I’m told that there is a library in Colombo, about a half hour trishaw ride away, and apparently, they have little or no fiction, and certainly nothing from the last couple of decades, kinda like the used book hovels. Plus it’s going to be at least 1/3 Sinhalese and 1/3 Tamil, those being the national languages, but English will likely have a place there if only because of international books & reference materials. I don’t go to Colombo anywhere near it to make it worthwhile to stop in. One of these days I will, if only to say I have and to talk about how bad it is.
There is no such thing as a library system and inter-library loans. Most communities here have, if they’re lucky, libraries in the schools, and that would be it.
But there’s another consideration. What these people do with books.
Apparently, at the beginning of the school year, each child is issued their textbooks for the year. At the end of the year, they don’t return them for the next student the next year to use. Nope, they take them home and never look at them again, or throw them out. The next year, the students get brand new books. Again.
They just don’t get it. That’s where a lot of their education Rupees go to. It’s just not necessary to spend money like that.
This goes along with the attitude of entitlement I’ve mentioned on previous occasions. They all think they’re entitled to absolutely everything, regardless of how much it costs the government or other people, or how much it will mean Rupees not being spend on this or that. And then they whine and complain and protest and demonstrate and yell that their government isn’t spending enough money on (insert pet project here).
Sigh.
If only they’d get their collective heads together and figure out the many many ways they waste money, and then stop it, they’d be able to do so much more. Oh, and yes, I do include bribes and kickbacks into useless waste of money.
I feel like knocking their heads together. But that’s an awful lot of head knocking I’d have to do. *eek!*
