Jun 2008

So this week, we moved on from roaches - to Beattles (as in the musical group) when we went to see the National Orchestra's annual Beattles review. Musicians from across Nicaragua joined a 12 piece jazz band and members of the national choir to pay tribute to the band. It was also an opportunity for us to see the famous Ruben Dario theater, which was one of the few buildings that survived the 1972 earthquake which basically leveled the city of Managua (which at the time was one of the most advanced in Latin America). I'll have to say I was a bit skeptical about the concert at first - but there is a certain charm to hearing Eleanor Rigby played on a cello!

Throughout the week, our projects continued to move along, and I'm finally getting a handle on how to quantify and measure the social impact of Agora's work, and the blended value of our investments. But all work and no play would make for a very dull summer, so come Friday we were off again. This weekend we went with our work colleague Terioska to her hometown of Leon. An hour outside of Managua, Leon is colonial town which is home to seven universities, so it has a very young and fun atmosphere.

First on our to do list Saturday morning was a hike up the Cerro Negro volcano to try sandboarding (which is just like snowboarding, but on sand, or really in this case, on small volcanic rocks). The hike up was a bit steep, especially carrying the boards - but the views were breathtaking. Cerro Negro is an active volcano which last erupted in 2000. According to our guide, it usually erupts every seven years, and so is overdue. As we started the climb - he told us not to worry if we felt movement, that it was normal - and to be honest, I'm still not sure if he was kidding or not.

At the top we were able to see down into the still smoking crater (no visible lava unfortunately) and stick our hands into the hot layer of rock just underneath the surface. Then after a quick lesson on how to get down the mountain, we were off. There were only two sandboards, and four of us - so two in our group were using wooden sleds instead. In my case though, I was strapped by my ankles to the board. I can't say that I really mastered the sport - I spent more time on my butt than on my feet, and I think I will be finding small pieces of volcanic rock in places where the sun doesn't shine for a while - but I made it down in one piece. The sport has its disadvantages (there are no lifts, as one friend already pointed out) - but it was definitely fun to try. And, because words don't quite describe the experience - I put together my first video! You can check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqp59ZAZqBY

Sunday morning Terioska took us to eat a typical Nicaraguan dish called "chancho con yuca." Sold in stands on the street, the dish consists of marinated pork served on top of pieces of yuca and wrapped up in banana leaves. It was delicious!

We spent the morning on the farm of Terioska's friend, Alma Virginia. It turns out that my roommate Camila has a thing for cows (who knew?!), so Alma's dad introduced us to his herd. We got the chance to meet this little guy, who's mother died in labor a few weeks before. For the time being they are keeping him in a separate pen and bottle feeding him. However, they are waiting for one of the other cows to give birth in a few days - at which time they will cover him in her urine, and put him with the new calf. The hope is that she will smell her scent on him and believe that he is hers, and thus begin to raise him.

Finally, in case we hadn't seen (or eaten) enough already - Terioska and Alma took us for an amazing fish lunch at the beach. It was a picture perfect day!

Everything is bigger in Texas - as a proud Texan, that is what I have always believed. Last week however, I have learned that this is not necessarily true. I learned this important lesson from a cockroach when one morning we came face to face in my shower. It was, without a doubt, the biggest roach I've ever seen - but it was no match for the bottom of my flip flop. Revenge was sweet however for the Blatteria family (the scientific classification of the cockroach species, in case you weren't sure) later that week, when I stumbled into the bathroom half asleep, and barefoot - only to watch helplessly as another roach scurried across my floor. I like to think I'm fairly tough - but not tough enough to step on a roach with my barefoot! Still, I'm coming out ahead in the ongoing battle - so far the score is Jenny 5, Cockroaches 1. Hopefully this won't end like Davidson's run in this year's NCAA - because in the end, we all know, I am the underdog - and my cinderalla story may not last for long.

So maybe about this time my more faithful readers are thinking to themselves - wow, this would be good time to send Jenny a letter, or a nice care package from the states. But see, here is where you would run into a bit of trouble, because the streets of Managua, literally, have no names (and may in fact be the inspiration for the well known U2 song). It is yet another wonder of Nicaraguan infrastructure. So the address of the house where we are living this summer is: "From the Enecal office, 1 and 1/2 blocks "arriba" (that means east, as in where the sun comes up), white fence, #74". If we get in a taxi and that doesn't work, we can also try "From the Vicky (which is a restaurant that actually no longer exists, but everyone seems to know), two blocks "abajo" (as in west, where the sun goes down), half a block towards the lake (north), 1 and 1/2 blocks arriba". Amazingly, the system seems to work, and everyone finds their way to where they need to go one way or another - but you're off the hook for the care package.

The good thing about Managua is that it is only about two and a half hours from San Juan del Sur - a great little beach town where we spent the weekend. Thanks to Daniel G.'s recommendation, we spent Saturday night in a lovely little inn called La Posada Azul (www.laposadaazul.com, for anyone planning a surf trip) - where we enjoyed the pool, the AC, and the hot showers. There was not a roach in sight - but there were a few caged birds by the pool that would whistle every time you walked by. This was very reassuring for someone who hadn't been in a bathing suit in a long while, and was a bit worried about blinding someone with her glowing white skin. You gotta take what you can get - even if its from a bird.

