About a boy

I recently had the opportunity to spend some ‘quality time’ with my parents. Although the cirmcustances that brought this about were less than auspicious, I am nevertheless extremely grateful that we were afforded that time. We talked about a number of things, some important, some not. One conversation however stuck in my mind however, and it was the one about Anyebe (pronounced ‘Ah-nn-yeah-beh’). Anyebe lost both his parents to AIDS; the conversation served as a timely reminder of why the library’s media room is integral to our plans and the reason for the post ‘Dear Mr. Studio Executive’.

Dear Mr. Studio Executive from A Library In Iga on Vimeo.

My parents have ’semi-adopted’ Anyebe. He spends most of his days at our house in the village, running errands and hanging out with the motley crew that make up the household members. My parents have tried to encourage him to attend school – which he did for a bit – but has since decided that it is not for him. My parents and I speculated about why, and decided that it was principally two things; one was the fact that looking after his parents, along with his older brother as they got sick and eventually died from AIDS, robbed him of several years of schooling; years which meant that he was several years behind and was as a result in school with children several years younger than he; a situation which he found extremely embarassing. The second, and perhaps the most profound, was the death of his older brother as a result of a motorcycle accident; an event that has clearly left him completely bereft and lost as his brother, moreso than his parents was his rock. He idolized him, as younger brothers tend to and it truly is heart-breaking to see a young, obviously bright boy with lots of potential, drifting into a life of mediocrity because of our society’s inability to help him through his loss and find purpose. My parents will obviously continue to care for him and guide him; hopefully it will be enough to turn him onto the right path. What has this got to do with the library I hear you asking? Well, a library could probably go some way in helping him overcome his reservations about school, by giving him a place where he could work on ‘catching up’ in peace, without being teased by other children, who no doubt viewed his size and age as an indication that he was stupid.

It also called to mind the story of William Kamkwamba – ‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind’ – for whom a library became a gateway to a future he could not even have begun to have imagined.

William Kamkwamba

There are so many other ‘William Kamkwamba’s’ in Africa. Help us find and nurture the ones that are in Iga; by helping to build ‘A Library In Iga’