Last day wrap up

Last wednesday I finished the carts that we built, just in time to take Thursday to wrap up some details of the sales process and get the bulk of our process changes started. That was perfect timing because I was able to take the weekend and go to Iguazu falls. We had a BBQ to celibrate life with our friends in Cerrito: It was a long trip, but worth it. We started at our house in Cerrito, leaving for Asuncion at 1:00 in the afternoon. Enjenero Resquin gave us a ride in his truck, a Nissan Mistral. We arrived at the casa de pasantes (intern's house) and waited a while for our 12:15 am bus. It was interesting to see so much activity at midnight at the bus station, when Cerrito is completely silent at that hour. We got our bus on time, and it was a great ride. The executive seats turned into beds, and we were able to lay down for the five hour bus ride to Ciudad del Este. Once we arrived there we waited until the sun came up to go out into the city. Since the falls share borders with Brazil and Argentina we had a bit of a logistical problem - we had no Brazilian visa. We tried to cross the large (very large) river Parana at a point called Tres Fronteras (three borders) in a boat, directly from the Paraguayan side to the Brazilian side, but since it was a holiday there was only one rowboat available for all of us. We felt a lot of pressure to go, since we thought this was our only chance to get to the falls. The dock worker was quite upset when we decided that packing all of us into this tiny row boat to cross a very large river with jungle on both sides was not the best idea. Since we were far outside the city, with no cell service to call a cab, we hiked back up to the road to get the next bus. We had no idea where this bus was going but it was better than walking, so we took it. We rode it until we could take another bus back to the center of the city at a roundabout that was amazingly busy. We stood in the middle of the roundabout while Jose, our local friend, figured out where to go from there. The roundabout was crazy. People weaved in and out on motorcycles, while semi-trucks, hand carts and passenger cars all mixed together around the circle. We only saw one motorcycle accident there. The roundabout is right next to a market that was buzzing with activity because of mother's day and a holiday. People were carrying lots of blankets because of how much the temperature drops here during the winter.
Jose was able to talk to a friend of his who new the Ciudad del Este very well and this friend knew of a bus that passed where we were every hour that drove through Brazil without stopping and then stopped at a port in Argentina. We thought that would be perfect because of our visa situation. We walked up the street to the place we thought would be best to pick up the buss and waited, and waited and waited. I was feeling pretty tired at this point, with all the travel, almost no food and little sleep. After way more than an hour the bus finally came and we got on, where we waited for even more time as the bus parked, waiting for more passengers. Finally we got underway, and the bus took us through Brazil for about an hour on our way to Argentina. We got to the port in Argentina and then had to go through customs. After customs it was off to another bus terminal who only accepted Pesos and not Guaranies. We found an exchange store open on the holiday and got back to the terminal in time to get the bus to the falls. We got to the park about an hour later, and then took a train in the park to a very long foot bridge over the river to the falls. On our way to the falls there was a great sign. What do you think it means?
The falls were simply wonderful. I was so pleased that we were able to find a legal way of finding them. Here is a photo and a video of "The Devil's Throat", a tiny portion of the falls.

Notice that the falls are U -shaped in this area. We are actually standing over the edge of one side of the falls. Whoever installed this walk-way was very brave.

Our travels home were much less eventful than our arrival, but it still took us from 1:00 to 1:30 AM to travel home. The next day was Sunday and we slept and went to church. I was so bushed.
Monday we wrote our final report, packed and attended a party for the Fundacion. I sang for everyone the song that I sang for Kirstin when we got married. We danced and had a good time. I gave my final presentation to the board of directors the next day and also gave two hours of training on how to use google earth. They were so appreciative and gave us fancy certificates and made me feel so loved. It was hard presenting to the board of directors, the president, his staff and the other interns in Spanish, but I was able to get my message across. We recommended that there be other interns that focus on the internal accounting, the branding and the human resources issues they have before having more interns focus on revving up production, like they assigned us. I think we showed our passion, and were able to get solid results during our time here. They emailed me asking for the financial analysis that I have done, which gives me hope that they will take a look at the margin numbers that we ran for them.
Overall I am very pleased that we could change completely their way of selling because of the donation of my father, and we were able to leave them actionable recommendations for the future.

Wednesday and Thursday

Wrapping up the sales carts. I think that they are well built and will provide the school several years of good service. I hope the students appreciate them and treat them with respect.
I have enjoyed working with Andrea on this project. He is really funny and works hard. I am glad that we got put together to see this through.
I trained the kids on using the grinder, the cutoff saw and in Google Sketch-up to design and build the carts.
I think the students enjoyed the cutoff saw because of the great sparks it makes. I am so grateful for all the people that have helped make the carts a reality, especially my father who paid for the metal and the purchase of tools to donate to the school. This has been really excellent.

Now that we are done with the carts:
Andrea was smart and and suggested that we put a wrench on each cart to be prepared if a wheel were to get a flat.We are turning our attention to the input side of the business. We are going to summarize the efforts to bring new suppliers to the school in a meeting on Tuesday to the board of directors of the school, and do a little training on Google Earth as well.

Monday

Cart progress. This is a major part of our effort to improve the efficiency of their sales system. This is an important part of their value chain.

