Mar 2007

Thursday afternoon the air in the village rang with cries of “Salo, salo, salo,” which heralds the coming of a cargo boat. We were particularly excited about this cargo because we had put 44 boxes of books on board when we were in Vila to see Melinda and Peter.

The books were donated by the family and friends of Rowville Secondary College, Woodend Primary School and my mother, Rhonda Wain. So, many, many thanks to all involved. Very special thanks to Emily Luck who coordinated the book drive, Bron Rees-Allen and her 7B IT Class and Les Clement and his 10G Civics Class.

The students and members of the school council helped to carry the books for the unloading point in the village to the school. Everyone helped out.

We’ve opened all the boxes and are steadily working through categorising them ready for the library (it has helped a lot that they have been sorted out before going into boxes – thanks guys!) It was like Christmas and I was tempted to abandon work to read various picture story books which brought back memories for me (See Dick Run, The Hungry Caterpillar, Come Back Amelia Bedelia and Giant John in particular!)

Now all we need to do is finish the roof-rebuilding project and we’ll have a place for our library as well. We’re very excited.... this is me when all the books were arriving!

Thank you all SO MUCH!