Posted by Erin Fleming, guest blogger

This is part of a series covering BWB Founder Xavier's recent trip to Africa.

*November 12, 2007

I am overwhelmed by this day! We are in Zululand, or the KwaZulu-Natal province, near the town of Eshowe, which is the hub for many small villages for miles around. Zululand is in eastern South Africa and is marked by poverty and high rates of HIV/AIDS.  This devastation is contrasted by the beautiful rolling green hills dotted with grass huts, the fantastic beadwork adorning dresses, hats and necklines everywhere and the smiles on all the faces we see.

Zululand received a container of books from Books for Africa, sponsored by BWB, last year and we are visiting schools that have a library now as a result. We have seen five schools today and at each we met faculty and students, wandered into classrooms and were treated to student dance and singing performances. I am moved by the love the teachers pour into their profession here, and the earnestness of the learners, as the students are called here.

I will begin describing our day with the end of the day, so that you readers can know something of where the learners come from.

One student we met, named Nomkhosi, invited us to come to her home; she's being sponsored by Nance, an American woman in our group. Nomkhosi was chosen to receive the sponsorship because she is one of the best of her school, and is very needy.

    
     Nomkhosi and Nance on far right, with Nomkhosi's family.

We headed to her place after our school visits. After the rainy afternoon, the red clay roads turned to mud and we almost didn't make the drive up the hillside in our overloaded rental van! We arrived to a gaggle of kids accompanied by several women and an older gentleman. The multi-generational family lives in a group of huts, which have particular uses. One was for cooking, others for sleeping and so forth. I liked that the grammas allow the baby goats to hang out in the cooking hut but the chickens had to stay outside. They had materials for another hut and a plot of land already leveled. I didn't ask about the lack of men-folk around (the guy in the video came with us). Were they working somewhere? Still alive? It isn't strange to find a family with a grandmother and kids in this area, so I wonder.

Check back for photos and video of the schools we saw today!

Meet Nomkhosi's family.mov (333.93 KB)

                        
                 Clay and straw huts belonging to Nomkhosi's family.

      
       Our group checking out the family huts and the view from the hillside.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director



You're in California and you have a business.  You're trying to figure out how you can make a positive environmental impact despite the fact that you can't get your computer network to run on the power created by the intern you've made ride an exercise bike attached to a turbine.

We've all been there before.

Well maybe we haven't ALL been there before, but if you are allow me to make two suggestions I'm sure you'll see what I mean.  For Better World Books' purposes, since we aren't located in CA and since we have a number of fixed costs related to UPS, we have to deal with the inherent carbon emissions created by our company.  We choose to deal with these emissions by making donations such that all of our shipments are carbon neutral, a reality achieved with help of the lovely folks at carbonfund.org.

However, if you're a business (or resident, for that matter) of the aforementioned sunny left coast state, allow me to enlighten you (using renewable energy, of course, and a halogen idea bulb at that): Village Green Energy. 

Village Green, created by three guys with great commitment and too much education, is a group that offers "REC's."  An REC, or Renewable Energy Certificate is a purchase that not only offsets the carbon that you create, but actually ensures that part of the energy you use is from a renewable energy source.  In that way, not only are you offsetting the carbon output of you (whomever you are), but you're actually reducing the emissions that get into the air and simultaneously reducing your dependence on fossil fuels (look at you, you multi-tasker!).  First of all, imagine the impact you can create, just by making your own effort.  Next, imagine the kind of positive press that can create (if you don't believe me, re-read this post a few times, it'll start being clear...)

Get more info at their website.  Take a deep breath, doesn't the air seem that much fresher?

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director



As you read last month, instead of using your Google search you can opt to use "Search Kindly" (original post).  But some of you resisted saying that you prefer Yahoo search.  Well intrepid Yahoo users, get on board with "GoodSearch."

Same idea as Search Kindly, only instead of one charity per month receiving the money, you can choose your charity on the input bar underneath the search area.  Books for Africa, the NCFL and Room to Read are all involved in it and can receive your virtual donations via searching right away.  The ASPCA has earned $10.900 from people's searches, so get on their, pick a literacy partner and get a-searchin'.

Posted by Erin Fleming, guest blogger


This is part of a series covering BWB founder Xavier's recent trip to Africa.

*November 11, 2007.

