Friday morning was a great morning filled with food and Center Meetings and Client visits. I only attended one Center Meeting, but it was a great one. Again, I am starting to open up with the clients and am really getting an understanding of what they want out of the program. I also am appreciative of them being so open and understanding. Of course, everyone wants more out of services they receive, but there is a related cost to these services. I tell them that their suggestions are great, but we will have to look at what the costs will be for that added service. They agree and continue with suggestions and are very polite and equate all services to their personal lives.
At the Center Meeting, it was one of the client’s birthdays, so they had a mini-fiesta for their friend. They had cokes and pancit (for long life) and they even broke out the tuba for me (it was quite early). The food was delicious, but I was starting to feel the effects of the crabs the night before. I fought through it and had a great time at the meeting. We then went on to visit a client who was in the business of hog fattening. She was on her first cycle (Php 4,000) and was stating that this was not enough to raise an entire litter of hogs to their maximum potential. She has to sell off half-fattened pigs at a lesser price in order to cover her costs for raising additional pigs. This is the dichotomy of the Grameen way. While they want to give as much as they can to the poor (one side), they do not require collateral, so they don’t want to give too much too soon if a client is unable to pay the larger amount (other side). This is a struggle that any microcredit organization has, especially one as new as FGP.
After the meeting, I started to feel the sickness coming on, but needed to fight through it until we got back to Catarman, which, I luckily was able to do. I got Julian and I some more antibiotics and continued back to the Branch where it was approximately 250 degrees… I am not sure I have sweat so much in my life. One of my friends from the provencial government saw me on the street and said hi, he commented on how much I was sweating, that is pretty bad. So, I recovered the rest of the day. It only took me a day to recover this time, maybe I am starting to get used to the food here! Since I am writing this on Sunday, I can tell you that I am fully recovered now… aside from the 10 pounds I probably lost in the last two days… in due time!
I got back to the Hina Branch to find the Hina Branch Staff doing some Spring-cleaning. They were trimming their trees and vines and by the time they were done I am not sure they had any vines or trees left, but they did do it! I got some pictures of them hard at work… I also (since it is my home) grabbed a broom and helped sweep for a bit, I didn’t get any pictures of that, but one of the Loan Officers did… so if you really want proof, I could probably get it for you.
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