Advertisement
Published: November 21st 2023
Edit Blog Post
My last visit was to the Southern section of the country. I also had a new translator join me this week so it was nice to have a new perspective. He only recently joined CEPAD after working with medical missions for many years. While he has not been to the US he had better conversational English and a greater understanding of the culture/way of life so we were able to have many interesting conversations.
The first village we visited was El Nispero. This town has no electricity. So some of the women, if they are lucky, have a basic solar panel and battery. Depending on how much sunlight they get it is enough to turn on the lights at night, charge phones, and maybe a small TV in the summer.
Greta: She is a single mom and lives with her mother. She started the shop in 2017, but the loans allowed her to bring in more items. Her most profitable items are: rice, beans, and drinks. The drinks are favored because customers want something cold. But the trouble is every day she has to travel a long distance to buy ice to cool her drinks not knowing how many
drinks she will sell. She was the first shop I saw selling what we could consider OTC medicine. She said they are lose leaders, but her hope is that brings in more customers.
Martha and Maryeli : They are partners in slaughteing pigs for restaurants but they do not raise the pigs themselves. Martha has done this off and on for many years while Maryeli recently took over her father's business. Because they don't have electricity they will slaughter at 4am and then deliver the raw meat via motorcycle by mid morning. I learned a lot about how they use every last piece of the pig. On the weekends Maryeli will prepare 60lbs of chicken and make food to sell at the baseball field. I love how they take advantage of every opportunity to sell!
This village was also where I learned that sheep and goats can mate, and unlike mules they are not sterile. According to Google 'Geep' are rare and usually die young, but the farm I saw (unrelated to CEPAD) had many healthy animals. There is a local dish made from their meat for the holidays.
Our next Village was El Trinfo.
Olinda and Maria: The mother and daughter team prepare food and juice each day for two local dairy farms. There is a flat rate for lunch and like in elementary school she puts out a menu a week in advance so the workers can place orders. The juice business started with Maria making juice in the morning and the 10 yr old son would sell it on the public bus on her way to school. The biggest take away we had was they were not charging enough for their juice products. We encouraged them to increase prices right away.
Rita: She has the first nail business that I have visited. She used to raise pigs, but prefers this work. Rita used her loan to buy the supplies, so now most of her cost of doing business is her time. A basic manicure is $250C ($7USD), but acrylics are more profitable at $500C ($14USD) Certificates are not required to do this work, but her daughter in law used a loan to attend a local vocational school to receive her certification.
Estebana and Gezela: Estebana ( the mother) has started a restaurant outside her home. She serves breakfast lunch and dinner
7 days a week. Her enchiladas, tacos, and juices are her most profitable. Her biggest challenge is she frys her food on a wood stove. If she could get a gas stove top she could grill or bake the food instead. Genzela, her daughter, has a sewing business in the back of the house. She makes more profit from new items so she has started to make children's clothes and bringing them around the village to sell. She learned to sew by watching YouTube.
The
Garcia/Gomez family was such a wonderful finish to my week. Mama Lillian had 12 children. The daughter who works with her has 9 children. We actually visited them 3 times so I got to know them better. I really enjoyed rolling dough for baking with Mama Lillian while she shared advice and wisdom. One of her daughters never married and still lives at home. She heard me say I like quecso so by the next visit she had homemade cheese ready for me. There was always a lot of family around laughing and enjoying their meals together.
38,000 $1042
After my time in Nueva Guinea I headed back to Managua to have
some meetings with CEPAD to discuss how we can best partner to benefit the women in the villages they serve. I am excited to see what we will be able to do together.
My friend Sofia told me that Miss Universe is a very big deal in Nicaragua and she would be joining a group of friends to watch it livestreamed at a bar on Saturday night. I always like to participate in what the locals enjoy so I was game to watch my first pageant. It was taking place in neighboring El Salvador making it more exciting. The bar was packed with both men and women. The show is broadcasted in English, but then it was dubbed into Spanish. I had no idea what was being said, but upside I don't think we we watch for the interview section 😊 The bar was beyond surprised when Nicagarua made it into the top 20 as they have never won before. Fast forward....Nicaragua won Miss Universe! You would think they won the World Cup. When I went to the airport the next day it was mobbed with people because it was rumored she was headed home. They also will have
a public holiday for a parade next week.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.209s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0732s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb