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President's Message
Brooks Goddard
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Dear friends and fellow TEAArs, Greetings from Boston where the temperature is as hot as our sports teams. How I'd like a Kilimanjaro lager now. Grant proposals have followed Bill Jones and Henry Hamburger's April visit to East Africa. In addition to our usual support of textbooks, science equipment, and computers, Bill has been very persuasive in urging TEAA to support recreational reading in schools. We have awarded the first grant in this area at schools where participation has been promised. This reading initiative has been reinforced in my mind by attendance at a July seminar on South African Children's Literature hosted by Simmons College in Boston and a group called South African Partners/SAP (sapartners.org) which has a program called Masifunde Sonke/Let's Read Together. The vehicle for this program is attractive because it is predicated on supplying books published in South Africa about South Africa to schools overseas as well as in RSA. The program works this way. SAP sells books overseas for slightly above retail price; one book is bought by an overseas customer who takes it away with her/him and one is then set aside for a needy South African school. My thinking is that we could organize a similar program in East Africa; we already have the names of publishers in each country. The program appears to be a win-win situation. More later. Atlanta 09 has begun its planning stage chaired by Shelby Lewis; the dates selected are Oct 2 to 5th, 2009 (Oct 9-12 alternative), so please put that event in your future planning. One event will be held in conjunction with the Carter Center and its work in Africa. We are looking to have over 100 in attendance and hope that friends will not let friends miss out on the gathering. Going back to East Africa. Method #1, the biennial visit to TEAA-supported schools. Henry Hamburger has been the chief practitioner of this kind of trip. Nothing like seeing our schools firsthand and using that famed method of transportation, the boda-boda. Method #2, the occasional TEAA group trip . Brooks Goddard was the organizer of Kampala 03 and Dar 05: a combination of education school conference, school visits, and sightseeing. Might be time to consider EA 10 or 11. Method #3, take your kids, take your grandchildren. Safari njema. Why not visit a school or two along the way? Method #4, edu-travel. Consider forming a small group of folks who might like to contribute to TEAA in a major way and take them first to schools and sightseeing. It is extraordinarily powerful to see firsthand education needs. I'd love to hear from those interested in returning to EA in the next 3 years. Books. I have several books on Africa on my 'to read' list including two by Kenyan authors, The Mzungu Boy by Meja Mwangi and Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiongo. Anybody already read either one? In return I can recommend The Gunny Sack by M. G. Vassanji and Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah. I would love to know about other fiction from East Africa. I recently read Tim Jeal's new biography of Stanley, titled appropriately Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer. Talk about a man who walked the walk! And, finally, the mini-reunion. Wave IVB is having its first get together in late August in Enosburg Falls, Vermont, at the home of Ward and Cheryl Heneveld. We're having folks from California, Indiana, and Pennsylvania as well as New England. And we'll be telephoning age-mate Mike Rainy at his camp in Amboseli. Let Ed Schmidt know of your group's gatherings and keep checking our website, www.tea-a.org. Salaamu, Brooks G. goddard@rcn.com |