{"id":2028,"date":"2017-11-21T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T18:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/welcometable\/?p=2028"},"modified":"2017-11-21T15:18:45","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T22:18:45","slug":"african-storybooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/welcometable\/2017\/11\/african-storybooks\/","title":{"rendered":"African Storybooks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"20171110_004945\"<\/a>A couple of weeks ago, while I was in Lodja, Democratic Republic of Congo, I was invited to a huge family gathering in honor of a powerful man who had gone from Lodja to important positions in the country\u2019s capital.\u00a0 There were at least one hundred people gathered to celebrate him and to greet me.\u00a0 They danced, shouted, trilled, and otherwise rejoiced. At one point, a little girl came forward with her plastic doll.\u00a0 The girl was a short-cropped beauty, dark and adorable.\u00a0 Her doll, however\u2013a good-sized one typical of what an American girl might find under a Christmas tree\u2013had blonde hair and blue eyes.\u00a0 She timidly pushed it towards me.\u00a0 This doll was a cultural connection, an \u201cI have something that looks like you!\u201d bridge. I smiled in recognition. Yes, that was an American doll, and the doll bore some resemblance to one of my grandchildren.<\/p>\n

My role at that moment was to just be present, to enjoy the people.\u00a0 My presence in Africa, however, always suggests power simply because of the cultural dynamics.\u00a0 Though my American home is modest by American standards, my access to pretty much anything I want is unimaginable to those gathered around me in Lodja to celebrate one of their own. I would not even attempt to describe the Thanksgiving feast which awaited me after my long flight from the Congo to Utah, USA.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Americans (myself included) do not \u201cget\u201d Africa.\u00a0 The image of the starving African is certainly drawn from reality, but the whole truth of what it means to be African\u2013to have an ancestry which experienced kings, queens, chiefs, tribal wars, glory, slavery, and greatness, and now celebrates family with unfettered joy and swaying hips\u2013that Africa is beyond comprehension.\u00a0 Any American who presumes to understand it is simply being arrogant.\u00a0 This is a lesson I learned from my linguist father as he became fluent in dialects in many countries, and which I continue to learn as I discuss philosophy with my husband.\u00a0 The \u201cother\u201d (meaning the other person, even a person as close as a brother or sister) is infinitely unknowable.\u00a0 This is even more true when there are cultural divides.\u00a0 Nonetheless, that unknowable \u201cother\u201d also calls us to responsibility.\u00a0 Within it, that mysterious face carries the command, as Levinas said, \u201cThou shalt not kill.\u201d But the command goes deeper than that and into the New Testament directive:<\/p>\n

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.<\/span> (James 1:27)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Every face we encounter as we live out our mortal lives calls us to help.\u00a0 We will not be able to help more than a few of those we meet, but we are hard-wired for compassion, and in our most natural state, we will yearn to help at least those few.\u00a0 Approaching that responsibility must mean the complete surrender of presumption or prejudice.\"20171110_003835\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I speak about literacy in the DR-Congo, some Americans suggest that Kindles would work great.\u00a0 Unlimited libraries on devices no larger than a notebook. It sounds easy and wonderful!\u00a0 Of course, these good-hearted souls don\u2019t have a real sense of the starting point for our projects.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have a Kindle unless you have the ability to charge it.\u00a0 And having books on hand won\u2019t help anyone who can\u2019t read.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cbush,\u201d where many of the children I met live, there is no electricity.\u00a0 The sun governs the day.\u00a0 And in many parts, there are no schools.\u00a0 Even in places where schools exist, education is not free.\u00a0 It costs $12. USD a month for a family to educate their child\u2013and the school is not always within walkable distance.\u00a0 Some choose not to do it, or simply cannot afford it.<\/p>\n

\"20171110_005015\"<\/a>My efforts during my August trip to the DR-Congo were all about assessment.\u00a0 What do they have?\u00a0 What do they need?\u00a0 Where do we start?<\/p>\n

On my second day there during that August trip, I discovered the site African Storybooks.<\/a>\u00a0 I was thrilled!\u00a0 The characters were African, and I could print the booklets in French.\u00a0 The children would be reading stories about people who looked like them and who knew the kind of life they lived!\u00a0 I had a printer with me, and printed about one hundred booklets, which were distributed to four schools in Kinshasa.\u00a0 As preparation for my November trip to do follow-up and to attend a film festival (we are also working with Bimpa Productions in Kinshasa to get cinema up and running in the country), I printed out 250 booklets and took them as flat-pages at the bottom of my largest suitcase.<\/p>\n

\"20171110_003824\"<\/a>In Lodja, I began putting the books together, reinforcing them with folded construction paper.\u00a0 I worked with a Congolese scholar, On Okundji Ekanga Blaise Veron, who is also a Catholic priest.\u00a0 \u201cAbbe Veron\u201d\u00a0 gave up a lucrative professorship in France to return to his war-torn village and build hope. His main concern when I met him during the August trip was that the young people were in a moral vacuum with no plans for a good future\u2013or even a sense that one was possible.<\/p>\n

As one who teaches creative writing and tells students that they will never write well if they don\u2019t read widely, I recognize the importance of books\u2013and particularly fiction books, which push the imagination to inspire students to dream, to envision a future, to dare to explore possibilities beyond the obvious.\u00a0 I knew that these books could be the beginning of new dreams in the Congo, and of a future not yet imagined, but which will be. These books could be a huge part of restoring hope to a place disrupted by the chaos of war.<\/p>\n

I looked especially for titles which told success stories.\u00a0 In the future, I plan on volunteering for African Storybooks in supplementing their archive with stories from the Congo, and with translations into some of the dialects there.\u00a0 The resource is vital.<\/p>\n

The books use full color pictures, which mattered to me.\u00a0 My printing cost for 250 books was about $400. That money came from my husband\u2019s and my personal funds, and was some of the best-spent money of our lives.<\/p>\n

The look on the children\u2019s faces when they perused these books which would now comprise their storybook library?\u00a0 Well, see for yourself.<\/p>\n

\"20171110_002216\"<\/a>\"20171110_003830\"<\/a>\"20171110_003842\"<\/a>\"20171110_003804\"<\/a>\"20171110_003752\"<\/a>\"20171110_002127\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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If you are interested in getting involved, contact me directly.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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