Wednesday

A very interesting day: first of all, Maxwell and I went back to the village we went to on Sunday. When we got there, a town meeting was going on, with the chief, his elders, a representative from the National Health Insurance Scheme and probably 200 townspeople. We were late, due to traffic and walked through the meeting to two seats on stage, which was a bit of a surprise to me. Then Maxwell got up to the megaphone and said something, then I had to do the same, which I was not expecting. I spoke about the need for cooperation between the townspeople and us in getting the clinic going again and stressed the need for people to get registered under the National Health Insurance Scheme. It was a lot of fun and we got a great response from the people.

We then went to another village to collect money we had lent to some market-women as part of a micro-finance project. They have not exactly been the best recipients, but, as I found out after, Maxwell told them that I was the financier and that helped matters. They were all very friendly, though I can’t say that it’s super-fun to be collecting money from people who don’t have very much. But in order for micro-finance to function properly, the loans have to be repaid!