Ready for Round 2

Maybe there's an explanation to be found in physics or metaphysics, but it seems like time moves faster down here where the Southern Cross guides the mariner. Not that I would know or anything. Haven't seen more than one or two stars in the sky since I've been here. The price of living in a sprawling metropolis... I've passed the half-way point of my three-month stint here in Lima, and I'm already feeling a heavy time crunch trying to get everything done that I need to/want to/should in the next month-and-change. From teaching more workshops and helping more participants to traveling the country to improving my Spanish and doing my homework, it seems there's always more to be done. Everybody wants to take part in the Self Employment Workshop (with good reason - it rocks), and we just don't have time to meet all the demand. But having just finished our first round of workshops, I want to take a minute and look at some of our graduates and the impact the workshop has had on them.

So far we've had four different groups of participants finish the workshop - two in Maranga on the west side of the city, one in Musa to the east and one in our office in San Isidro. (We have two other groups in process right now, and we'll be beginning another two or three next week. Those will probably be the last ones we have time to teach before April rolls around.) With the exception of the San Isidro group, they've all been taught at night in chapels around the city primarily to members of the church. The workshops are taught once a week for three hours over the course of 5 weeks, and have typically started with around 12-14 participants. Usually less than half that number actually finishes, which is kind of a bummer, but we've been able to see some real success in those that do finish and do apply the principles we've taught. For example, Daniel Acevedo and Humberto Lozado (not shown) are partners in a business producing soaps and cleaning products. Their products are of much higher quality than the industrial suppliers, but at a cheaper price than Clorox and Sapolio, the big name brands. Before they started with our workshop, they had about 50 clients - restaurants, businesses, small hotels, etc. During the course of the workshop, they put together a well-done PowerPoint presentation to show to potential clients that explained the features of not only their product, but also of themselves and managers of the business. Using this PowerPoint, they were able to land a contract with a large manufacturing plant south of the city. With just this one client, they more than doubled their number of weekly sales. Daniel directly attributed the sale to the principle of "power statements", brief declarations of the experience and attributes of the people involved in the business, as the element that sealed the deal. A few weeks later, they landed another pretty big sale, and are now looking to expand through more aggressive marketing and a more professional presentation of their products. Daniel also says that the workshop has made Humberto a little less hard-headed and more willing to be flexible with business plans.

Daniel and Humberto are probably the best examples we have so far of actual concrete improvement and growth in their business, but that doesn't mean that there haven't been other successes. A few examples stand out. Carlos "Tito" Godoy, who sells parts and repairs for heavy industrial machinery, has had a business for a while, and has been looking to expand. He views his business with great faith, not viewing it as solely an opportunity to make money but to provide for the well-being of others, especially members of the Church, through creating jobs. His main need was more capital, and through the course of the workshop was able to refine his business plan more so he could have more confidence in going to the bank and requesting a substantial loan. He has told us repeatedly that he feels that this workshop was an answer to his prayers, which has been really humbling to me.

Daniel, Humberto and Tito were all graduates of our first group, which also included Carlos Gonzales, who is starting a business exporting hydrangeas to American suppliers like Home Depot and Lowe's, and Mirtha Sánchez, who eventually wants to start a business designing, producing and selling purses.

One example that stands out from our second group is Alfredo and Rosa Maza, a husband-and-wife duo who have a business providing all of the missionary name tags for all the missions in Peru. Alfredo is looking to get a newer, fancier machine that will enable him to expand to other types of name placards, while Rosa is looking to help her two daughters start up a fast-food restaurant and a beauty salon, respectively. Some other examples include José Vargas, who produces and sells paint for houses and industrial uses; Rocío Salcedo, a health nut who wants to start a juice shop; Jorge Castillo, who is trying to help his family expand their bakery (and who also has the highest voice of any male I've met here in Peru); and Oscar Torres, a taxi driver who originally started with the idea of raising snails to be able to sell their slime (baba de caracol) to cosmetics producers but has decided to change his idea upon realizing that it just wouldn't be financially feasible with the resources he has. Smart move? I think so...

Our third group began strong with a lot of participants and turned into a perpetual Relief Society Meeting, which I was completely okay with. We graduated 5 ladies, all of whom were incredibly dedicated and eager to learn. The area was a little less affluent, and the participants had significantly less experience with businesses. Our graduates from this group included Lucy de Nole, a primary school teacher who produces jewelry on the side; Nancy Rodriguez and her daughter Paola, who are going to start a costume shop; Frida Jimenez, who is starting a preschool; and Cecilia Tamani, who wants to export agricultural products to Colombia and Brazil. Cecilia and her siblings, especially her brother Lan, are good friends of ours. They're from a town called Pucallpa, in the jungle, and they're all here in Lima as university students. Lan is one of the sharpest people I've met here in Lima. He teaches classes on software and information systems, and is starting a business with a friend designing and providing information systems to small business owners. He has an incredibly solid plan, and would have graduated from our workshop had he not started teaching classes at the same time halfway through. We're trying to recruit him as an instructor of the workshop so it doesn't fall apart when we leave, but he's a pretty busy guy.

