School Booklet from China

This is a standard school booklet, cahier, imported into Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Millions were sold in open air markets and they were all similar, with a map of the country on the front and the multiplication table on the back. They had low quality paper and muddy colors, but they were cheap.

Because the students often kept their lessons for years (and those who became teachers actually used their booklets to teach the next generation), Kizito and I printed natural history lesson cahiers, to be given away as prizes, or sold at a competitive price. We did booklets on bonobos, leopards, elephants, and leopards, some with essays on the inside covers. Needless to say, our locally produced, colorful booklets were a hit.

The "Good" with a check mark was a comment on a student's english lesson. English was the favored language studied in high school. Most Zairians spoke two or three languages (a mother tongue, a regional language such as Lingala or Swahili, and French), so learning another was relatively easy.