AO: Wanjiru points out that despite popular narratives about Kenyans not reading, there is still a demand for books that perserveres despite lack of investment by government.
...Yes, the government did stop pumping money into libraries along the way because there was no tangible return on its investment, but this doesn’t mean that Kenyans stopped reading.
AO: This is a rich paragraph from Wanjiru's blog post that raises several issues. First, she identifies a common public narrative about how Kenyans do not read. I have also often heard some version of the sentiment: "if you want to hide something from Kenyans, put it in a book." Wanjiru critiques this common refrain, asking who then all of the great Kenyan authors have been writing for if not for Kenyan readers.
Second, she notes the impact on the libraries after a governmental shift in priorities when primary education became free (again; at independence, the Kenyan government began to implement free universal education but the World Bank structural adjustment programs led to cost-sharing programs from 1989 - 2002 when many students dropped out).
"... all unanimously agree that the reason the library is in its current state is because past governments did not value reading. ‘We are not a reading nation,’ Jacob [the librarian] says, repeating the phrase that I have heard often and struggled to accept. Did we really go from queuing down the street to enter McMillan, to being described as a nation that doesn’t read? And if we are such non-readers, who did prolific writers such as Grace Ogot and Ngugi wa Thiongo write for? I remember the library of the government primary school in which my fellow students and I were expected to spend an hour everyday. The library was the only building that was open after school and on the weekend. Everyday for eight years, we were taught that reading was a basic need. I went back to my primary school a year ago and asked to see the library. My beloved library was now a dilapidated storeroom for old, poorly catalogued books. The only attempt at updating the space was the addition of a plywood partition that allowed half the space to be allocated to living quarters for the school matron. When free primary school education was implemented in 2002, building more classrooms naturally became more important that maintaining libraries. But one wonders if libraries will ever become a priority again for a country still struggling to pay its teachers and seeming more eager to secure its position as ‘Africa’s Silicon Savannah’ by providing free laptops to Standard One pupils."
AO: This paragraph from the blog post describes where the library is situated and its surrounding environment.
Behind me, to the left of the library doors, city council parking ofcials have set up a temporary workstation. This is where parking attendants come to hand in the money they have collected from motorists brave enough drive in to town. The attendants come and go regularly, dressed in their bright yellow coats, swapping cash and used ticket books for a pat on the back and a new book. In a corner are about a dozen yellow tyre clamps. Every so often an excited attendant will dash up to collect a clamp. When this happens, everyone around me stops what he or she is doing to see which unfortunate person is getting their car punished for parking illegally. Moments later a young girl comes up the stairs hawking ripe yellow bananas and there’s more commotion as the council workers choose the largest ones. She waits a few minutes, then gathers the banana peels and tosses them in to a large yellow trashcan on the way out of the library gates. ‘This has got to be the worst possible location for a library,’ I think to myself. Then I realise that in 1929, it was a prime spot: close enough to the University, City Hall and the law courts. The thing is, Nairobi has changed.