Works in Progress

This week was a busy week for us. Our classes are in full session and we are teaching in two different places four times a week. It has been great for us and we are loving it so far. We are still in the early stages of the classes and we are getting to know the people better, but we are already seeing several people who have great ideas for projects and who are very willing to work hard in order to receive a loan further on so they can start their projects.
                     
  Monday and Thursday are the days we have decided to teach in the main Danper plant here in Trujillo. We have a group of about 60 people who signed up for the class, but usually about 40 or so show up. This group is great and they are very participative and there are several of them who have great ideas for businesses. They have completed Phase One of the teaching material and they have already turned in 2 homework assignments which are helping us the determine how to teach them and how we can custom make our classes in order to teach them what they really need to know.

 Tuesdays and Fridays are dedicated to teaching in Compositan, which also involves a lot of traveling. We first take a taxi to a certain part of town where we them get on a bus that takes us to a neighboring town about an hour away called Viru. From Viru we have a special transportation van that takes us another 25 minutes through a few little towns but eventually gets to where we give our classes. We teach in an auditorium made out of wood beams and tarps, it may not sound like a lot but it gets the job done. We borrow a projector and have 2 bed sheets tied together to make a screen for it to project onto. In Compositan we have only had one class with about 20 people. The people are very quiet which makes it hard to know if they are understanding, but none the less we are still happy and excited to advance with them and their projects as well. We may have to teach at a different pace with this group, but we are sure it will all turn out fine.

  A little side note, this week our house got fumigated once again because the bugs that were biting me got passed on to Katrina as well, so to stop them finally we had the whole apartment sprayed on Friday afternoon. Katrina and I got to spend our weekend in a hotel here in Trujillo and enjoy a much needed mini vacation. We are both back in the apartment now and I am no longer sleeping on the couch. Now we wait and see if the bugs come back, lets hope they don't!