Day 13

This picture is from yesterday...this is La Fidelina

Datsun circa 1978
This is the car of Leonel...this is the car we were cruising in today! I think I am going to show him how to replace his brake pads tomorrow...to help him out and so we don't die. No seat belts by the way.


Tienda Carmen and the Work
Today we went by and talked to Tienda Carmen about her piñata business. As usual, there are like three other piñata shops in the same little area. On top of that, her location is the worst of the four. Her items look pretty good. She makes them all herself during the day and after hours her son helps her keep working. She sells her piñatas for Q25 (about $3), which seems ridiculously low to me. But I guess that is what happens when you literally have perfect competition. Also, she doesn’t have a sign or a logo or any type of branding. She is only competing on price, which is about the worst situation for a business. We took pictures of all of her inventory, got them printed out, and then made a little picture book of her stuff. We would like her to take pictures of all her different piñatas as she makes them so she will have a full portfolio of her work. That will allow people to choose piñatas for her to make when she doesn’t have them in inventory.

We also worked with Granizadas today on her sales goals and gave her a sales tracking sheet to use for the next week. I feel really bad for her. She is averaging 10 snow cone sales per day which means her revenue is only about Q45 ($5.60) per day. She needs to be hitting about 16 snow cones per day to pay her loan, pay for her business costs and make money to live off of. We are planning to make her a customer loyalty card. We're not sure if it will work or not but figure it is worth a shot.

We spent some time training Donis and Leonel on capital budgeting and net present value calculations. It seemed to go pretty well. To help them implement it for analyzing the businesses before they give them the loan, we are going to make an easy template where the just enter the inital outlay costs, the revenue, expenses, and cost of capital and it will do the net present value calculation for them. Hopefully they will implement it and it can help them.

Torta Cubana
I had the worst food of the trip today. We went to a Cuban/Mexican torta (sandwich) place. I have eaten a fair number of Mexican tortas and they have all been good (usually steak with avocado and cheese). The guy came to our table to take our order and Tim asked him what was the best thing on the menu. That was our first mistake because I have come to realize that Guatemalans tastes on certain things are very different from ours. Anyway, he said the Cuban torta mixtas. We told him to bring us that not thinking too much about what was on it etc. Well, it was a mix (hence the term mixtas which I don’t think is really a word, the word for mix is mezcla) of hot dog, bologna, ham, and chicken, ketchup, tomato and with tons (and I mean seriously half a jar) of mayonnaise. It may have been one of the worst things I have ever eaten. It was the most expensive item on the menu by the way…a whopping $2.00!

Shoe Shine
While we were out today, we were approached by a couple of kids about a shoe shine. How much? Q2 ($.25). Okay, for 25 cents, sure why not right. Get a shoe shine and more than anything, help these kids out. I felt like a pretentious American though while there were doing it. We acually paid them each Q5. They were pretty happy for the big tip!


I couldn't help but think of how ironic it was, this poor kid had the biggest holes I have ever seen in shoes and his little business is to shine shoes. If you click on the picture to open it bigger you will see how bad his shoes are. I felt really bad for them.

Tonight when we went to the Self-employment meeting (the first meeting to help people start thinking of businesses to start), we met a man that is 105 years old named Jaun. Had to take a pic. He didn't shake our hands, he hugged us! He was a little hard to understand but he was the nicest old man.


Other

• Met the rooster lady's daughter today...she said they killed it an ate it yesterday...I was pretty upset ;)
  
• There are giant stink-bug ants everywhere
• A guy fixed our shower and toilet (it was bad), our lives just got so much better
• I am really thankful my grandma's surgery went well today
• I love seeing and talking to my wife and kids on skype!