One whole week!

It's been a whole 7 days since we arrived in Bolivia and it has been quite a week! A lot has happened since we last checked in and we are continuing to learn more and experience more every day. Wednesday turned out to be a very long and exciting day. Both Ben and I went to La Guardia on a trip that was only supposed to be an hour or two long. We went with Erwin and Jhon, who are the in country staff in charge of the Microenterprise section of the company. We went to teach a class that they thought was at 4pm but wasn't actually until 7:30 pm! This is the library in La Guardia where they have the business classes. Since the people there are so poor, they don't have to pay the fee for the classes as long as they bring their own supplies and refreshments.














This is me with Erwin and Jhon right outside the classroom at the library in La Guardia.

This first week has had its ups and downs, we are still getting us to the sorroundings and adjusting to the new time zone. We are having fun and really starting to get our feet wet and have fun. The classes don't start until next week and they will last about two months. We are still recruiting people for the class that will take place in the office and still need more people for the class in La Guardia.

Marian and I got to go and do something fun, we went and talked with the Mayor of a little village to see if we could start working with them and the people(mainly the poor people). What we did at this meeting was tell there what we do and why we do it and give them a brief overview of our organization. Is this we ask them if they will support us working there, and by supporting us they are obligated to, by the government, pay half of what the project will cost and supply, if needed, materials and man power or labor. The other 25% of the project come from the people themselves in the form of actual money(normally they do not pay money for projects), or they provide some materials and man power. This is a huge cost saver for the organization and will help cut down their cost and raise others.

Things are well and we are starting to get some work thrown our dirrection so we hope to be getting busy in the next couple weeks and learning the system and learning what to do and being able to manage ourselves.

Love,

Marian and Ben