I can’t believe how quickly these past few months have gone by. When I left El Progreso and the Siete women at the end of July, I remember thinking that January seemed very far away. I know the women felt the exact same way. In fact, I think it was very hard for them to imagine the time when they would receive their first loans and now they are less than two months away from starting their own businesses!
There is no question that we still have a lot to get done before we arrive on-the-ground on January 3rd, however, we have made significant progress since August. One aspect of things I have worked on over the past few months is helping Rachel and Dan get the logistical items accomplished. Thanks to Laurie’s hard work investigating our different bank account options, we have decided to open an account with Banco Ficohsa. Most recently we have turned our focus towards working out the details of our repayment plan. To begin we are going to start with a similar plan to Adelante’s (another MFI that works in El Progreso) where the women turn in their repayments individually and receive a receipt from the bank. The treasurer then collects the receipts from each of the women and turns them into La Ceiba on the due date. Although we have the basics down, there are details that we have to go over with the bank before everything is ready to go in January.
My other tasks over the past few months have focused on our customer relations. I have kept in touch with the majority of our clients and have given updates to Laurie on the status of our solidarity groups so she can finish working through the group bylaws and the individual business plans. WIth all of the documents and updates from La Ceiba, Laurie is helping us get prepared for January!
On a personal note, I am overwhelmingly excited to return to Progreso. I think it is definitely the case that you don’t realize how much you have grown from an experience until you are distanced from it for awhile. I didn’t realize until returning to the US how much I had changed and grown as an individual and what I had taken out of the experience. I can’t wait to get back to see all the women and the Progreso team in January!
Werewolf: The Devil’s Hound divx