The Power of a Book

 May 15, 2014

There is an eleven year old girl living next to my who wants me to take her to America. I ask what she thinks America is like and she is quickly joined by several young mothers and relatives anxious to hear what I have to say. The young girl has no idea of what America is like, but that does not dampen her desires. I ask her what year she is in school. She replies she is not currently in school, but she went to kindergarten last year. Her father is a student at Cuttington University and so is one of her sisters.

I describe school as a place where you have to go every day. If you miss, the school calls your home to ask why. If your parents do not send you to school, they can be fined. Children do homework almost every day , and teachers correct what they do. This is as foreign to her as Liberian education is to me.

I tell the people sitting around that the young girl would have trouble in an American school due to her age and her inability to read. She responds that she can read.  I get her an entry level picture book about a Liberian girI, called ”Marpu Goes to Market”*. Of course, she cannot read it. I give it to her to take home with instructions to read it to me the next day.

The next day outside my door, she calls me, book in hand. She has the story memorized and can tell it by looking at the pictures. She is amazingly close with the written words, but really can’t read them. I say she can keep the book.

A few hours later I hear her surrounded by a group of younger children, as she recites the story to them. She is in her glory which is shared by other adults who pass by.

This morning I hear the little children talking about Marpu. Marpu is a popular girl. I am struck by the impact of a simple reader in a land where there are no reading materials in the homes and books are a rarity in schools. The drives me even harder to get these readers into the schools with the stipulation children can take them home to read to others.

I am hearing similar stories about the books handed out during the mentoring program. Peace Corps is interested in maybe extending the program after I leave.

*Marpu is a young girl who has some money and goes to the market. All the things she wants are too expensive. She goes into a bookstore and finds a picture book she likes, but can’t afford that either. Marpu decides to save her money until she gets enough to buy the book.