Now we arrive at the fourth group, our daytime San Isidro group, which had a significantly different dynamic than the other three groups. Our San Isidro group was primarily made up of professionals who had been friends with our manager, Napoleon, when they were all studying real estate and land management a few years ago. The fact that they were all friends to begin with, and that they've all had significant professional experience, really made it an easy and enjoyable group to teach. Six of them were going in on a business together to start an academy teaching classes in real estate. Apparently a new law is about to go into effect that states that you can't practice real estate without having taken the necessary courses and graduating from an officially sanctioned program, so they're anticipating a pretty big demand in the near future.

Perhaps the most ambitious plan of any of our workshop participants so far came from Napoleón Garcés, not to be confused with Napoleón Quispe, our manager. Napo Garcés is from Ecuador, and the husband of Eva Fleischman, one of the six who is starting the real estate academy. Eva is Jewish - her mother, Alexa, arrived in Peru in 1939, when she was 14 years old, after fleeing Germany by purchasing false passports for $10,000. Eva was born here in Lima, but has an interesting perspective on things as a Peruvian Jew. She and Napo are both on their second marriages, having met each other at international bridge tournaments (Eva was the ladies' national champion of Peru, while Napo was the national champion of Ecuador). Anyway, Napo is starting a business selling water- and energy-saving products, beginning with sink valves that save up to 90% of the water flow without sacrificing any of the water pressure. It's some fancy technology designed by NASA for which he has the exclusive right as Peru's distributor, having worked in civil engineering and water systems his whole life. Anyway, I have no doubt in my mind that his business is going to be successful, especially if the government passes a law mandating water-saving devices in non-residential buildings the way Colombia's government recently did.

There. It's done. I've given you a summary of nearly every business of nearly every one of the graduates of our workshops so far. It has truly been an incredible experience, working with people of all types, from their education levels to their religious beliefs to their types of businesses. Above all, I've gained some insight, confidence and relationships that will be with me for a long, long time...

From Limón to Lima to Limón once again

A good blog post must always begin with a play on words in the title, right? Since it's my first attempt at a blog (long overdue, I know), I'm grateful to have at hand all the exotic twists of Spanish to impress you gringos reading back home with my clever and catchy names. So here's a phrase for all of you to learn: ¿Qué te crees, eres la última chupada del mango? It's the equivalent of saying, What, do you think you're all that and a bag of chips? Literally, it means, What, do you think you're the last lick (or suck) of the mango? And I must say, Peru really is all that - the last lick of the mango, as it were.

I've successfully survived, and in my humble opinion, thrived in my first week here in Lima, and I'm about as happy as a claxon on a cúster (more on that to come). This place is lively, colorful and just flat-out fun. The food is absolutely incredible - a true hidden gem among world cuisines (and it doesn't hurt that you can get a full three-course meal for lunch - appetizer, entreé, drink and dessert - at a reasonably quality restaurant for only 12 soles, about $5). Indeed, so far I've had famous Peruvian dishes such as ceviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice - delicious), lomo saltado (sirloin with onions, tomatoes, fried potatoes over rice), cow heart, chicha morada (a beverage made from purple corn and cinnamon), and several fruits and juices that I had never heard of before - maracuya, lúcuma, chirimoya, and dozens more yet to be had. Everything is served with aji, which is a spicy and muy saboroso sauce made from chili peppers.

Drivers are absolutely crazy. There are no traffic laws, yet nobody ever gets in an accident (at least not that I've seen), because they're all hyper-aware of their surroundings at all times. I live in a swanky apartment on the 11th floor of a high rise right on the busiest street in San Isidro, the main business district of Lima. At any given time, day or night, I can look out my window and see at least 5-10 taxis and another 5 or 6 buses, which honk their horns (claxones) at every passerby they see if they're trying to pick someone up. There are three types of buses - large omnibuses, like those we have in the States; mid-sized custers (no, I have no idea why they're called custers) ;and tiny li'l thangs called micros or combis.

The people are incredibly friendly and helpful and patient with my broken Spanish, which has indeed improved rapidly over the course of the week, and we've been having good success teaching the Taller de Autoempleo (Self-Employment Workshop) so far. But I will explain more on this in a future post. This is only a beginning, and I'm excited for all that the next 12 weeks has in store! Thanks for reading!

-Your humble adventurero

By the way, the title of this post comes from the fact that during my training for teaching the Self Employment Workshop in Salt Lake City before I came, we created lemonade stands as a simulated small business, and that of my group was called Limón (meaning lime, not lemon). Then we arrived in Lima (Lemon), and on our first Monday here we went to a restaurant with Napoleón, our boss, that was called El Limón. It was there that we first tried ceviche. Both Robert and I found some kind of strange ironic karma in it. I was hoping to explain more about this (and a whole lot else) during this post, but it's about that time, so I'll have to continue later. Chao! Cuidense!