2/9 and 3/9: Micro finance continues

This week we are visiting the same groups on the same days. So today we visited one group: Riverside. They have a problem with one of the people in the group and they don’t know what to do about her, she hasn’t really shown up to the meetings we have with them and therefore she hasn’t had any training from us. But then right when we were discussing her she showed up, so the rest of the group has agreed to support her, but not let her get a bigger loan than last time. They will finish their loan next week, they really have two weeks left, but they want to finish earlier. After we got back I had a Kiswahili lesson, and then I had to go to town to Skype a bit with my sister, but the connection was really bad so we couldn’t do it for long. After that we met up with some of the others to have dinner at Khan’s barbeque that I had heard was really good. It was, but I had eaten too much cake before going so I wasn’t that hungry anymore, which was a shame because the cake hadn’t really been all that good. The next day on Tuesday we were in the field all day visiting two groups. The first one to do some savings training and a business visit, the woman we visited was doing really well. Much better than most of the other women and she doesn’t really need the third loan, but that is when we have to figure out what our goal is; for the individual women to be financially independent or the entire group, because this woman can help the others if they need it. We met the second group in a church made of concrete, and we talked and discuss what problems they had. When we got back to the office I had another Kiswahili class, which means ten hours down, 50 to go. By then it was getting late, so it was time to get home.