Today’s highlights included not waking up until 9:30 (unfortunately, that was because neither loan officer could take me out with her to the meetings so I didn’t get to do any interviews… no good but I did enjoy the sleep). I finally called to get a hair appointment so that my hair would no longer have a distinct difference between the top and bottom parts. Then I got to the office around 11 and got time to interview Ciprian and Jenny who gave me a whole new/more real perspective that the associates were not giving me. They were much more willing to tell me the negative effects of microfinance. The associates tell me that everything is good and happy and that they would change nothing. The loan officers say that all the associates strongly dislike the group solidarity model although everyone I talked to professed their love for it. It’s a bit frustrating, but an interesting thing to study I suppose.
Another highlight: I didn’t pay for transportation to or from the office today. The Metro has a deal that if you put RD$200 on your transit card they give you a free ride. So I used that ride this morning and Ciprian was driving to the central office in the afternoon, so I bummed a ride with him. I walked around my own stomping grounds in Gazcue and went to the copy place that used to hold my class readings to get more copies of my survey made. On the way home, I stopped by the grocery store that my host mom always went to but unfortuantely didn’t run into her. Zuchini, though, was about 50% off and I got two that were bigger than I had ever seen before. I also found a pizza with corn on it! So I bought it and was really excited to make it and then no one in my apartment knew how to use the oven. I tried it on the stovetop but it burned in less thatn 5 minutes. Fail.
As you can tell, not too much of an exciting day. Tomorrow something interesting (and actually worth reading/writing about) might actually happen. For all of our sakes, I hope so.
