The Cloud Forest of Matagalpa - Part 2

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My week in Matagalpa continued with more great meetings with women. Before I continue with additional stories, I thought I would share more about why I am making these visits.

I am hopeful that I will be able to partner with CEPAD to expand the work they are doing to empower women in Nicaragua. They have an impressive program to give women the knowledge they need to start or improve their small businesses. A goal of CEPAD is that the women will share what they have learned with other women in their village along with some oversight from CEPAD. But there are not funds available to for these mentees to receive loans for their businesses. That is one way I hope to create a partnership. This would allow us to utilize the program CEPAD already has in place, but spread the knowledge wider.

El Cocoa was the next village we where we visited with women. This was a challenging location to get to, but we made it slowly. This village has access to a bus to get to town only if the road conditions allow. When we visited the bus wasn't running because they were using it for the villagers to fix the road with rocks the bus would carry, as close as possible, to where they were needed.

Conception: She has a lucky husband because he is married to a woman who is going places! She started her business selling tortillas, but they were not very profitable so she transitioned to selling gasoline and cellphone minutes. On a weekly basis she can sell $3000C of minutes ($82 USD) and profit about 13%! (MISSING)She then moved into cosmetics as she saw there was higher profit margins and similar to Mary Kay in the US, the company will front the cost of the products. She now has two women selling cosmetics as part of her team. She is using her profits not only to care for her daughter, but also to put herself through college. Side note: of all the homes I visited Conception by far had the most beautiful view outside of her home.

Anita: She had a very small shop before CEPAD in a great location near a school but didn't have the resources or skills to grow her business. She now has a wide variety of items including school uniforms. If she has the time she will make items like enchiladas for the kids to purchase for lunch. Children from Kindergarten to 6th grade attend school in the morning. The high school kids either attend school in the afternoon or they attend school on the weekend so they can assist their parents during the week.

Reyna and Gracilla: These two women work together selling vegetables. They purchase vegetables near their home and then bring them down to Matagalpa to sell. They do not have carts for their goods. They carry their vegetables on their back as they walk up and down the streets. I asked Reyna about the possibility of purchasing a cart with a loan. Reyna was more comfortable with using loans to purchase goods but she hadn't considered purchasing an asset. CEPAD and I discussed after our visit that encouraging the women to use some of their loans to purchase assets could provide long term benefits.

After a busy week of meetings, I had some down time to explore the town. I spent one day visiting a coffee planation that is preparing to harvest shortly. They have almost 400 employees that live full time on the ranch. They have a school, church, clinic and housing for the families. There are many 3rd or 4th generations who have stayed working on the ranch. I finished the weekend making a 3 hour drive south to meet my translator for the next week. It was a gorgeous drive with the only stops being police check points. They sometimes stop everyone and other times just trucks. I was told to keep $200 C ($6 USD) available to bribe the police if they wanted to give me a ticket.

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