Talking business!

Enough with the adventure, now to work!

This is MLF!

MLF office is located in the middle of some sort of a town centre, and is basically one room with a few desks.

MLF office is located in the middle of some sort of a town centre, and is basically one room with a few desks. Faith and I went over my remit, and discussed a few ideas that we could look into.


Faith - the Project Director

 Here are the loan officers, Emily and Anna working hard!

On a typical day, Anna and Emily go out to meet the clients - groups of women-entrepreneurs. I tagged along with Anna to go and see one of the groups.

There were 9 women in the group, and their businesses range from fruit and vegetable resale to tailoring and clothes making. When Anna and I arrived, some of them were already sitting under a tree, which must be their equivalent of a meeting room ;) Each came with their own chair and a set of jokes - I did not understand any of them, but everyone laughed, so they must have been funny!

The meeting went on for about an hour, during which the ladies passed on their repayments and savings money to the Treasurer, who would then deposit it in the bank. This is a process that takes places every 2 weeks  - the loans are given out for 4 months and repayments should be made fortnightly.

While the meeting was in progress, I watched the women. Obviously, I had no clue what they were saying, I was much more interested in watching the dynamics within the group, and how the character of each of them came through. It is so true that verbal communication, and specifically language only accounts for a small percentage of how we communicate and understand each other. One girl, who had introduced herself as "the boss of all of them", kept jumping up and down, and pretend-argue with the rest. It was more playful than angry, as smile never left her face.  When I asked for permission to take photos, she got very excited, made me promise that I would send her the photos, removed her shoes and jumped right into the shallow waters at the back of the " meeting room"! I am still not sure why that was such an exciting place to be photographed at, but she was happy! Who am I to judge!?


On the way back from the meeting, we jumped into another taxi, and - surprise-surprise - were stopped by a policeman at one of the checkpoints (there are a lot of these on the roads, as a result of which the roads are fairly safe!). The policeman looked inside the car, and immediately requested my passport. He then asked me whether I was the one he stopped a few days ago and told about the veterinarians speaking my language!! I am not sure how many blonde Russians roam around this side of the Namib desert.. or blondes full stop...so it must have been me!=) He seemed very pleased with himself for recognising me (was my passport photo so memorable?) and said that now he will definitely remember my name!!  The world is a tiny place.....