Wow... That week went fast

Today is Sunday the 9th and I have been here more than half of my time. On last Saturday we went shopping in Benhamin Aceval to get groceries and to get some soccer shoes. I also bought a Paraguayan Soccer Team jersey! (I am now so cool.) Here is our fearless team headed to the main road:

I enjoy working with them to solve these large problems. The ladies, Jarilin (sp?) and Allison are working to understand how we can use the larger community area to support the school and how the school can in-turn give back to the community. I believe that they will be creating some relationships with the community members in committees, and organizing a guide book for them to be more effective in collaborating.
We got to eat barbecue at an out-door restaurant (a person's house I am sure):

The food was really good. It was a large plate of meat. No veggies, no sides at all for that matter, just meat. I had steak and pork, and the others also had some of each. It was a sort of zoo day, we saw a parrot:We also saw monkeys outside our hows on the way home. They are there routinely on their commute to some where. They pass by each night generally:
It is kind of wild here. We have seen multitudes of bugs, including scorpions (under one of the lady's beds), a fuzzy tarantula, many frogs of smooth and spiky completion, fire ants, condors, butterflies, giant green bugs shaped like leafs, a grass hopper that was about 3" long that was so big that it could not jump, and a lizard or two. I think we are the animals in the zoo and the other animals are here inspecting us.
Sunday was a great day at church. We walked the 45 minute walk to Benhamin Aceval and went to the cute chapel there. Here we are heading to church:
I really enjoyed church even though the meetings actually started at 8 and we arrived at 11, only for sacrament meeting. The testimony meeting was really fantastic and I enjoyed hearing the simple and powerful witnesses that these people have of the great gospel of Jesus Christ.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I canvased the world here trying to find the necessary parts to build the carts that we had proposed earlier. Business is very hard to do here because everything is so disorganized. The businesses are scattered, and the products are scattered inside the businesses. I had to go to one store to buy wheels, and to another across town to get them assembled, and to a third for metal and to a forth for tools and I still don't have the paint that I need. One of the workers here (Giselle) was willing to drive the big truck around all day collecting the parts of the carts from various places in Asuncion. She is funny and was only hired a month ago. Her selling teams will take the carts and use them in the streets to sell product. I am working with her to organize her sales efforts and to use the mapping tools that we have. I hope that she can create teams of sellers that are really effective and can move more product for the school.
I felt very ineffective hacking at the business system here for three days trying to procure some very basic materials. At the end of the day Wednesday I began fixing all the broken tools that we needed to continue the project. I put a new grounding clamp on the welder, a new plug on the welder cord (which they had previously just been pushing the wires into the outlet) and I beat the bent drill press chuck back into alignment. I think the shop here has a two pound hammer for every real tool they own. If it's one thing they don't lack it is heavy hammers.Thursday was the first day of real progress on the project. We got the first frame started, and we welded up the box:On Friday we had to go to Asuncion to meet with a business leader who was president of the chamber of commerce. It turned out to be a less-effective meeting because he had no experience in the agricultural areas. He promised to gather some leaders in that area and coordinate a meeting for us to meet them and ask them for help with the school. Here is the chamber of commerce of Paraguay:
It was nice to pick up some great gifts as well, and then we headed home.
Saturday we welded all day and got a lot done on the project. Here we are welding and creating the first cart. We got it all done except the installation of the sheet metal sides and the painting.
I hope that we can complete it tomorrow and that the next carts will not take so long. I think that the first one was particularly long because of the crude tools and a bit of learning. Notice that every time I take a picture I am working with different students. That is good to pass on experience, but makes it very slow in making any progress. I am concerned that I will not get to the rest of my project before I have to go. I am working with several students on the carts and have made some good progress on their completion because of their input. I hope we have enough materials to finish them and to make them durable. The roads here are a mess and create quite the havoc for machinery.
Saturday afternoon we took part in a soccer tournament at the school that was a great relaxation for me:

Today was another great meeting at church. We got to be treated to the very friendly culture of the latin culture. I am a big fan of the easy-going and faithful saints. I love the fact that the gospel is the same all over the world.

Friday

Hello again,
Here is the latest...
We went to meet with the local Indian community's catholic priest to see if we can integrate their (measly) production capacity to the supply chain of the school. I was saddened to see that the people there were not too willing to think that they could also be part of the value chain here, in the sense that they were more interested in getting yet another hand-out.
Everything in their village was built by the government, NGOs or churches. They have been receiving for so long that the first thing that the priest wanted to know was weather or not we were going to build him a school house. He was none too pleased to find out that we only wanted to work together to get more jobs for the people there... no building for free. Here is an image of a purse that I bought made entirely of seeds. These are made by hand here, for local sale and I think that the students can work with the Indians and us on some sort of an export business model.
Here we are with an Indian leader, the priest and Allison:I have been working more on the idea for the kids to sell in threes when they go to sell. Here is an image of the concept:

I hope they like the idea and are willing to try it.

Thursday

This was a great day. I got up really early (our bungalow):and joined the groups that sell the products here in local communities. This was a great opportunity to think of things that can be done to improve the sale output of the marketing arm. Here we are getting ready to go with all the product divided out for the three sales teams:

The lady on the bottom left is Gisel Saldivar who is the marketing director for the school. She is really funny and the kids like to work with her. Here we are getting all the products loaded into the truck to go sell in Villa Hayes:


Here we are selling products door to door. These are the same high-schoolers who grew the products that they sell:

All of the products they make are totally organic. The plants are sprayed with mint oil that they grow for pest control, and all of the mulch is made here on site for the planters. I learned a lot about their selling methods. For example, the truck drove for 55 kilometers, 26 of which was chasing around getting change and product to the sellers. Here is a map of where we went (red lines):
Here is a zoomed in map showing how much we drove around wasting gas:
Andrea and I have been working on ways to improve the opportunities to get sales and to simultaneously drop costs. Here is an idea. We are thinking to have the three sellers work a particular route (better planning means that they don't need the truck to come find them) where one pushes a replenisment cart down the street, and a boy works each side of the street, for a total of three boys. The cart would look like this:
There was also a great teacher celebration. There were great dances and other cool stuff the kids did to celebrate their teachers.
Javier is a cool dood. He is an engineer in charge of the milk plant.