For Xavier and I, starting off the day with a game of “dive for the Frisbee” in the Indian Ocean is just about perfect. The only thing wrong with this particular morning was that I forgot to take off my non-waterproof watch before jumping in the waves- d’oh!
Kites over beach on the Indian Ocean. Durban, South Africa.

                      
Our first school visit was here in Durban, at Christianenburg Primary School, which has a library with about 10,000 donated books (from a container split by 25 area schools).  There are 1305 students aged 5-15, called ‘learners’ here in South Africa, and the student-teacher ratio is almost 50:1. There are 28 classrooms and 34 teachers here. The buildings and layout are representative of all schools here; long buildings painted the school colors with flowering bushes. The principal, Nomsa Shandu, deputy principal Bonga Mkize and librarian Thandi Putini were willing to accommodate our visit on a Sunday afternoon.   

    
     School staff Shandu, Putini and Mkeze.

The library is beautifully organized and has a sign that said, “My Golden Rules: Order at All Times is the Motto of This Room”.  The books are neatly placed and include two small shelves in Zulu language; the thousands of others are in English. The learners can't check out the books but are given time to visit the library to read. Shandu, who has been here 20 years, spoke at length about the learners. She told us that the students have difficulties with the school fees, which are 150 Rand per year (under $25), but that coming to school is worth it for the free daily government-provided meal for each primary student.

We had a wonderful visit! The system works- the books are in the school, available each day for the kids.  Tomorrow is an even bigger day for us; we have five schools and classes will be in session. I’m not expecting it to be easy to meet all the kids, now knowing that many of them only eat once a day, that many will be AIDS orphans. It’s quite a different thing to know some stats about a place and to know personally the names and faces that are behind them, but I am happy thinking of the commited and caring teachers we met today.


Christianenburg Primary School.


Mural at Christianenburg Primary School, Durban, South Africa.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

Check out who's on the cover of this month's Business Week "Small Biz" magazine:

That's right, it's Better World Books' own, co-founder Xavier Helgesen!  Xavier, on top of a throne of Reader's Digest books that resides in our "Fortress of Solitude" (ok, it's just the warehouse) is the image of the hot new topic:

Strategies: Mission Possible
Making money while doing good isn't easy, but more companies are proving it can be done.  Here are some successful strategies. (article by Anne Field)

Pick up the issue at newsstands (or wherever you pickup up your glossies) and read about it.  If print journalism doesn't float your boat you could always root around for it online at their website.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

Everybody's got their party hats and soundmakers and getting ready for the infamous ball drop this evening.  No doubt many of you have your New Year's resolutions as well, such as "read this blog more" or for some of those working here "post on this blog more" or some similar sentiment.

This year, however, think about last year and what you made happen.  Maybe this year you forget about buying the gym membership that you used 3 times all year and perhaps recreating that "Pete & Pete" episode in which Pete "travels through time" by crossing the time zone boundary after midnight is somewhat misguided--if fun.  Maybe you want to consider something else, go green with your cleaners, dip your toe into solar (or just read about it first), learn a language (Swahili anyone?), get some hiking gear and get out there, learn to ski, adopt a penguin, or maybe just read a little more.  If you want it enough you can do it, and if you look, you'll see we can help.

2007 is just a memory, we look forward to seeing you in the future!

The Better World Books excursion  to south east Asia has begun successfully. Niko, Yanna, Damara, Natasha and myself (Aaron) have all survived the ~20 hours of flights to arrive in Ho Chi Min, ready to embrace the culture.

No time for elaborate postings right now, we are off to see a Pagoda.

Little known fact: our flight took us over the North Pole. We left Chicago and headed due North, contrary to my expectations that we would go West.  I almost went to knock on the cockpit, but I decided to trust in the Pilot. We circumnavigated the globe and arrived safely with no Internatonal incidents of note to report.

see you soon from the other side of the world.

-Aaron

Posted by Erin Fleming, guest blogger

This is part of a series covering BWB Co-Founder Xavier's trip to Africa.

