Opening ceremony of the Pobe Mengao library!

Bibliotheque Villageoise de Pobe Mengao is now officially open! The opening ceremony was held on April 6^th, 2010. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, with several speeches, traditional dancing, an official tour and of course, feasting! Everyone was really curious, impressed and excited about the new library.

Since its opening the library is getting more and more visitors, the vast majority being students (which is obviously a great thing). Every day they come to sit and read or play with the puzzles/games.Hamidou has already begun doing activities, like reading and story telling.

The library consists of the main reading room, an outdoor, enclosed, back-patio game area; a front outdoor hangar area, and a study room complete with chalkboard and tables for students. There is the cultural room, where we plan to keep all sorts of artifacts, books, research materials on the Korumba culture (still in the works) and a storage room. We still have lots of work, areas of improvement in the future.

Its been great seeing the students come in, grab a book and sit down to read. Their reading levels are not where they should be, and Im hoping the library will be able to improve this, even improve their overall grades.

New library members checking out books...and bringing them home

Donkui, Adama and myself during the opening ceremony