Dia 25

My last post from Nicaragua! Our flight leaves tomorrow at noon, I'm excited to see my family but I'm going to miss Nicaragua. It has been a great experience; I knew it would be but I don't think I expected to learn so much. Analyzing these small businesses has given me a chance to apply so much of what we have learned in school this past year. I also learned what real poverty is. I will never forget praying with a sweet, old, member of the church who prayed for something to eat the next day. It has also struck me how happy these people are, I guess I'm thinking specifically about the members of the church. They have so much faith, which was frustrating at times when they clearly thought that God would help their business regardless of their mismanagement. I've made some great friends here, Pte. Maravilla and his family, Maria Jose, Paul W, and many others. Finally, Cause for Hope is doing a great job and is changing lives by breaking the generational cycle of poverty for thousands of families. Self-reliance is a great thing. In the U.S. we really need to take advantage of the educational and other opportunities that we have.

Anyway, just a few of my thoughts as I close this up. Thank you Cheryl for letting me make this trip and for taking care of our boys, I love you. Will, Tanner, and Nathan daddy is coming home. Later.

Dia 24

Free Day. We left at 8:00 am this morning with Jose and Janet Maravilla and Maria Jose and went to Masaya, El Mirador, and to an active volcano. We were able to drive right up to the crater of the volcano and look down inside. There is no visible lava, but there was a lot of smoke which is very sulfuric and was too strong to breath after a while. It was actually really cool to look down into an active volcano. After that we visited a place called El Mirador, a small town that overlooks the crater of another volcano. This volcano however isn't active and the crater is full of water. It was a nice few, beyond the crater you could see another large lake. We did some shopping at a tourist market in Masaya. I was able to find a few things for Cheryl and the boys, although I get tired really fast of having everybody approach me trying to get me to buy whatever thing they have.

It was a really fun day, just a lot of driving. All of the places we visited are a few hours from Chinandega so we had a long drive each way, but I appreciate Jose being willing to take us around. Oh, on the side of the highway there are guys who sell living Iguanas to take home and cook. We pulled over and didn't buy one, but the gentleman did let Paul W. and I take a picture holding the Iguanas.

Dia 23

A busy day. We visited Chamorro, Marlon, Hugo, and more. First we visited Chamorro and Marlon (dvds). Marlon has started to place his small logo on each disc that he sells, it looks really good, we think it is really going to help business. (Here is an example, and yes we will be watching the new Star Trek tonight)


We visited Hugo (Magiver) to check out his new business sign. This afternoon we had two appointments here in the office. The first appoint was with Chamorro; in our first visit he told us he needed a website in order to compete in a new area of business he was pursuing, bidding on large engineering projects. These companies ask him for a website but he just isn't big enough yet. So Paul W. and I aren't skilled in creating websites, but we do know how to create a blog so we suggested a blog as a good, free company website. Chamorro didn't know what a blog was but he came over to the office today and we educated him. We created a google account, started the blog, and taught him how to add posts, information, photos, etc. Check it out: http://tallereschamorro.blogspot.com/. Chamorro was really pumped, he is going to add a new post for each job or project his company has done so clients can see their work. We are hopeful this will really help his business to move forward.

After that we had an appointment with Pedro Mayorga. He is an electrician and has his own business. We hadn't met with him before, but he wanted help coming up with a company name, logo, and business card. So that is what we did and I think we did a pretty good job. He seemed to really like what we came up with. We also created a gmail account for him because he has never had email.

Dia 22

I thought I'd get a foto of the supermarket where we buy our milk, water, and cornflakes. We spent most of today reviewing the companies that we have visited so that we can do any follow up visits that are still needed and to finish up our written reports. We also went to Chichigalpa with Maravilla and visited Brenda, sells used clothing, and Walleska, sells makeup, etc. We shared a suggestions with each of them for improving their businesses. We have been telling everybody for the last week or so that we would be holding a training class tonight on keeping financial records and marketing techniques but only one person showed up. We knew that would most likely be the case so we weren't too concerned about it. Hugo, repairs motorcycles, was the only one that came and he was right on Nicaraguan time, 30 minutes late.

This has been a great experience here in Nicaragua for a lot of reasons. One is that Paul W. and I both feel we have gained some good experience in analyzing a business and coming up with simple solutions to improve it. Although the experience has been on a simple level with small businesses, I think that the principles can be applied at any level and will be valuable. Pte. Maravilla even thought that we did such a great job designing the VisionSpring banners and Axel's business sign that he had us help design the sign that is being used to announce stake conference next month when two general authorities come to divide the stake here in Chinandega. The signs were just printed today and will be placed in all the chapels, but also in some public places such as the supermarkets. (Hyrum and Imara Maravilla)

Dia 21

I'm sorry but I think I'm loosing the motivation to update this blog everyday, and whatever quality it may have had is rapidly diminishing. I will however try my best. This is the Maravilla Family. Jose has been the Stake President for 10 years, they have three kids, the oldest is on a mission. They have taken good care of us including feeding us at their house and taking us on excursions on the weekend. Good people.

We had a long discussion this morning with Maravilla about the fact that almost all of the small business owners we have met with do not keep accounting records of any kind. They don't have a good handle on their costs or know what their true profits are because they don't keep good records. This is something that CFH has apparently struggled with and is something that is really keeping people from significantly improving their businesses, incomes, and savings. What we have been brainstorming are really simple approaches to recording inventory, income, costs, etc. We need to come up with something that would be easy for people to use, but also provide the important information that they need regarding their business. We think that if we can come up with something useful that it could really make a difference in increasing people's self reliance.


We also went to Chichigalpa to a field where two zones of missionaries were playing baseball, soccer, etc. The mission president for Nicaragua was also their playing with them, and I didn't even realize who he was when we first started talking. I told him I was surprised because I never saw my mission president without a white shirt and tie on. We ate dinner tonight at Pte. Maravilla's house with his family and the zone leaders, Sis. Maravilla makes some good grub. Here she is frying some cheese, good stuff!

Dia 20

I think this will be my shortest post, for those of you who may still be following this blog. Of course today is Sunday, we went to church at the 10:00 a.m. ward here in the Chinandega chapel. This evening we went to another stake training meeting same as last week. The people here are really friendly people and treat us very well when we go to church, I think that just about everybody shakes your hand.

We were planning out our week today and I can't believe that we only have one week left. Time has gone by fast as I'm sure this week will also because we have a lot we want to get done.

Oh, and I'm a little sunburned from our outing yesterday, and I think that is just about all the excitement anyone can handle from one blog post. Good night.

Dia 19

This morning we went with the Maravilla family and Maria Jose to Campusano. It is this natural fresh water place where people go swimming. We had a good time and I got sunburned which was bound to happen sooner or later. I did wonder about the sanitary nature of the place because people swim in their with their clothes on and who knows what else. Also, it was full of small fish that would bite at or eat your feet. So I guess I got a peticure at the same time I was swimming. In the picture I'm the light-skinned individual, just in case.

Other than that we have done some work today. We prepare reports on each of the businesses that we are working with and we had a few that we needed to work on. We only have one more week, we will be flying home next Saturday. This last week should go by pretty fast as we have a lot we would like to try and get done.