"… I stand tall and mighty, prominent and domineering, wherever I am present. When I am fully grown, people compare my trunk with the wrist of the goddess of trees.”
"Truth is like a baobab tree; one person's arms cannot embrace it" (African proverb)
THE LEGEND OF THE AFRICAN BAOBAB TREE is the story of a beautiful tree who complained to the GREAT SPIRIT of the WILD PLAINS about wanting to be the BEST and BRIGHTEST and most HANDSOME of all the African trees. The GREAT SPIRIT became tired of the complaints, and reached down from the sky, yanked the tree out of the ground and placed it back into the earth UPSIDE DOWN! All the animals were alarmed, and so was the huge tree. For after that, the magnificent tree only grew leaves once a year. The other months the ROOTS seemed to bend and grow towards the sky.
The African Baobab is one of the world's hardiest trees, thriving in even the most arid environment. It is also the tree under which some Africans traditionally meet to decide issues of common concern.
In April 2002 Delray Beach Sister Cities hosted a visit by a delegation of Tanzanians from our Sister City of Moshi. Moshi is a beautiful city nestled at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, which rises nearly 20,000 feet above the African savannah.
Commemorating this visit, a Boabab tree, hereafter named Rafiki, was donated and planted on the western lawn of Old School Square. Rafiki means friend in the language of Swahili, and is a fitting reminder of our bond of friendship with that African city.
The Moshi Committee of the Delray Beach Sister Cities has decided that their primary project for 2002-2003 will be to aid our Tanzanian Sister City, Moshi, with new books for the library. This will be a continuation of our efforts to revitalize their only library. This phase of the project will focus on provision of reference books, novels, children’s books, encyclopedias, dictionaries and a whole range of books identified by the staff of the Delray Beach City Library. Community Outreach Director, Bonnie Stelzer has the blessing and support of Director, John Callahan and the aid of librarian, Linda Hunter to develop a list of books and purchase the ‘library quality bound’ books at a substantial discount.
The project will be named Baobab Books to Kilimanjaro. BAOBAB, as an acronym stands for Books Are Our Bridge Across Borders. Our fund raising effort will center around the understanding that a donation of $20 will buy a book to go to Tanzania. Persons may donate that amount and have their name on a label, like the above logo, placed in one of the books that go to Moshi. A donation of $50 will buy a picture reference book with a personalized label in it. A donation of $100 will buy a large dictionary, $500 will buy a reference series and $1000 would buy a set of encyclopedias, each labeled to recognize the patron or company that made the donation.
Individuals can make donations of lesser amounts at community events and art shows during the Winter Season as 'BAOBAB BUCKS' for Books to Kilimanjaro. To involve and mobilize our local youth, we will have a contest for our students to sell coupons books that will help buy books and that would also act as entries for prizes from Tanzania.
The fund raising phase of the project will culminate with an awards ceremony and recognition event at our Safari Dinner to be held in May 2003, the weekend after the Delray Affair.