The first is Dompreh. He owns a Pharmacy which is very nicely located in a place where the surrounding villagers don’t have to walk all the way to the center of the town to get their required medications. His problem though, is that many times each week people come to his pharmacy looking for drugs that he is unable to buy. He requested the loan money so that he would have the opportunity to expand his inventory and provide the villagers with more of the medications they will need.
Spencer and Joey really liked this project because it is really important to get the medications you need when you are sick and many of the villagers have had to travel to some of the surrounding, larger villages to get what they need. It will be wonderful for them to not have to travel in order to get what they need.
Faustina came next.
She is a wonderful, hard working lady, who has worked many years with Stephen on his farms. She hasn’t had much opportunity to be anything but hired labor and with the opportunity to receive a loan she plans to buy tomatoes and onions to sell to the people she lives around. Apparently onions and tomatoes have a much larger demand than the current sellers can supply, so Faustina has seen this and is very confident that she will be able to make the money she needs from doing this.
Spencer especially likes being able to fund her small business because he feels like this is the kind of person he always envisioned helping when he learned about coming here. She is someone who really has no other means of improving her situation, but she is so smart and very driven – so with this small boost (only about $160) she will be able to begin improving her life.
She has it all planned out. Her net income is going to start out VERY minimal – but each little bit she makes, she plans on re-investing half of it into expanding her supply of onions and tomatoes until eventually she will be making enough that she will be able to expand to other types of vegetables like plantains or casabas. If only everyone who has set up businesses had a mindset like hers – there seems to be so many cash-flow problems in the businesses, but if they turned around and re-invested half of their net income into their businesses I believe things here would be MUCH different.
Anyway, here are some pictures of her receiving the loan! We are so excited for her to get started!
The next loan recipient was Sampson. He and his wife have a sort of business making and selling a local food favorite called kenkey. It’s a type of corn that has been ground, fermented, boiled, mashed into balls and then wrapped into plantain leaves. According to everyone around, Sampson is the BEST kenkey maker in all of Abomosu. They have a massive pot in which they cook all of the corn, and they just can’t make it fast enough for all the people who want it. I personally think kenkey is one of the grossest things I’ve ever eaten – but hey, to each his own.
Anyway, Sampson asked to receive a loan because apparently in the off-season, when corn is not grown so readily, the price of corn doubles or triples. This significantly reduces their ability to earn money off what they sell when they make the kenkey, and if they tried to charge more no one would buy it. So, in order to compensate for the higher price of corn, Sampson would like to purchase many bags of corn in advance, while the price is still low, so that they can continue to make a reasonable profit. By getting a loan this year, hopefully he will be able to make enough next year that he can do the same thing again – but buy the corn with what he was able to save.
Last, but definitely not least is the branch president of the LDS Church here. I honestly don’t know his first name because I’ve always just called him President Twum – so that’s how you’re all going to know him also :)
President Twum owns and runs a DJ business. It’s a very big thing here to hire a DJ for a funeral, engagement or wedding, and President’s equipment has been getting quite old and worn. He has already saved up a good portion of what he needs to buy new equipment, so with just a little bit of help President will now be able to buy himself new speakers and system to run his business.
Yay for all these wonderful people! I am so happy for all of them and I’m so proud of Spencer and Joey for all the hard work they have done here. They had such a hard time deciding who and where the money should go. They decided once and had to change about 10 times after that. It’s been a crazy process, but so good for everyone involved. Even all the people who got turned down for a loan this time around have benefitted from the time Spencer and Joey have spent working with them. Hopefully they will all be able to take what they have learned and apply it so that they can all now start to help themselves better their situations.
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