Had a very early 6:30am breakfast with Judy and John to say goodbye as they were leaving for Benin. Hamani the wonderful picked them up to go to the airport and must have been up at 4:30 to start his day.  At 9am Hamani picked me up for the last day of errands……visit to some shops and the phone centre, and then off for a surprise visit to Nawa at DHL. It was terrific to finally meet the man who had been helping us ship our pencil necklaces from Niger to Canada. Nawa was truly a gem and told me that DHL has a tremendous sense of social corporate responsibility….that is why he went with his DHL team to donate furniture to a village in Libore a few months ago.  He felt that the since we had already forged a connection with DHL, why not continue to help Libore!!!! I was so thrilled to hear this. He was kind enough to also give me one of the DHL clocks for my wall…..when I told him how crazy I was about everything “DHL”…..kissing and hugging DHL trucks whenever I saw them as my way of showing support for this company that helped us when they didn’t even know who we were, but believed in our cause.  Read the rest of this entry »

We had the second day of our Farmers meeting today and it was a very fruitful day with much accomplished. We are united in our desire to push the vision forward with five pilot sites. Not yet sure where the five will be. But the highlight for me was the visit all 15 of us took to our pilot site of Gueriguinde to see the results. When I went to speak, I was choked up for the first time. Told everyone, when I finally got the words out, that a year ago exactly, Dov and I put the very first shovel into the ground and here we were seeing lettuce and tomatoes and children taking care of the garden with drip irrigation. They grafted their own Moringa trees and will be selling them for profit shortly. The people from the Ministry of Education seemed particularly pleased and impressed that the adults in the community were engaged and interested as well, answering questions about grafting…..

Dov arrived from India and we had a lovely dinner debriefing him and sharing what we felt after our two days. John and Judy were then greeted, of course, by the former Mayor, the Chef du Canton, the former Vice mayor, Hamani, and Fati, the Mayor’s wife all bearing gifts for them!!!!

Tomorrow they leave at 7am from the hotel, and I am on my own for the day with the committee, Hamani and others……..almost time to go home. And another goodbye.

The day started early with breakfast at the Grand hotel and then a short ride to the ICRISAT facility in Niamey, just across the bridge. Here we met with 14 people from the Ministry of Education, NGOS VIE and FAO, and ICRISAT reps and others to discuss the curriculum of the Farmers of the Future and how to proceed. It was a lively discussion chaired by John, from Eliminate Poverty Now  whild his wife Judy took notes….a task I did not envy, as we had simultaneous translation and the difficulty in capturing the essence of the discussion while listening to two voices is tough. Hats off to Judy. John did a masterful job of weaving everyone’s comments together and it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. Read the rest of this entry »

It is 10pm Niger time and I am reflecting on our long but very productive day in Libore! Up early to visit the Scholarship girls in the CES school, the girls who are in the seconde, premiere and terminal level of school, just prior to going to university if they make it. What a lovely group of girls. We talked about what they hoped to be in their future and each one still talked of being a doctor. Inside the library, which has now been reconfigured and looks great, we met the librarian , Fati, and some other teachers. The headmaster spoke at length to me, Judy and John about the conditions. He said that with the new policy of the government, passing children from one level to the next whether in fact they are qualified to pass has not worked well. As a result there are now children in middle school, or college as they call it, who still cannot read or write. Part of the problem remains the lack of training for many of the teachers. There are now 11 students this year in the final year of high school, 9 boys and two girls and next year will be the very first year that some might do well enough to get into university.Never before has any student reached this level from Libore. Our fingers are crossed. The girls still are having problems with physics and math and they have no option to take other courses as there aren’t enough students to open up a “literature” stream. so for now everyone must take science and math. Read the rest of this entry »