Almost Friday...

No internet time yesterday--we were working! Got there at 7.30 and learned how to do statistics: sorting books left out on the tables by class, then reshelving, then counting those and new clients and overdues, etc. We also worked on filling out accessions registers: each new book must be recorded in a big ledger. That is the only inventory--there is no catalog, let alone an OPAC. To find a book, users have to know the class numbers and just browse from there.

At some point, Max let us know we would go to the museum to see an art exhibition. Kind of to show the library's face at a local event. We learned a little about the history of the tribe and saw some art, including amazing things woven out of plastic bags and formed from papier mache. The tribe is called the bakwema: the people of the crocodile. Our compound wall has paintings of crocodiles on it. We learned that you're not allowed to eat your totem animal, so no crocodile meat for me.

After stopping home for lunch, we worked some more on the accession registers. Max was gone, and the staff, who had been eyeing us for some time, finally told us that we were making them look bad by "punishing ourselves." We had run headfirst into the wall of a different cultural concept of work. Just to see what it was like, we sat out in the trailer with the staff and chatted. They do that for most of the day. Absolutely no work. Sometimes there was not even staff in the library at all! It was a learning experience.

This morning we did stats again and typed up our plans before Angelina visited us from UB. She was pleased with what we were planning, and we discussed a couple of issues. Then she dropped us off at the College of Education, where the new batch of Peace Corps Volunteers was being sworn in. The US Ambassador was there, and the big kgosi, and the national coordinator of HIV/AIDS programming. The volunteers are interesting--5 will stay in Moleps and the other 51 will spread all over the country. It will be good to have some contact with other Americans.

Then home for lunch, and the kgosi invited us to see his farm this afternoon, so after 5 hours of work this morning, we're off!