*November 10, 2007

Since we only arrived a few days ago to South Africa, we are still in the switch-time zone, get–the-lay-of-the-land phase.  Yesterday our group split into three, and my group, including Xavier and fearless leader Henry, went on a drive down toward the Cape of Good Hope. The roads were washed out, so we only got as far as Hout Bay, which is where the British set up camp back in the day (Cape Town was first Dutch), and is also cool because they didn't really enforce apartheid. I hear Hout Bay even issued its own passports, such was the local pride, which new property owners can still obtain. We made it to Chapman’s Peak, overlooking the bay, and watched Right whales spouting in the waters below.  One even waved to us with his big tail! I felt like I was really at the end of the Earth there, where these green hills dropped right into the sea, near the confluence of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and at the end of a continent so far from my home.

Hout Bay and Chapman's Peak, South Africa.

Our tour guide Loki, a friend of Xavier’s, is a biologist interested in human-elephant interaction. After observing the troubles between farmers and elephant herds, he started a company called Elephant Pepper that educates farmers in high-incident areas and assists them to grow chilies (which elephants don’t like) along with their subsistance crops and to use the same chilies to make sauces to sell. (The Baobab Gold is perfection; tangy, perfect amount of heat, actually contains baobab...)

I get the impression that there are many support roles here that are filled by non-South Africans, such as in education.  This is not a bad thing, of course. I think if all the best information and resources went where they were needed the world would be a better place, and South Africa is such a great candidate for these resources. It has the infrastructure to receive them, plenty of educated English-speaking folks and cultural connections to most parts of the world.

Today was a travel day. We flew to Durban on the southeast coast, a stopover on our way to the KwaZulu-Natal region, or Zululand.  Cape Town was a good introductory city for our group: beautiful, historic, but still a bit removed from the real poverty of Zululand. Plus, we got to go hiking up Table Mountain this morning and get some ocean views, a real treat!

Xavier remembers his life path to this moment on the Table Mountain hike.

The Durban airport countdown until the next time I will be in South Africa... World Cup 2010!

Posted by: Erin Fleming, guest blogger

Hello readers,

As Xavier noted earlier, we didn't have the technology to live-post to the blog during the Africa trip, so here it is, time-delay included for your reading pleasure.

Cape Town, South Africa

*November 7, 2007

Happy birthday to me! I have the greatest birthday gift today: my flight to Cape Town, South Africa! It’s going to be 11 hours from London to Johannesburg and another 2 to Cape Town, but only one-hour time change.  I will be joining Xavier, co-founder of Better World Books and Books for Africa (BfA) board member, and other people involved with BfA and a classroom-building organization, ECAG-USA (more on that later).  Some of the group’s goals for the trip include finding out more about the book delivery and distribution process on the Africa side, and also more about the needs and opportunities for education in the neediest regions of the country. I don’t know anyone else on the trip, but they are Minnesotans, so they must be friendly, right? Another birthday ‘gift’ – it’s almost summertime in South Africa! I can’t wait for the warm African sunshine after the month I have just spent in blustery, cloud-covered central Europe.

We are in South Africa until the 20th, and then we are in Malawi, a small country to the north, until the 29th.  We will be seeing many schools that have received book shipments and classroom donations, and potential recipient schools. I have a feeling we will learn so much...

*November 8, 2007

Unfortunately I arrived this afternoon from my overnight travel, so I missed the morning boat trip around Robben Island just off Cape Town’s V&A Harbor, where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 27 years under the country’s apartheid regime.

The drive to Cape Town from the airport encapsulates what I expect to see in this country. There is beautiful natural scenery, with ocean view and rolling green hills (South Africa is the world’s 3rd most bio-diverse country, with over 20,000 plant species), and rich and poor communities awkwardly side-by-side. Just a few minutes after leaving the airport, black squatter camps surround the highway; tin-roofed shacks with many-colored scrap walls lean on each other amidst dirt pathways and women carrying the day’s wash.  My driver said the new government, like many recently, promised jobs to lift these people out of poverty, but thus far to no visible result.  Just a couple of miles beyond, I could see the University Cape Town, founded 1829 and still with nearly 50% white enrollment in a country that is 80% black, perched grandly up on the side of Devil’s Peak. While there is no longer apartheid, the advantage is still to the white folks here, it seems.

Cape Town itself is nestled in the lowlands of the oceanfront mountains, much like Rio de Janeiro. High rises are grouped near the Atlantic Ocean’s edge and lead up to private homes painted in rainbow colors up the hillsides. It was in one of these neighborhoods, called Bo-Kaap, where we had a fantastic, family-style Malay dinner.

