Book harvesting...part 1

Many people who left school in Kenya more than 5 years ago, may not know what this is all about. I must confess I didn't know what it was till I got invited to one. I was gonna simply talk about this particular book harvesting, but I realise in fact the topic can be given a wider scope, as far as my "book harvesting" experience is concerned. To make things clear, "book harvesting" ofically is a sort of "harambee" to harvest books for a school. Now, before I tell you how, you'll ask me why would a school need to harvest books, What happened to the school library? This is where my second point comes in. Where did the books we used in school go to?


The answer to this second question is to be found in the streets and back streets of Nairobi. As an avid reader and a teacher, I've always loved purchasing books. Now, there're some books that truly marked my growing up. The syllabus books, novels you name it. In July 2005 when I went to Kenya, I decided I was gonna look for all those books we ready in primary school, put them in my library for posterity. To my chagrin, I realised after checking with Text Book centre and other reputable libraries in the city that msot of these books were not to be found any more as either they're no longer used in the syllabus, or they're simply out of print. When I told my little brother about my sad fate, he told me he knew where I could find virtually any book under the Sun. That's how I found myself on an Eastleigh (an estate in Nairobi, now dreaded for the underground activities that go on there). bound matatu.


Ndugu mdogo was right because no sooner had we arrived in Eastleigh than I found myself literally swimming in tons of tons of second hand text books.From the "Hallo Children of Standard 1...the first official school book I read in life to all the Mzee Safari books. Then of course some very rare books such as
1. Man, Civilization and Conquest ...Margaret Sherman
2.Peoples, Revolution and Nations by Derek Wilson
3. Fist edition of "poems from east Africa" Cook and Rubadiri
4. Poems of Black Africa Wole Soyinka
I also got all my Safari books from book one to four
May of those orange African readers' series
Sembane Ousmane's "God's bits of wood, Elechi Amadi's "The Concubine", an old tatarred copy of Okot pBtek's "Song of O'col and Song of Lawino.
In a nutshell, my escapade left me with a rack sack groaning under the weight of "treasures" some tattered, some pages yellow with age, some pages bearing marks of the previous owners imprints "Like this scrbbilings in an O Level Geography text book by Ojany and Ogendo...
BED..Accounts, Eco, Com and at the bottom Phy-Maths -Engineer . Probably a youngster pondering over which "combination as we called them, he should opt for in A level, in order to be assured a place in the university.