Nicaragua

It’s been two weeks since I arrived in Nicaragua. A very full two weeks! During my first week, I went along with MEDA member Conrad Brenneman who was conducting an internal audit of MEDA’s credit program (MiCredito which stands for “My Credit”). Visiting the clients was a great experience. We enjoyed meeting them, seeing their businesses and homes, and experiencing their hospitality. I guess we were a bit intimidating to some however. One client hid from us and afterwards went to make his loan payment! We had a translator who accompanied us and not only translated the client interviews, but gave us lots of information about Nicaragua and its people. The photo above is Momotombo volcano.

I’ll be doing a lot more client visits during my time here. I’m stationed in Managua until August…working for a new MEDA project called MEDA Trust. It is marketing initiative that will allow donors to see how Microfinance works. MiCredito’s database of clients is linked into the MEDA Trust website, so people can donate money then select the loans they’d like to “sponsor”. When the loan is paid back by the client, that money is put back into the donor’s portfolio for them to re-lend (you don’t get your money back!).

On Wednesday, January 10th, we went to the inauguration of Nicaragua's new president, Daniel Ortega. There had to be half a million people gathered into the main city square/grandstand area. They had party flags waving all over, and when Mr. Ortega made his first address to the people, they cheered passionately. A little different from Canadian politics!

I’m settled into an apartment (simply furnished...and came with pets too!). It's in a very convenient area…close to everything I’ll need, and not far from the MEDA office. I hope to walk around and get to know where things are, however, in Managua, there are no street names. People use landmarks, for example: from the Margarita Restaurant, 2 blocks east, then 1 block towards the Lake (which is north). That makes it tricky for foreigners who aren’t familiar with landmarks!

I’ve already had three Spanish lessons…2 informal and 1 formal. My first was with some kids playing baseball (or at least a version of it). I was sitting on a park bench getting my sandals shined by one of the kids, and soon they were all around checking out my camera…and teaching me some vocabulary! As payment, I bought them treats from a nearby vendor. My other lesson was with some MEDA staff, Veronica and Alexia, while driving from Leon to Managua. I felt like a little kid—repeating after them and when I came out with correct conjugations or pronunciations, they’d say, “Wow! Good!” I had my first formal lesson today at Viva Spanish language school. It was good...gotta work on rolling my r's and pronouncing v's like b's (or some kind of sound inbetween the two). I hope to keep up the informal lessons too....they're much more fun!