Monday, October 20, 2008
7:00AM Fernando and I are on our way to deliver supplies and see that the three chosen schools (Piedras Blancas, Rincon, El Coyolar) are ready for a visit from PRAF on Tuesday and Dr. Moncada on Wednesday.
Pierda Blanca: delivered lunch food supplies, explained tentative visits for the next two days.
Rincon: delivered lunch food supplies, explained tentative visits for next two days. Inspected kitchen; L4L has paid and built the first half, the mayor’s office has not built the other half. Will talk with him when I see him. Community fathers are replacing the roof of the 4th and 6th grade classes. Reusing every possible used roof tile. Lots of energy, beautiful work (all roof beams are sawmill-cut hard wood and really difficult to work with but will withstand decay much longer). Saw Anabel for just a minute, as always, she asks about Elise and Kristi. She seems to have settled into a stride. Am sure she will finish 6th grade next year.
El Coyolar: Necessary to park truck ½ mile away and ford a stream to get to the school (I will never get used to wet shoes full of sand and gravel). Delivered lunch food supplies, explained tentative visits of the next two days; we will eat the same lunch as the children at this school. The Principal maintains a clean school yard (with flowers tended by students), an orderly kitchen and a happy disposition. Always a pleasure to visit.
2:00PM All is set up, hopefully, the PRAF crew shows up.
Worked on Power Points with Frenando
4:00PM Jessica called, they are on their way. With the help of the hotel receptionist/manager, I set up the small conference room for a 6:30 dinner, rented the hotel projector and speaker and set up to show our Power Point. The hotel manager was a tremendous help. After a call and some fooling around she caused the projector to receive the signal from my computer. After some more fooling around, she hooked up an amplifier and huge speaker so that our video has full impact.
6:00PM PRAF personnel and Jessica arrived. Fernando and Roxana had also arrived.
PRAF representatives:
- Ms. Lidia Diaz, Director of PRAF, olgadiazsalandia@yahoo.com (check on the ”g”)
- Abog. Ms. Sidia Rosario Velasquez, General Secretary (Office Manager) of PROF sidyavelasquez@hotmail.com
- Mr. Gouglas?... (I never did get his whole name. Will contact Jessica, Accountant in charge of the southern district of Honduras Operations.
All checked into the hotel to gather in the meeting room as they freshened up.
6:15PM The accountant arrived first. I suggested that the accountant, Fernando and I discuss our management control system and a strange conversation followed. One sentence into our conversation, the accountant asked to see out daily journal that is hand-written. “We keep our journal on computer and sign a hard copy for the record each month” Fernando replied. “An auditor would demand a hand-written daily ledger was the reply. I stepped in. All money is deposited into an account, checks are used to pay bills… I went through our system and I asked where controls are lacking. “There is nothing lacking (apparent back-peddling) but auditors expect a hand written ledger”. I said that we could meet that requirement by hand writing our present ledger but that would not improve controls. “Well, that’s what auditors expect” others started arriving. I finished by stating that I would welcome comments concerning deficiencies in our accounting or any lack of transparency and would welcome his comments as our tour progresses. Later, Fernando would explain that this “I know more than you” attitude is common, even prevalent among bureaucratic managers from Teguci. when talking to “country folk”, The accountant didn’t expect us to actually have an accounting system. The accountant never broached the subject again.
6:30PM All were gathered. I welcomed all and expressed our appreciation of the time they were giving us. I introduced our staff pointing out their strong suits. I explained that we are poised to quadruple the children we serve but must find a stable benefactor so we can confidently grow into the future. Jessica had brought 3 copier of the Spanish version of our presentation. I showed our video, and Jessica talked us through the video as all paged through the handout. (We’re really starting to get our act together; this really went well).
Ms. Dies, then, thanked us for our involvement in Honduras and expressed an interest in some type of participation. Various questions; all handled well and consistently by all of the L4L staff. The first question from the Director to Roxana was “Why do you think the Honduras/UN program has fallen short?” Roxana handled it well. At one point Ms. Diez asked “How could you quadruple your operation if this is the whole staff. I explained that our management and accounting procedures are in place and 1 supervisor can manage 8 to 12 schools, depending primarily on the distance between schools. We have 2 well qualified applicants now. While we were training them, primarily OJT training, Fernando would seek two others. We could expand to 4,000 students within 4 months.
8:30PM Adjourned to the patio for a beer. I believe we dispelled any doubts about the L4L program. Tomorrow’s tour will confirm (or not) our presentation.
9:30PM End of day