While we were there, I got the chance to go diving again. I'll have to say, the diving here, at least on this coast - leaves something to be desired - the visibility was pretty poor, and the surge about wiped me out. But, the boat ride alone made it worth it because the coastline was so amazing - so much so that I'm sharing this not very flattering picture of myself (post two dives) - so you can see how pretty it was.

The rest of the weekend was equally pituresque (though this isn't actually our hotel, but the ritzy resort where we went for lunch) - without the windblown hair and the sexy wet suit!

This week has gotten off to quite the start, with a twelve hour work day that is becoming the norm. In addition to my main projects, I had my first consulting session today with an entrepreneur who eventually hopes to apply for funding from Agora. She has started a small business selling specialized Nicaraguan sweets, and now has the opportunity to potentially sell them through Wal-Mart (which owns most of the big grocery stores here). I'll be working with her over the next few weeks to guide her through writing a new business and expansion plan - which makes me wish I had actually learned something in my operations class this year! Nevertheless, it should be a good learning process (for both of us), and a good excuse to try the sweets.

(Note: I just reread through this post and found and corrected a bunch of typos - but for those of you who just recently started reading my blog, I thought I should reiterate my disclaimor in my original post that I make no apologies for spelling and grammatical errors made on the road!)

Luckily, my first week in Managua has not been at all like the drama filled Real World reality show. I am interning here for the summer with an organization called Agora Partnerships (www.agorapartnerships.org) which works with small and medium business entrepreneurs to help them secure financing and grow their businesses. There are a lot of ways to explain the work that we do, but I thought one of the founders summed it up well during our training when he said "its not about giving the man a fish, or teaching him to fish. Its about showing the man how to sell the fish for the most money possible." I will be working with Agora to help them implement systems to better measure the social impact of their financial investments, as well as advising some of the entrepreneurs that are currently in the pipeline. It's a great way for me to combine some of my past philanthropic experience with what I'm learning in business school, and I'm really excited about the opportunity.

There are several other interns, and we all share a house - which could have made for a really interesting summer - but luckily, so far, we're all getting along! At the moment, there are only three of us, myself, Camila and Liliana - so we have plenty of room in the three bedroom house. We are hoping that our fourth roommate, Roque, will arrive soon from Spain, where he unfortunately has been dealing with a family emergency. There is also another intern, Sarah, who is working with us, but living with a host family.

The house is nice, though minimally furnished - and missing one key thing - air conditioning!! Its pretty hot and humid in Managua - so we're definitely feeling the heat. To some degree this is counter balanced by a lack of hot water as well, since usually the only way to really cool off is with a cold shower. Luckily the office has AC, though I'm convinced that much like companies that offer food and other services on site in order to encourage employees to stay at the office longer, that Agora strategically picked a house for us without AC so we'll be more inclined to work long hours!

Managua is a strange place. Despite being the capital city and where a fifth of the population lives, its more like a town than a big city. The water has gone out a few times since we arrived. Luckily, it comes back after a few hours, but in the meantime our only shower option is a bucket of cold water behind the house. So far we haven't had any problems with electricity - but apparantly that comes and goes as well. Infrastructure is severly lacking, mainly due to years of political instability and corruption.

Our first week of work was pretty intense - we had three days of orientation, and my head is still spinning from all of the information. On Wednesday we spent the morning visiting the different companies that Agora has invested in to date. The largerst investment is Calzado Reyes, a shoe factory that is using Agora's investment to modernize their factory. They also made a pair of custom shoes for Agora's co-founder Ben Powell, who was in town for the week (he's based in DC) to welcome us. Ben is a great storyteller, and I'm sure the shoes will factor into his upcoming pitches to potential investors for the Agora Venture Fund.

We also visitied Fabrica Pochi, a company that produces small bags of purfied water and frozen treats (kind of like Frosty Pops!) that are then sold by vendors on the streets. They are using their investment to buy new equipment so that they can begin to bottle and sell juice and water as well.

We were joined on the tour by Christian, who was visiting from Bamboo Finance (www.bamboofinance.org). Based out of Geneva, Bamboo Finance is a new fund that pools capital from private investors and helps channel these resources to sustainable enterprises capable of offering a blended return (financial, social and environmental). Their mission is very much in line with Agora's, and Christian was in town to discuss a potential investment in the Agora Venture Fund. (and yes, it has occurred to me that Geneva might not be a bad place to live and work for a few years after school . . .). He's getting a pair of shoes too.

We hope to spend most of our weekends while we are here travelling, but this weekend we were here for most of the time. Everyone from the office went out to dinner to celebrate Liliana's birthday, and then all of the interns went with Ricardo, Agora's other cofounder who is based in Managua, to a fundraising event and a special screening of the new Sex and the City movie. The next night our co-worker took us out to the "in" disco in town. It turned out to be a slow night because Enrique Iglesias was giving a concert on the other side of town, but fun to see nonetheless. And, I reconfirmed what many of you already know - which is that I have an amazing ability to attract the drunkest, most ridiculous man in the bar, no matter what country I'm in. (Some of you who were in Japan with me may remember my Australian friend who followed me through the streets of Kyoto in hopes that I would come back to Australia with him and settle down on his sheep farm). This time it was a fifty year old Nicaraguan man who followed me everywhere I went until finally a bouncer intervened. Its a very special talent!

Finally, we ended the weekend with my mom and her friend Kathleen who are in town for a few days. All in all, its been a great start to the summer. I think it is going to be a really great learning experience, and hopefully a lot of fun as well!