My project

My volunteer project is coming along -- lots of limitations, which I expected. It is an organization that essentially helps artisan cooperatives with small business skills and then sells their stuff to clients in the States at a 'Fair Trade' price. In addition, a portion of the money goes to grade school/high school scholarships in the communties. This was pretty big for me since I think that education is the only long term soluntion. Anyway, it essentially is trying to follow the model of Transfair (Fair Trade coffee).

The organization has a TON of potential, but the director/founder is so disorganized that it is frustating. There are two other volunteers down here currently. Heather just got her MBA from the London School of Economics in Gender and Economics, or something like that. She had trouble finding a job in development (of course), and so is doing this for about 6-8 months to get a bit of experience. She has been really great, especially when I first got here. Ben was a Peace Corps volunteer, but got kicked out, but has been working anyway. He is only here until Monday, which is too bad becuase he actually lives next door to me in San Antonio, and it is nice to have someone out there. -- I am usually asleep by 9 or 10, up by 6 am, if that gives you an idea of the quietness of my life here!! Acutally, Ben has only been here for the last week or so with me becuase he had gone to Honduras for about 10 days right when I arrived pretty much. Anyway, he has been helping to oversee the cooperative in San Antonio, which gets all the huge orders (like 2500 peices), among some other stuff.

I am supposed to be doing a whole cost-price analysis, setting the prices for all the stuff and creating a catalog. Some MBA students from Wharton were down here this spring and started some spreadsheets, which I have been looking over. Some of it is really great, and some of it not so much (I can hear my manager from LECG, Stephen, in my head going on an extended tirade about how some of it is arranged!). Was getting annoyed with the syntax of one of my formulas the other day, and was thinking a) some things never change and b) it is nice to have a second pair of eyes in the cube next door sometimes! --especially since Internet was out and so I couldnt just look it up online as I prefer to do!

A lot of the problem is that I feel like work gets done and then repeated, or that Frieda (the director) has zero understanding of computers or excel, so things just get lost.

The fun part of what I am doing is when I go out to visit each of the cooperatives, which is the other half of my time! There is no way it will all be finished before I leave, however.

Anyway... that is my volunteer work in a nutshell!!