Week 12: Saying Goodbye

We had a busy last week in the bush. Margaret came back from Accra to give us a send off party. We finalized funding in Asamama, worked on collections, enjoyed a last dinner with the Abu's, gave our farewells to Douglas, and headed to Accra. Somewhere in there, we managed to volunteer at the Abomosu Health Clinic twice for a couple of hours, as well as take the hike to Teeny Falls (which is a beautiful hike, even if there is no waterfall during the Dry Season). Since we are in Accra now, we decided that we would let the pictures speak, since we've been limited in posting pictures while we haven't had the best internet. Enjoy!

We are going to miss the people we've gotten to know so well over the past few months, particularly the Abu's and Douglas. We are so grateful for the opportunities that we've had to learn and grow in Ghana this semester.

At the Health Clinic, David was given the task of tearing paper in half...a lot of it.

Teeny Falls

Douglas and his daughter, Annette. Douglas' family made us some AMAZING fufu and palm nut soup.

Week 11: Funding

The Asamama Farmers

This week, we’ve finally gotten everything in order to fund our Asamama class. We’ve had some challenges due to our inability to connect to the internet. We’ve had to be patient until the internet was working well enough to access the database, but once all of the accounting was verified for Ghana WSV cash flows, we were given the go ahead to fund our 27 students. Up until the point in the semester, we had only funded second-time loans. There’s a different sense of accomplishment with the first time loan recipients. The process of teaching the classes were longer in duration. Also, the amount of time invested in due diligence, interviewing, grading homework, selecting the best students, and writing business plans was quite extensive. We couldn’t have asked for a better last Friday in Abomosu than we got with funding the 27 top students from our class of 60 finishers.

Week #10

We are starting to wrap things up here in Ghana. We were very excited to end the week by funding our Akwadum/Akwaduso combined second-loan classes. We were able to give out 17 loans to four different pods. All of these 17 people paid back their first loans in full and on time. Additionally, they attended all of our intermediate classes and did well on their homework. They were all so excited to finally be receiving their funding that they were willing to meet us early on a Saturday morning to fill out the paperwork and get the cash.

This week, we also attended a school fundraiser for Akwadum and Ekorso. Douglas was the chair of the event, so we went to support him. It was fun to see him fulfilling one of his other roles, and it was a testament to what an amazing man he is. Douglas is very impressive with all that he manages to get done from day to day. We enjoyed spending time with his two youngest children, Slyvester and Annette.

The interns with Douglas' son, Slyvester

After funding our Akwadum/Akwaduso class

Week 9 in Ghana

This week, we were able to be very productive and efficient. After returning from our weekend vacation to Cape Coast, where the Douglas Paddy received swimming lessons from Spencer and David in the ocean, we got to work. Of the 60 students who completed our Asamama class, we narrowed our selection of loan recipients to 28 students. We visited with these 28 individuals this week to get further information regarding their business financials, and then we wrote the business plans for them.

Things are beginning to wrap up for us here in Ghana as far as new loan recipients go. We are just waiting on approval to fund our Akwadum/Akwaduso and Asamama, groups, and then our work will be strictly visiting past loan recipients who are behind on payments in an attempt to collect from them.

Life is good here in Ghana.

Week 8: Visiting the Farms

This week has been dedicated to visiting the cocoa farms of all of the eligible students in our Asamama class. Douglas has taught us that if there is mistletoe hanging in the farms, that is a bad sign, because it negatively affects the growth of the cocoa trees. He was entertained when we told him that, in America, if you walk under mistletoe, then you must kiss him. Judging from the look on his face, this fun fact only confirmed to him how crazy Americans can be. After visiting eight farms this week, we are heading out for a long weekend to Cape Coast in celebration of Ghana’s Independence Day on March 6^th. Douglas is joining us for part of the trip, which we are very excited about!

We’d like to give a shout out to Spencer for his great effort in collecting from a past recipient who hasn’t made any payments in over a year. Spencer has been very dedicated to helping this recipient finish off his payments so that he can be out of debt! Spencer is planning to follow up with him next week in order to hopefully collect the rest of the money that he owes.

Once we return, we are looking forward to getting down to business with writing up business plans and then finally funding some of the great students we’ve discovered in Asamama!

Week 7: Interviews in Asamama

We were privileged to have Stephen Abu join us this week in Asamama to interview potential loan recipients. With so many qualifying students, we spent six straight hours in interviews. The process was very helpful for us in narrowing down the group to those who are best suited to receive micro loans. We were able to determine the loan amounts that we would want to potentially issue to each recipient.

We have also been making appointment with past loan recipients who are behind on their payments. The boys have been making a big push with one particular debtor who has a large and very old payment. We have visited him three times so far, and Spencer has made a deal with him. We are really hoping that we will be able to collect from him this coming Monday, relieving WSV of the burden and helping him to be debt free!

While visiting past loan recipients in Ekorso, Rachel stopped by one of the students that she funded last month. Regina runs a provision store from a great location, but she didn’t have the money to buy inventory, as she was using all of her profits to pay her children’s school fees. After receiving the loan, her store is looking great and fully stocked! Business has been good for her. It is always very rewarding to see the difference that a small loan can make in the life of a single person.

Regina in Ekorso

Asamama Interviews

Week 6: Finishing Class in Asamama & Halfway Done

Well, this week had a lot to celebrate. First off, we finished teaching our first-time class in Asamama. It was the first time that WSV has taught in this particularly large village, and we had 50 students complete the class! We now have a lot of work to do moving forward in selecting which students will receive loans this semester. There are many students with very good businesses and potential as good investments. We’ve spent a significant amount of time meeting with each of the students at their businesses to learn more about what they do. Next week, our focus will be on narrowing down the class to the top students for interviews and moving forward in the loan process. Though the class was chaotic and stressful at times, it really was amazing to see the commitment of all the students, and to see how their homework got better with each class over the time of the course.

This week also marked our halfway mark here in Ghana. To celebrate, we attempted to make brownies in the Abu’s oven. Well, the oven isn’t really used here much, and apparently Ruth, our cook, broiled our brownies…so they came out as “blackies” instead—yes, they were worst than burnt marshmallows. We were all pretty depressed that our turtle (walnut & carmel) brownies were ruined, but we got as much of the good stuff out as possible! We then attempted with cookies. We got so far as to frying them, but that failed as well. Our Halfway Celebration turned out to be a complete failure as far as dessert goes, but we did celebrate the special occasion with a visit from Margaret. We got to enjoy her delicious cooking and company at dinner, which was really enjoyable.