When Lamin M. "Lang" Dibba was growing up in Gambia, his father used to say that if you trip on a rock and find money, you'd better go back and kiss the rock.
"I said, 'Dad, I will do it,'" recalled Dibba, who now lives in Minneapolis. "My dad was rich in spirit, he was rich inside, he was rich in a way that money can't buy."
Dibba's way of honoring his father's memory is raising money to send donated books to his native country. Last year, 10 years after its start, his 1 Million Books for the Gambia project celebrated having shipped literally 1 million books, ranging from children's books to college texts, to the tiny African country of 2.5 million.
The project began unofficially in 2010, when a local nonprofit shipped books to start a medical library at one of Gambia's few hospitals. The nonprofit partnered with Books for Africa, a 34-year-old St. Paul-based organization that has sent 56 million books to countries all over the continent. Dibba, already involved with Books for Africa, was invited to participate.
The Million Books project officially started in 2012 with 44,000 volumes, distributed to schools on a two-day walk across Gambia (easier than it sounds; the distance between the northern and southern borders is about the same as Minneapolis to Chaska). Accompanied by a truck full of books, he and others "were dropping them off as we went," he said.
Along the way, a crowd of students and staff from schools in the area joined the walk. In a video of the event, kids can be seen singing, laughing, holding books ... and reading.

Books for Africa founder Tom Warth was there. "Watching them come along was just incredible — they were all cheering and laughing."
Dibba's voice broke as he recalled the experience, and he paused for a long moment.