Sunday, January 27, 2008

The load on that camel's back? BOOKS


I am so glad to know that this is going on in the world....

There is a Bookmobile delivering books to the most remote and impoverished corner of Northeastern Kenya. This I already love, but get this: the "mobile" parts are camels. Here's a description from their website http://camelbookdrive.wordpress.com/:


"Though The Camel Bookmobile (HarperCollins, April 2007, a Booksense pick) is a novel, the camel-borne library actually exists. It operates from Garissa in Kenya’s isolated Northeastern Province near the unstable border with Somalia. Initially launched with three camels on Oct. 14, 1996, the library now uses 12 camels traveling to four settlements per day, four days per week. The camels bring books to a semi-nomadic people who live with drought, famine and chronic poverty. The books are spread out on grass mats beneath an acacia tree, and the library patrons, often barefoot, sometimes joined by goats or donkeys, gather with great excitement to choose their books until the next visit. The books are written in English or Swahili, the two official languages of Kenya."


I gotta read that novel, too.

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