And I am happy to tell you all that things are great! I don’t have any pictures to share with you at the moment, but I just got news from Adelaide. Last month [...]

After a sweltering hot summer followed by a non-existent and then potentially catastrophic rainy, it will be so nice to sit back without the need of a paper or palm leaf created fan for air-circulation. Welp, not exactly. This is still Burkina. But it does mean that all of the surrounding villages youngest and brightest [...]

Over the past trimester, the library hosted two reading competitions with the 5eme and 4eme classes of Niankorodougou’s CEG (US junior high equivalent). After the final comprehension tests were taken, and tallies totaled, statistics digitally verified (errr on this —its africa!), Moussa presented the top three readers of each grade with a folder, pencil, and [...]

I arrived in Niankorodougou on December 28th from Ouahigouya, Burkina’s dusty northern city and was immediately taken aback. As a Peace Corps Small Enterprise Development (SED) Volunteer, most of my time training had been spent in villages larger than 10,000 people. I had not had many experiences with the small communities that comprise Burkina’s myriad [...]

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 [...]

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!         

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 [...]

The school year started back up again for primary and secondary students the second week of October and as expected…more students returning to village equals more students visiting the library. I am happy to report that in the month of October we signed up 46 new library members (36 students and 10 adults), had 193 [...]

Just last week I was in the nearby city of Banfora and stopped at the post office where I previously had a PO Box (I have since changed my PO Box to the city of Bobo). I was pleasantly surprised when one of the post office employees recognized me and informed me that I had [...]

On Tuesday, September 2nd the community of Niankorodougou was happy to welcome Brian Rhodes as its newest member. Brian arrived in Burkina Faso from Boulder, CO on June 11th and has spent the last three months in the city of Ouahigouya training to become a Peace Corps volunteer. On August 29th, he officially swore in [...]

With the rainy season coming to an end in Burkina, each day seems to be getting hotter and hotter. Community members are slowly starting to return to the village from their fields and so I am happy to report that along with the rising temperature, the number of library visits and members keeps going up. [...]

This past week I had my Close of Service Conference in Ouagadougou to discuss administrative and medical procedures for leaving Peace Corps Burkina, saying goodbye to my village and readjusting to life back in the states. I won’t be leaving the country until December 10th, but an important part of the conference was discussing how [...]

With the grant proposal from Friends of Burkina Faso and book donations from Our Mother of Consolation, Greenwoods Charter School and Friends of African Village Libraries, we officially opened our library the first week of June with a collection of 300+ books! And we still have $3000 of the $4000 grant to purchase more books [...]

Here in Burkina Faso, we have an expression “West African International Time – WAIT.” After a year of discussing logistics, researching possible partnerships with NGOs, finding a suitable library building, making necessary repairs to the building, organizing a motivated library committee and finding a capable librarian - Niankorodougou does not have to wait any longer. [...]