 

The restaurant name, Bo-Kaap Kombois, essentially means the neighborhood kitchen. According to the owner, the local people historically held all family meetings, group decision-making and quality time in the kitchen, and so he wanted his restaurant to reflect the welcoming, homey atmosphere and the local cuisine. He enthusiastically told us about each dish and the sauces (think ginger, curry, tamarind and chilies), how the white landowners brought in workers from Malaysia, India, China and from the surrounding area, and how the lingua franca Afrikaans and the cuisine came out of this immigrant melting pot that is Bo-Kaap. He also spoke very highly of the generosity of the local residents (he claims we can walk into someone's home and use the bathroom, and we will not leave without a cup of tea and having been asked about our mother), the strong sense of community and the prevalence of the Islamic faith here.  Xavier and I had a laugh at the thought of the walk-in-to-your-neighbor’s bathroom thing… I think we may try that back in San Francisco!

The view from the restaurant’s wall-sized windows was stunning; we were up on the edge of a bowl-shaped valley that poured down to the waterfront, and could see the red, pink and yellow houses of Bo-Kaap and a very curious sight—the little putting green in the empty lot below. Four boys, each with a 5-iron were hitting a golf ball up this strip of (how did that get there?) ratty astro-turf surrounded by unkempt lawn, one even wearing an Argyle sweater. I guess this was golfing Africa-style. 

What a great first day! I am excited for the villages and the schools, but some transition time in lovely Cape Town will start us off right.  I’m still not over the “am I really here?’ feeling. This city is just so, well, European and modern that it is hard to fit it with my idea of Africa. But maybe that is the point: each place I will see here will stand alone and will have much to it that I don’t expect. How wonderful!

Xavier digs in to the Malay cuisine with Erin on his left; the owner smiles over the satisfied customers.

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director


Books for Africa and UMECS (United Movement to End Child Soldiering) are putting efforts to help form school systems in Northern Uganda. 

For $13,000 assembly, packing and shipping costs, Books for Africa will be shipping 35,000 well selected school books (approximate retail value: $150,000) and ten computers to four secondary schools in Northern Uganda. We are leading the campaign to raise these funds which will bring needed books to classrooms and libraries at Sacred Heart Secondary School in Gulu District; Alliance College Secondary School in Kitgum District; Lira Palwo Secondary School in Pader District and a secondary school in Amuru District in Northern Uganda . For more information about Books for Africa.  (original text at Pan-African Empowerment)

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director



Over at GeekSugar, the femme hip/intelligentsia mashup site, they have some interesting information about literacy.  First of all they have the following:

The Education Department is blaming the country's increasingly poor spelling and writing skills in youth on their love of text messaging. In a recent report on the national test results in English for about 37,000 students aged 15 and 16, the department's Examination Commission said cutting-edge communications technology has "encouraged poor literacy and a blunt, choppy style at odds with academic rigor."

Regardless of whether or not you're buying into that as legitimate, GeekSugar links to The Great American Word Challenge.  The game involves filling in the missing letter of the word, as defined.  Why would you engage in such a thing?  Well...

The city that achieves the highest-cumulative average score takes the title and the prize of a Ubisoft donation of My Word Coach video games and Nintendo DS systems to local NCFL learning centers. Even better, everyone who takes the challenge will be entered to win a trip for two to Washington, DC, and have the chance to win one of two Wiis.

Ah!  The plot thickens!  So support the NCFL as Nintendo battles illiteracy in the USA (seriously).  If that doesn't feel right for you, you could always go to FreeRice (as previously reported).

Posted by Jack Hanlon, Northeast Regional Director

Hey all.  Check back on the 26th for some updates but for now Better World Books (and thusly the blog) will be taking a few days to enjoy the holiday season.  Happy holidays, best to you and yours, and come back soon!

Sincerely,
Jack and the everyone at Better World Books.

Posted by Kim Emery, Administrative Support Specialist



The Library Division is proud to announce that Better World Books is now a member of the Georgia Recycling Coalition! The mission of the GRC is to compliment and coordinate activities relative to recycling, to foster communication amongst professionals, organizations, government agencies and individuals and to promote and enhance waste reduction and recycling programs throughout the state.

We believe that the new relationship with the GRC will further enable BWB to connect with those who are as committed as we are to making a positive environmental impact.