Day 15 Visit to Teacher's SACCO Jan 31, 2011

     We had planned to arrive at the SACCO at around 9:00 - 9:30 but both had woken up early and headed to breakfast before 7:00. By 8:00 we were at the office and ready to offer or assistance. As you can see the office is very nice and they are proud of it as they just recently built it.

     We met with Elina Zimba, the manager of this SACCO who employs 5 staff and today ended up being one of their busiest of the month as it was payday. WE were able to steal 90 minutes of her time but felt guilty as in addition to managing, she is aslo the lender in the branch. They do about 400 loans a month and to top it off about 70 teachers payroll got missed this payday. (I can't imagine what would happen in Canada if this happened).

     As we couldn't get more of Elina time and had reviewed the financials along with board reports, we decided to head for lunch at 1;30 and then start to work on the report from the information we already had. It wouldn't be too large of a task as this SACCO is very strong in pretty much all areas of their operation. Just as we were about to leave it started pouring rain. We thought we would wait it out, but after about 20 minutes decided it wasnt going to let up, so we started out. We got wet to say the least.

    After lunch and a couple of hours of work we decided to try the only other spot we thought safe to eat and it was a taxi ride to get there. You guessed it Matunkha Lodge. Today the lady for mthe Netherlands was the only intern there, the rest had left for Lilongwe. So the three of us had a nice Dinner as she shared some of the frightening stories of what her experiences have been. Also, by the sounds of it, we are staying in the nicest place in Rumphi at a cost of $19.00 a night including breakfast. Wow.