So far so good!

The past week has been jam packed with meetings and getting to know our surroundings here in Puno and Juliaca. All of us have been busy working with Prisma to accomplish some of their goals to better serve their clients, while at the same time establishing partnerships with ProMujer and Mibanco. As Jessie mentioned in her last post, she and I have been hard at work developing an impact assessment/client assessment that Prisma will be able to continue to use long after we leave Peru. This has been particularly exciting for us since we are both extremely interested in learning just what kind of effect microfinance is having on the men and women participating in the system. This afternoon we are presenting our preliminary questionnaire to Prisma and hopefully we will get to test it out at a couple of the meetings groups are having at the bank today.

Living in the homestay has been incredible! Our family is amazing and so much fun. Through their connections we’ve been able to talk more directly with ProMujer, which has been a huge help in expediting the process to build a partnership there. They only speak Spanish and Quechua (not English!) which is really helping me to get a better understanding and feel for the language. The rest of the group has been a huge help in filling in the details for me. Over time I’m confident my Spanish skills will be much better, especially since I am staying for both sessions.

As I am writing this the rest of the group is over at the orphanage working out the details of the projects we hope to complete there during our spare time. We might even be able to get started this weekend if things go well today. Also on the schedule for this weekend is some group bonding time. We’ll be doing some short day trips to some sites surrounding Puno, in particular the ruins of Sillustani and the hot springs. In honor of Fathers’ Day on Sunday, we decided to have a barbecue out by the hot springs (an hour away from Puno) with our host family. I’m really excited to get out and start seeing more of Peru!

Yesterday morning we went to school with my host family’s eldest daughter Annie (she’s 16) to watch her give a presentation in her class about finance! Unfortunately, we arrived at 7:30am (when school is supposed to start) but her teacher didn’t show up until 8:30am so she didn’t get to do her presentation. I was kind of shocked that the teacher was so late, especially since her school day ends at 1:00pm. I’m told that this is pretty typical of many schools in South America though (at least in Argentina and Peru). At least it wasn’t a total loss; we got to sit and chat with her friends for an hour and met some really cool kids.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the weeks progress. It’s a goal of mine to leave here having accomplished as much as possible, and give Prisma some extra tools to provide better services to their clients. It would be great to get some other perspectives on microfinance from ProMujer (a MFI that loans only to women and also incorporates a range of other social services tailored to women) and MiBanco (a commercial MFI) as well. Time is going by so fast, I can’t believe it! We have a great team of students down here though, and we love working together. There is no doubt we are going to be able to accomplish some great things during our relatively short stay.

Tyler