A Successful Post Visit

Sorry for the long delay since the last blog entry, but there hasn't been good internet access. If you haven't heard from me, I'm doing well!

 

This past week, I've been checking out where I'll be living for the next two years. Kabou is a nice little town with a weekly market and paved road access to Kara and to Ghana. The villagers are very friendly like most Togolese and seem very happy to have a business volunteer in the town. Another volunteer, Katie, showed me around a little bit and even made calzones for lunch!

 

The people in Kabou are mostly of the Bassar ethnic group, but there are many others in the village. Because of its location on a connector road to Ghana and Benin, there are many others including Nigerians. The majority of the population are Muslim with several mosques, while there are also Catholic, Baptist, Assembly of God, and animist religions.

 

My counterpart organization, ACM Microfinance, is very motivated and can't wait for my return. They are a new branch that offers savings and loans services and tontine collection to its customers.

 

To open an account, a customer must have 5000 CFA or $10, which is quite a lot. Most of the town can't afford an account. Of the 5000 CFA, 1000 pays for the account notebooks, 1000 goes as a non-refundable fee to the bank, and 3000 is the minimum balance. The accounts earn interest of 2-4% annually and they can borrow up to triple their savings at a rate around 17%. The structure works well for many of the people in Kabou, but after a week it already seems like the better off people are the ones using the service.

 

My work will start by implementing a training aspect to their business. They banking side of their service is already in place, but they want to offer money management and business skills education to their branch in Kabou. We have discussed offering weekly seminars for banking customers and monthly sensibilizations for the entire community.

 

Aside from work at ACM, the provisieur of the lycee and the director of the CEG (junior high) have expressed interest in working with me. The school year will begin mid-September and hopefully I can get started sometime around then with some sort of club or teaching.

 

The first few months I'll be trying to get to know as many people as possible and assess what I can and should do as a volunteer. There are several groups already in place that I hope to visit such as the Taxi-Moto Syndicate, trade associations for carpenters, tailers, etc., and also women's and girls' groups.

 

Overall post visit was exciting and I'm looking forward to returning and seeing my new furniture. I ordered a bed for 18000 CFA ($36) and a table 17000 CFA ($34). They will be handmade by local carpenters and ready when I return at the end of August.

 

Tonight we are in Kara to celebrate the arrival of new volunteers (my group) to the region. I've already received a great welcome from others in the Bassar cluster around Kabou who made me a Lemon Marangue Pie.. thank you Netta and Amy!

 

Tomorrow we'll head back to Agou and our host families to finish the last month of training. I better remember the bread for my host family :)

 

(It's custom to bring a loaf of bread when returning from a trip outside of town.)

 

By the way, I love phone calls! I don't have the best coverage in Agou, but when I'm back in Kabou I'll have full coverage...