Final preparations

Posted on March 3, 2018

It’s early Saturday morning. The cars are loaded, and we’re heading out to the village of Sam in a few minutes. We’re a caravan of four cars with 13 people and every nook and cranny filled with supplies, suitcases and food.

Last night on our way to dinner, we passed near the airport and realized we had gone there the previous three nights to pick up incoming members of our team. Two came all the way from French Polynesia, one from North Carolina, one from the Netherlands and two from western Massachusetts. We’ll be joined by a woman who lives in Gabon now but spent a lot of time in the US and our leader Bob who also lives over here.

We’re matched by a contingent coming out from the National Program for the Prevention of Malaria who will help conducting the first phase of the mosquito net distribution plan. We’ll be going from village to village counting the families who need nets.

By way of introduction yesterday, we had a briefing on malaria in Gabon, with statistics, background on mosquito behavior, high risk populations, and testing. The photo below shows Bob volunteering to be tested.

One other highlight of our brief stay in Libreville was running into a few former students.

Time to head out. Next stop Sam.