Hello everyone, I am going to break this post into two sections, the first one has to do with my day on a more personal level and the other has to do with work. So I will let you read what you want, but I would love for you to read both posts. First off, we had our second day of training/planning today (described a bit in the “work” section of this post). Secondly, it was only the second day that I worked with Juneth Miranda (Professor at UEP and the President of the NSCAP). She was actually getting ready to leave for a conference the next day, so she wanted me and Bembooy to come over and “drink some wine” with her and her husband (who happened to be facilitating the planning meetings… he is currently a micro-finance contractor in Afganistan). So, I happily abliged and brought a bottle of wine (200 pesos or $4). Well, it turns out “drinking some wine” entails one glass of wine and four glasses of Brandy… yesss. You could say we had a great time chatting about various things… including, yes, politics. Everyone at the table had stayed up all night to watch the inauguration.
After we discussed various topics for a bit, Mme Juneth told me that the Governer had contacted her earlier that day. He told her that he “heard they had a visitor in town.” You guessed it! That visitor is yours truly. I am not sure it is a good sign that I made an impression on the general public, but he wants me to come over to his house for dinner at some point in the next week. You could say I got socially connected on the fast-track (turns out, I am not that special, he invites all foreigners with NSCAP to come and dine at his house. He is very well connected with the program and a huge supporter). Anywho, Mme Juneth and her husband, Dr. June, were very nice and invited me to their daughter’s birthday party on February 8th. Two things regarding this: 1. I will have to celebrate my brother’s birthday that day (his is the 12th… in case any family members forgot!) and 2. I assume that when an 8 (I think that is how old she is turning) year old has a birthday it is much like the U.S. The parents through the party for the kids and all havoc breaks loose, but the parents are drinking some beers and wine so nobody really cares how much cake gets eaten… I shall let you know.
After Mme Juneth’s, Bembooy and I went to a local bar and right when we walked in the cover band was playing “Hotel California” and they were dead on! Even the singer sounded like ____________ (whoever the lead singer is for the Eagles… Andy don’t kill me). So we had a few beers each and the bill was 180 pesos… I may move here (in case you didn’t do the math in your head, that is about $0.75 a beer!). Bembooy told me a bit about why he was working with NSCAP (he is very sharp) and how personal it is for him to be involved with the organization. He is very dedicated and when he speaks at training everyone listens to him intently (even though they are all the same level, he seems to hold a higher stature). He told me his dream was for NSCAP Northern Samar to live well past his days. It was very moving and I shall remember this conversation for the rest of my life. I just hope I can help while I am here.
On a side note, Mme Juneth and Bembooy decided that it would be a good idea for me to work on three things (here comes the work part):
1. I will be looking at the interest rate that they charge customers and seeing if this can be changed to help improve on delinquent payments (this includes their savings interest rate, charged by the bank. Without getting into too many details, they are afraid they are giving out more money in savings interest than the bank is actually making, therefore losing money in this regard).
2. I will be conducting a training for either Branch Managers or Quality Managers (Quality Managers oversea 4 Branch Managers) or both. On what, I do not know, but I will come up with some topics that I feel I have some knowledge on and propose them to Mme Juneth.
3. I will be going from Branch to Branch (10) over the coming weeks to understand each Branches operations and see if there is any way to improve on them. This is really exciting because the Branches cover different remote islands and I have to go by boat to see them. I shall take lots of pictures (on that note, I have some pictures, but I am not sure when I will get around to posting them as they take a substantially longer time to post than text. I will post a few of the better ones.)
All in all, today was a great success, I still have a lot to learn however. I received the “ASA Handbook” from Mme Juneth tonight and am going to read over it tomorrow. It is basically a summary of their procedures and the methodology behind these procedures. I also have to review some of my notes from training and see if I can get any ideas from there. Currently, I have a list of about 20 things that I think I can work on in addition to the items listed above.
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