Day 4
My normally quiet little guesthouse is reverberating with music from an apparently uncaring neighbor who likes to blast bad disco-type music - most annoying - and I can't call the police to report him. Oh well. I guess this will be one night I sleep with the windows closed and hope the fan dulls the sound enough to sleep.
Have I mentioned food? The guest house feeds me breakfast, lunch and dinner and the meals are pretty tasty. We usually start with soup. Rice and beans are always there, along w/ tomatoes and lettuce from their garden (not really ripe yet, but ok), some kind of cooked greens (sort of a spinach collards combo), some kind of meat - tonite was fish, fresh rolls and fruit for dessert. Lunch was stewed chicken and the above mentioned additions. The last two days we've have really good papaya. Tonite include pineapple. Tangerines available all three meals today.
A good, long work day today. I stayed up late last night creating some financial templates we could use today. Before the meeting started, we went to see a corn processing machine at work. It didn't work. Something was wrong with the electricity and the employee in charge couldn't make the machines start. You could hear the machine getting a big jolt of juice, but the belt that should move two wheels just would not start. One lesson learned is that given local infrastructure and available expertise, FM should not be counting on running their machine at full speed every single day.
We worked on the start up costs all morning and again in the afternoon. I had been told not to expect the farmers to want to stay past noon. However, all 4 of these guys have committed to 6 days of full mornings and a shorter afternoon session. I'll take pity on them and let them take Sunday off.
This is an experiential type of training. Essentially, I am explaining a little piece of the puzzle (elements of start up expenses) and then the farmers have to come up with the answers. I stop them every now and again for a couple of teaching moments, explaining how the process they just experienced will help them when they write another business plan.
I redid my proposed schedule and divided the days w/ farmers into two day sessions for each of three main areas: finance, marketing, operations. Then I've left two days for myself to draft plan language and another day for revisions and discussions w/ one of the NGOs. I leave this area of August 9, and fly back to Beria for a debrief with the agency which "hired" me. Then August 10, I start the long miserable trek back home, arriving the evening of August 11, after over 30 hours of flying and waiting in airports.
My dropshots site (www.dropshots.com/elizpou) has today's pics. I just didn't want to fool with the frustration of trying to make blogger accept my photos.
Now, early to bed tonite.
My normally quiet little guesthouse is reverberating with music from an apparently uncaring neighbor who likes to blast bad disco-type music - most annoying - and I can't call the police to report him. Oh well. I guess this will be one night I sleep with the windows closed and hope the fan dulls the sound enough to sleep.
Have I mentioned food? The guest house feeds me breakfast, lunch and dinner and the meals are pretty tasty. We usually start with soup. Rice and beans are always there, along w/ tomatoes and lettuce from their garden (not really ripe yet, but ok), some kind of cooked greens (sort of a spinach collards combo), some kind of meat - tonite was fish, fresh rolls and fruit for dessert. Lunch was stewed chicken and the above mentioned additions. The last two days we've have really good papaya. Tonite include pineapple. Tangerines available all three meals today.
A good, long work day today. I stayed up late last night creating some financial templates we could use today. Before the meeting started, we went to see a corn processing machine at work. It didn't work. Something was wrong with the electricity and the employee in charge couldn't make the machines start. You could hear the machine getting a big jolt of juice, but the belt that should move two wheels just would not start. One lesson learned is that given local infrastructure and available expertise, FM should not be counting on running their machine at full speed every single day.
We worked on the start up costs all morning and again in the afternoon. I had been told not to expect the farmers to want to stay past noon. However, all 4 of these guys have committed to 6 days of full mornings and a shorter afternoon session. I'll take pity on them and let them take Sunday off.
This is an experiential type of training. Essentially, I am explaining a little piece of the puzzle (elements of start up expenses) and then the farmers have to come up with the answers. I stop them every now and again for a couple of teaching moments, explaining how the process they just experienced will help them when they write another business plan.
I redid my proposed schedule and divided the days w/ farmers into two day sessions for each of three main areas: finance, marketing, operations. Then I've left two days for myself to draft plan language and another day for revisions and discussions w/ one of the NGOs. I leave this area of August 9, and fly back to Beria for a debrief with the agency which "hired" me. Then August 10, I start the long miserable trek back home, arriving the evening of August 11, after over 30 hours of flying and waiting in airports.
My dropshots site (www.dropshots.com/elizpou) has today's pics. I just didn't want to fool with the frustration of trying to make blogger accept my photos.
Now, early to bed tonite.
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