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- 3 West Central Zimbabwe, it's a dusty little crossroads town where reading and writing skills are rare. 60% of adults are thought to be illiterate. But Nyaki does have an abundance of donkeys and out of this came the ingenious idea to hitch a team to the cause of learning. The cart cost about $1,000 to build and last April the mobile library was launched. It carries about 300 books and twice a week it makes the rounds of four local schools. The enthusiasm of the young has spread to their parents. And such is the respect for the library that it has been dubbed "The granary of knowledge." The library's link to Canada comes through an agency called CODE, the Canadian Organization for Development through Education. It operates in 13 African countries and its objective is to help people become self-sufficient through reading and writing. If so many Africans cant read and write today, it is because of several factors. War is an obvious one. So, too, is the abysmal education that Africans received during the colonial era. Culturally, Africans remain deeply tied to their oral traditions and storytelling. Books are a foreign concept for millions. The shortage of books is also a part of the colonial legacy. So what are the prospects for teaching Africa to read and write? Some believe illiteracy will get worse before it gets better. They worry about the impact of television, and the growing gap between the computerized world of the northern hemisphere and the donkey-driven world of the south. "In the developed world the technology is growing at such a pace while people here are still struggling to learn to read." What's next? Perhaps more mobile libraries, but a long struggle to make Africa literate. JUST FOR FUN - Reader's Digest May is Mother Nature's way of apologizing for February [ Bill Tammeus in Kansas City "Star"]Friends are the chocolate chips in the cookie of life. [Taste of Home] "He's all that I ever dreamed of as a man - he's passionate, he's available and he's disposable." [Anon.] "My husband won a trip for two to Hawaii," a woman complained to her marriage counsellor. "He went twice." [Weekly World News] OVERHEARD: "I make money the old-fashioned way, my salary is the same as it was ten years ago." Tony Scammell Editor