The project, the outreach, monkeys and more..

Hi there! Sorry for not writing earlier. I have had a very busy week. Forgive me for spelling mistakes, I'm writing this on my camera. As I explained in my very first blog, I am working on the microfinance project in Koforidua. The project is managing three businesses. Emiel, Camille and I are managing the two soap factories.

A couple of months ago PA provided a loan to the people of Salom Village to start up their soap factories. One for solid soap and another one for liquid soap. The solid soap project is working out well but the liquid soap project is a mess.

The project fails to generate profits and it is making losses. So on Tuesday we had a meeting to see what we could improve. We found out that there the soap market is very competitive out here and every one is selling the same liquid soap. So I searched for an unique selling point and found out that there was no soap with the white milk colour (Dove colour). We found a way to make it and surprisingly we can cut down an huge amount on the production costs.
The only problem with the new plan is that we need new bottles because the costprice now is way to high.. finding new plastic bottles in Koforidua is very hard. The only way of fixing this problem is to transport it from other cities so currently we are trying to arrange something with a wholesaler in Accra. Since a large group of Ghanian people are very lazy.. it will take some time.
Another problem is that many people don't know the basic principles of doing business and accounting. Emiel and I are going set up the basics and learn them how to manage the balance sheet and inventory. Hopefully this will help the project if we are gone. That's it so far. As you can imagen I was a little bit disappointed in the project management but the good thing is that there is room for improvement and that means that I can contribute.

Okay now the most exciting part!!!
Friday we joined the medicals to an outreach in Nsutam Village. The medicals gave the older people an info session about high bloodpressure and checked the heart and blood conditions of the people. While they were busy I found some children playing. I brought a lot of balloons so started to blow them up and gave them to all kids. They were so happy and thankful. A beautiful moment seeing those smiley faces. Another group of medicals found me and the others playing with the kids and started dressing wounds. I got the chance to help dressing wounds. Almost all children had infected wounds so it was really important that we cleaned them up. The sad thing is that the people from the village don't have the knowledge and medical kits to prevent or dress the wounds themselves. Luckily PA is trying to do weekly outreaches. All in all it was one of the best experiences I had so far. I felt really satisfied helping the medical team.

After the outreach we went to the office where the other volunteers were waiting for us. We planned to go to the Volta region. With a group of twelve volunteers we got in a tro(taxibus) for a 7 hour ride to the Mountain Paradise lodge up in the mountains. We arrived at 11PM. We slept in tents in the mountains. The view was absolutely stunning. On Saturday we woke up at 9 and had breakfast. At 11 the owner of the lodge drove us to the Monkey Sanctuary in his jeep. I was standing in the back of the jeep and had a very wide view. It was a great ride.

We went into the Monkey Sanctuary with a guide. He was making some weird sounds and held a banana in his hand. It took only two minutes for the first monkeys to show up. Everyone got the chance to feed the monkeys. They hung in the tree and were peeling and eating the bananas.I was the last one that got to feed then and I had the best experience you could wish for. A monkey jumped on my arm and started eating. What a blast!

After visiting the Monkey Sanctuary we got dropped into the jungle. We started hiking with backpacks on. After hiking for almost two hours we found a waterfall in the middle of the jungle. We went in for a swim. The surroundings, the waterfall.. in one word: incredible. After swimming we got back on track and hiked back to the lodge. All in all we hiked for four hours. After dinner most ofnus went to bed.

Today we had a rest day. After waking up and breakfast we took the tro back to Koforidua. We arrived at 4, had a quick dinner in town and went home.

This was my experience for the week. All those little moments here in Ghana are giving me a blast. I'm really enjoying my trip and it's better than I expected.

Thank you for reading. Writing this on my camera took me 2 hours so hope you like it Goodnight!