Dancers and musicians welcome U.S. Embassy spokesman Michael McClellan to the opening of an American Corner library in Jimma, Ethiopia (photo: U.S. State Department)

JIMMA, ETHIOPIA – When Michael McClellan, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, stepped off a plane in the Ethiopian highland city of Jimma on October 24 and walked toward the terminal, a throng of people dressed in their best finery was walking toward him.

“This looks like a wedding procession,” a colleague of McClellan’s said.

“It might be for us,” McClellan answered.

He was right, in one sense. A few seconds later, the welcoming party and McClellan met on the tarmac. Women filled his arms with bouquets of tropical flowers. The mayor, the police chief, the head of the tourism office and other dignitaries shook his hand and embraced him. In the parking lot, McClellan and his welcomers piled into a 13-vehicle motorcade led by a police truck with its red and blue lights whirling silently. The motorcade snaked through the city, then onto a rutted red dirt road lined with wild coffee bushes, goats and waving children to a small mosque on the summit of a mountain above the city. There, Jimma Mayor Mohammedamin Jemal made the first of many speeches that would be given that day.

After a tour of a former palace and a lunch of Ethiopian stews and injerra, the moist pancake-like food that is torn into chunks and used to pick up food and plunk it in the mouth, McClellan was driven to the Jimma Public Library. Musicians played and sang and women danced as McClellan entered the building.

The leaders of this city of 200,000, which is said to be the birthplace of coffee, organized the festivities to {www:celebrate} the opening of an “American Corner,” a room in the local library outfitted with computer terminals, books, videos, and CD-ROMs. The purpose of the corner is to provide the local citizens with information about the United States, about HIV/AIDS and many other things.

“I am very, very happy,” said Ilma Tamiru, a former teacher who now works in a public relations company. “I don’t have words to express it. For many years, this library did not have new books and information.”

Assefa Korsa, an official at the Jimma education office, said, “Everybody can get reference information and books. People will be able to improve their talents, thanks to the American Corner.”

Until the 1970s, Jimma had a U.S. Information Service library that some locals still remember. It provided books and magazines and held film screenings and lectures to inform the people of Jimma about the United States. The communist military junta that took power in 1974 closed the library.

“I am delighted that in the case of the Jimma American Corner we are renewing and continuing a partnership that has a solid history of achievement and service in this historic community,” McClellan said. He mentioned Andrew Carnegie, an American businessman and philanthropist who built thousands of public libraries in the United States and other English-speaking countries in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Carnegie believed that “the free public library is the strongest component of building democracy in the world,” in McClellan’s words.

The diplomat stressed that the American Corner operates as a partnership between the U.S. and Ethiopian governments for the benefit of the people of Jimma. He said the governments agree that the American Corner is open to anyone. With that in mind, the corner was established at a public library, where all citizens would have access.

McClellan said that he hopes users of the corner will also draw on resources and expertise of the Information Resource Center at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, particularly those who might be considering going to university in the United States.

The American Corner in Jimma is the fourth in Ethiopia. The U.S. Agency for International Development, through its Ethiopia Education Fund, provided most of the $32,000 needed to open it.

The deputy mayor of Jimma, Ato Shemelis, said that more meaningful than the informational materials provided by the American Corner is the U.S. commitment to help improve the academic performance of the students of Jimma. “It gets us to think globally and act locally. It is the beginning of a new relationship with the American people,” he said.