I met the Mayor at 7:30 this morning for my trip to Liboré. Alioun his son was driving and it was great to finally meet him. Ed was planning to leave with the ORBIS bus to go to Liboré at 8:30am for the day of outreach.

We arrived in Liboré shortly before 8am and already saw many men and women and children lining up to see the doctors. There was anticipation in the air. They were unfailingly polite and sweet and kind and ended up waiting in the hot sun all day until it was their turn to be seen. Before the ORBIS bus arrived, I gave my video camera to Alioun since he loves taking videos and we both filmed some of the people and interviewed the Mayor and Chef as they were not part of the Elder interviews on Thursday.

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Today ORBIS staff under Perry’s guidance, went out to Liboré to train 17 health representatives, one from every village. From all reports, it went amazingly well. Thrilling for me to know how much ORBIS is accomplishing in Niger and in Liboré.

It was yet another great day….a touch less hectic for the first time since our arrival. Hamani came to pick us up and take us to the hospital as Ed wanted to spend time with the ORBIS doctors as they examined their post op patients from the day before. While Ed was there, Hamani and I talked business for the next hour – planning all the photos needed, the pen pal scrapbooks, the sights for the next day, and made a plan to meet later to discuss our accounting and review the books. For the next few hours, I remained in the room or at the outside terrace, working and preparing for the big meeting with the P4K committee at 5pm.

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It is midnight and we are just getting into our room. What a day. We were picked up at 7:45 am to go to Liboré, to the village of Guireginde, to launch the first ever Farmers of the Future program. There were two armed soldiers on our jeep escorting us every step of the way holding long rifles to protect us. The Mayor was taking no chances with our safety.

We (Robin, Ed, Dini, Ron, Jonathan, Corey (son of an ORBIS volunteer doctor who had been tremendously helpful to ORBIS and us) arrived at the village and there were many elders, women and children waiting for us and creating a circle around us. We met Dov Pasternak for the first time after a year of corresponding. Dov works with ICRISAT, an international organization that works in the developing world to improve agricultural opportunities. He created the Farmers of the Future program (FOF) as a way to alleviate poverty. The theory is that if you train young primary school children to properly irrigate their land, plant vegetable gardens, fruit trees and fatten animals, and then market their produce and invest their proceeds, then they will no longer farm for subsistence only, but to earn a living for the future. I heard of Dov from an article I read and wanted to bring his program to Liboré. While he had experimented with this project on a small scale in Sadoré, a village 45 km away from Liboré, this was to be the very first FOF official pilot program in the world.

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We woke up early and Ed went with the ORBIS team to the airplane for his first meeting at 7:30am. He was very excited to see the airplane and expected to give his lecture on PHACO later in the afternoon. He had been preparing this lecture for a couple months, first writing it in English, coordinating the words with the video, and then having it all translated into French. I was so proud of all the efforts he put into making it a worthwhile talk for the Trainee doctors from Niger and Chad. I stayed back to do a 30 minute interview with Dini about P4K….Jonathan, our videographer, found a spot on the steps of building at the hotel, and we sat casually and chatted for about 30 minutes. Dini has a knack for putting people at ease and getting to the heart of the issues.

At about 9:00am, Hamani picked us up and we went to the airport for the official Opening Ceremony of ORBIS. All the dignitaries were there for the event including the Chef de Canton and the Minister of Health and of Transportation. It was supposed to start at 10:00am, but it was closer to 11:00 by the time all the officials showed up. The speeches were given by members of ORBIS and the government, and the Minister of Health acknowledged Ed in her speech as the person responsible for asking ORBIS to come to Niger. The representative from ORBIS acknowledged Pencils for Kids for its part as well……..

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