Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Its been nice to return to a bit of a routine that non-travelling allows. Since returning, I've taught my kids, given my seminars and worked with folks in and out of the bank.

I'm extremely happy to report that a project that my counterpart George and I put together has been financed! We put together a funding request for a community palm oil tree nursery and plantation for his village back in June and July. It was submitted through the Peace Corps Partnership Program (which essentially posts your project on the internet for anyone interested to read about and if they desire, finance) and was financed completely. The money arrived this week! George is, needless to say, ecstatic, and we've already set the wheels of progress in motion. As this project continues, it will require more and more of my time, and it'll be a lasting legacy that, in fact, I did help some folks while I was here. I went out last Friday to check the progress that's already been made, and the nursery is complete! We should have little leaves pushing their way through in a couple of weeks. In about five months, they'll be big enough to outplant them into the fields. Its really exciting!

The last few seminars were a resounding success. My friend, Gabriel came to give the lecture on inventory management. Since he runs one ofthe larger stores in town, people were quite attentive. Following that was what most people thought was my best seminar, human resource management. Luckily for me, the Peace Corps country director had decided to come for a site visit that day to see for himself the seminars I was putting on. About forty people, as usual, showed up, and we had a great lecture and discussion, with the director himself adding anecdotes a couple of times. Afterwords, the bank hosted a dinner in the director's honor, in an attempt to persuade him to replace me after I leave in August. They seem increasingly convinced that the growth of the bank depends on it.

During dinner and at breakfast the next morning, the director and I had a series of great discussions. He said that essentially it was up to me whether I was replaced or not, depending on my recommendation at the COS conference in late May/early June. I haven't decided conclusively, but I'm leaning in that direction. We also discussed a bit of the history and future of Peace Corps in general. I suggested that Peace Corps begin thinking of itself as an effective deliverer of grassroots-level development throughout the world, as opposed to a PR machine for the US government and travel and tourism company for new graduates. I had put together a brief memo to that effect, and he asked me to expand on it before discussing further and possibly distributing around Washington. I'm looking forward to working on this project in the next month or so.

Just last Wednesday was the last of my ten seminars, on the subject of marketing. I gave the session and then handed out evaluation sheets for the seminar series. After that, I had decided to share my happiness at the success of the seminars, so we brought in a few cases of drinks, and sandwiches to celebrate. Overall, it was probably the best experience I've had here, and I promised folks that I'd do it again starting in March. The results of the evaluations were overal very positive, with me receiving a 4.2 out of 5 rating as a speaker (between "Trés bien" and "Excellent"), and most people saying they would either take it again or recommend others to do so. In fact a couple of people berated me for not advertising it better so that more people could take advantage of the seminars. The second time it'll be a lot easier, since most of the preparation is already done!

In school, we worked with a number of letters sent a while back by the school in Charlotte, NC that I had been put in touch with by Peace Corps to set up a connection with students here. My students finally got to the point where they understand and can write enough to put together a basic letter ("My favourite colour is blue" -yes, I'm required to use British spelling). So, we read some of the letters and wrote back. My older kids got into a large discussion about american music, since many of the letters mentioned different singers and groups, so I decided to hold a one day "School of Rock" (I've seen the movie, even though it came out since I've been here, thanks to a volunteer's brother who sent it over- LOVE IT!). I brought in my CD collection and used the school's portable CD stereo to go through many of the genres of american music along with discussing the dates of origin and some of the better-known examples. For example, in the "Rock 'n' Roll" category, Guns 'n' Roses was held up as a prime example; in "Rhythm and Blues", Mary J. Blige; in "Acoustic Rock", Indigo Girls; in "Big Band/Swing", the Duke Ellington Orchestra; and in "Jazz", the venerable Miles Davis. In all, I went through fourteen genres of music, and the kids really enjoyed it- as did I. The students at the Providence Day school should be receiving their letters in a month or so...

Building on the success of the business seminars, several attendees have approached me to help them with their businesses. One woman is starting a small office services business (photocopies, typing and other computer-related services), another woman is starting a used mobile phone and mobile repair shop, and a third has just begun her hair salon. At least two people have become members of the bank, and the board of directors has become truly invigorated, launching new products and looking for new employees... we're rollin'!