Goodbye Francesca, HELLOOOO books

Last night we said goodbye again. it seems like i do that a lot around here... This time it was for Francesca. she rode to Hanga in the same car as me and my dad when he came to visit! She has been working with the farm and just hanging out with us around Hanga ever since! She lived right across the hall from me, so now i am lonely at the end of the hall. the first picture here is from the end of last night. We also took a more serious pose, but this second one turned out better i think...though i am unsure of the umbrella...

This past weekend on Friday and Saturday night the Italians, Germans, and Austrians were absent from Hanga. they were on a trip to Iringa and Ruaha national park. So that left me and Charlie in Hanga :)

Friday night we ate dinner with the girls at St. Laurent's again. This time, there was a special treat. after dinner, we tested the new TV in their cafeteria. the movie was Sleeping Beauty. I have never heard a room full of grade school girls get so quiet as when the movie first started and their attentions were all fixed on the TV. it was a fun night. oh...and charlie even got to try out the new Little Tykes play set!

Most of our Saturday and Sunday was spent working in the library at St. Benedict. This is one of the shelves that the wood shop of the monastery made for the school library. there are ten of these new sturdy shelves and now they are almost all full of books!

These books were donated through a project from Minnesota called "Books for Africa." these boxes of donated books had been sitting in a storage room at St. Benedict since sometime in 2007 I think. There were other shelves built, but they collapsed under the weight of the textbooks.

Now after a full week of just taking the books out of boxes and sorting them again, the room looks like a library! It was one of the most fun jobs I have had around Hanga. it was a bit like Christmas every time we got to open a box up and sort through the books. Sometimes it was just more textbooks...

but sometimes it was a book all about how to use your pocket calculator!

or how to gain UNLIMITED POWER!

or perhaps a great work of literature to add to my "suggested readings" bookshelf...

It was a lot of sorting, and we still aren't done yet...actually, I think the real librarian work has just begun...but at least all the boxes are empty.

Here is the computer lab at St. B that Charlie has been setting up too. funny how so many projects come at you at once...and to think, when we first arrived back in July, we were both struggling with the boredom, trying to find things to do, projects to get involved in. everything in time...

finally, here is a picture of the installation of Fr. Angelo as the new headmaster of St. Benedict. He will be very good for the school.

We are currently planning a trip to the central western part of the country for next week, but before we can go on that, we have to sort through the donated books that arrived last November, and decide which ones are best for St. B.

thanks for reading!