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Published: November 15th 2023
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I had a great week in Matagalpa. It was definitely my favorite weather and the prettiest views. This is the cloud forest area of Nicaragua. There are no volcanoes in this area, but there are mountains, lush vegetation and temperate weather. Before I arrived they had 3 days of torrential rain, but it only rained a few times while I was there. I didn't need A/C due to a great breeze blowing through my little cottage. A few times I even put a sweater on 😊.
I had some very interesting village visits outside of Matagalpa.
The first village we visited was Jamaica. There is an interesting belief in this community that changes in temperature will cause them illness and harm. So if the women spend several hours cooking over heat they spend the rest of the day inside where a fresh breeze can not reach them.
Bernarda: She was a lovely older women. She has been making a variety of food for many years, but was able to focus on the items that are profitable after attending the financial literacy courses. During the week she makes plantain chips to fill local orders and to sell to local
stores. I have had many plantain chips in many different countries and I can honestly say these are the best I have had. Not only were they very fresh, but they were lighter and crispier. I paid her for the bag's worth I ate while we were chatting as well as several to go. She said she uses a very specific plantain to achieve this. There are 400 plantains in the pictured basket which is enough for 150 bags. Each bag is sold for $.50 to $1 depending on the circumstances. On the weekend she makes Nacatamales which is her most profitable item. If she sells 150 of them over the weekend she profits $45. She has won prizes at local markets for her recipe. (Nana)tamles are different than the Mexican tamales I am used to. They are much larger and have rice, cornmeal, and a variety of meat inside.
Leanna: She already had a bakery but has been able to streamline her business. She used to buy flour 25lbs at a time and now she can buy at 100lbs per time saving on costs. She has also used the classes to determine which of her items are the
most profitable and which items she was losing money on and needed to stop producing. I asked her if she thought she could mentor a woman to start or improve a business. She said she does think she could teach what she had learned and felt there was a need for a seamstress in her village.
Amparo: She was able to start a very small shop with her first loan and she has slowly grown it. She sells a bit of everything from snacks, pop, cheese and hard goods. She would like to expand to selling meat, but she would need a fridge first. Before receiving her first loan, she was able to calculate what her profits would be on each item so she could spend wisely. For example, she spends $6000C (~$165USD) for supplies for soda and snacks per week profit $700C ($20USD). This is enough to cover many of her household expenses.
Yolanda: She has a small shop that is not currently in operation because she and her husband (both in their 60s) were preparing to go to Costa Rica to pick coffee beans for two months. I really enjoyed learning - which didn't come out
until the end- was about her neighbor. I asked her what one of her biggest challenges was and she said that another shop opened up a few doors down and they have higher quality items. I could sympathize with her that this has put a large strain on her business. But at the end I learned the single mom who opened the business did it at the encouragement and mentoring of Yolanda. She is so selfless that she is helping her neighbor even though it is causing difficulties in her own business. Talk about taking care of our neighbors!
The second village we visited was Sebaco. We almost didn't make it to this village because of the tremendous amount of rain that came over the weekend. We crossed two rivers after consulting with locals to confirm they thought we could pass with our truck.
Maria: With her first loan she purchased chickens to produce eggs to sell. On average she was able to sell 30 eggs per day at 5C ( .15USD) per egg. But the chickens got too old (1.5 years) and stopped laying eggs so she sold them for meat. She buys a special kind of
hen that costs $15USD per chicken. She buys these chickens because they start to lay eggs sooner than other types. Her biggest struggle is that the price of the chicken feed will change, but the price she can sell the eggs for stays constant. She is now waiting for her next shipment of 30 chickens. We discussed that she might want to consider cycling her chickens so they do not all mature at the same time. She said she had not thought to buy them 5 at a time spaced out. So she is going to consider saving some profits to start a cycle to provide more consistency in her business.
Flora: I am very proud of how far she has come even though her shop is quite modest compared to others I visited. Flora never learned to read or write so when she attends the workshops she has to just listen and commit it to memory since she is not able to take notes or reference the handouts that are provided. Even though she has this limitation she was still able to comprehend and accounting classes and put the lessons into practice for business. She knows exactly which
items are selling well and where she might be able to expand. When I asked if she would feel comfortable teaching another women at first she was unsure referencing her lack of education. But with the help of the CEPAD team we discussed that she could be the perfect person to teach another woman who has her same level of education because they can relate and likely have similar skills to compensate for their inability to read and write.
Darlys was a highlight to end the visit to this village. She became a village community leader two years ago after the village was basically abandoned by the township. She has done substantial work to improve the lives of the families in her village. Her next priorities are to bring electricity and clean water to the village. She is a great inspiration to the other women and girls in her village. She doesn't have any specialized training, just a strong desire to improve the lives of her neighbors.
We had to cancel a visit to one community because the road had completely washed out. The members of the community will likely be the ones to repair the road with
rocks since it would take way too long to wait for the government to do it.
I spent this unexpected free afternoon to hike to a waterfall near the highest point in Nicaragua. This is definitely not like visiting a western waterfall. I have to walk over a small waterfall edge to the other side of the river before following some horses on a path as I figured they knew where the water was. Turns out this was the correct guess and with their help I found the waterfall.
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