Sad news

I'm determined that this blog will not be a "personal blog", but rather an account of the project. However, some things that are going on in my life can't go without mention.

On May 17 I came home from a 5 day trip to Mexico and found my father dead in his apartment. He had been suffering from heart problems for several years so it wasn't unexpected, but it was still shocking. He had died alone.

He had been so sick and miserable for so long and his mind was definitely going. He had made peace with is own mortality and was ready to go. He had believed that he wouldn't live through the Winter, but he made it long enough to see the cherry blossoms in the Spring.

All his troubles are now over.

Logistics

In a fit of logistical brilliance, I realized that I needed to build the infrastructure over in Ghana before I started collecting and shipping books.

Then as fate would have it, I was laid off my "real" job. Yippeee!

!! Now I can dedicate myself full time to the project. I got back in touch with the the folks from the Salormey Volunteer Group in Ghana. They already have a library project that has been abandoned. There is a building, there are even a few books, but there is no-one to open the doors. This means I have a great starting point for my Box of Books project. Now that I have a lot of time on my hands, I am going to make a trip over to Ghana in late August to set up the infrastructure, get building started on the bigger library in Obo, and generally get the lay of the land. Once the infrastructure is in place, then I'll come back to the States for the book collection process. At least then I'll know exactly where things are going and how much can be accommodated. It's all very exciting. It feels like things are starting to come together.

Every journey starts with the first step

I'm very quietly starting to tell people about this website. I've already bored everyone I know (and everyone I've ever met while drunk at a party) with wild stories of my African library plans. Now is the time to start pulling things together.