Sunday, March 15, 2009

content.

Update… it’s the 15th of march and I am inching my way closer to being done here in Moldova. In a way that’s scary, and in another way entirely its really exciting.

My life for better or worse hasn’t changed all that much. I guess I have fallen into a routine where I have accepted my experience this far and have come to realize it is not going to be that much different here on out. I came with some hopes, and plans, and reality slapped me in the face.

That has been a bitter pill to swallow. So after wallowing in self pity, taking my frustrations out on the world for a little bit there, I am coming to grips with it all. I am content in where I am. I am content on where I am going, and I have a plan for the future that is concrete enough that I can look forward to it.

My day to day is still the same. I do not have as big as smile or as upbeat an attitude as I did when I first was going to work but that will come back as I continue to realize where I am. My role here at my work has been anything but clear. I don’t know what I can get out of my workplace and don’t know what I can put into it that will make any type of lasting difference.

I have done several seminars in a village 7 hours south of where I live on business basics with regards to starting a business. I gave 3 seminars from what it takes to be an entrepreneur to how to write a business plan followed by a seminar on marketing.

It was fun and stressful putting together those presentations. Building my subject matter from a variety of sources and throwing them into a power point slide and then giving the seminars. This is all in Romanian of course. I felt stupid up there the first time because it was really hard for me to feel comfortable up there teaching 18 or so local villagers in my un correct Romanian but I made it interactive enough so I was the pressure was not entirely on my to carry the show.

All in all doing those seminars gave me a solid month of work to do. I would prepare the seminar the whole week then Saturday I would give the presentation. This went on 3 weeks straight and I was happy when they were all over.

Apart from those seminars I have been continued developing a business plan for this couple who are wanting to expand their pasta factory from their house into a larger building upping their capacity to keep up with demand. I have been having a fun time building up a pro forma, estimating our costs and possible revenue numbers. It is what I did in college and something I really enjoy doing.

With a little encouragement we have performed a little market study by handing out some surveys to the local population to get their thoughts on our product and hosted a taste testing session where locals could try our product against 2 of our closest competitors. The idea of being an unbiased survey didn’t really click in as we had the founders of this company doing the taste test as well and filling out the questionnaire. I just kindly asked them to put their names on the paper so I could exclude their opinions on the matter.

I hope to have this plan completed by the end of this month. We have a few places to send the plan to with the hopes of them assisting with the startup costs. We are having the business contribute a percentage of its profit to this NGO to keep it sustainable and by doing so we hope to get some percentage of a grant element to be included with the credit we are going to take out.

Finally what I have been keeping myself busy with is still the Calendula Oil company. My partners I am working with are really getting excited about this idea and some new developments have come about. We have received more interested letters from this company asking for more information from us and responding to our questions. If all goes well we might even open up a processing plant to process Calendula (marigold flowers) into oil. This opportunity needs to be analyzed some more, and we hope to have a few members of this company in Holland come down to Moldova for a face to face meeting.

So I have been having things to do. But my days have been filled with ups and downs never the less. I guess the biggest strain is still going to work and living in the town that I do. I really have been a loss in what I can do here. I look forward to next month so I can begin working in the fields again with my partner. We are going to be working in his plumb orchard and at his lake as well. He decided to invest in some land next to a lake that he has rented the rights to and with that land he is going to be raising fish… (growing fish? I dunno). I am not completely versed on how this will all work but we are going to dig about a hectare of land up next to the lake making a pond for this.

I had a man come into the office this last week and really make me angry. I held my tongue but it really got to me. He is the leader of this organization Agro Inform. It is basically the same organization as the one that I work at (an agro extension office) . He comes in and the first thing he does is say,

hey kyle your language seems to not be that good.

I say ok…

then he says have you written any grants?

I respond with no.

he pushes me more, why not? I remember this volunteer that was here 3 years ago that wrote 3 grants in his first year, why don’t’ you do that, don’t you want to help people?

I tell him I didn’t come here to write grants, and secondly I am working on some business plans involving credit.

He pushes me again about well if its free money why don’t’ I just get that, how im stupid for going after credit when I can have free money.,

I explained its not free money, you have to have a project and you have to be serving some type of purpose and I have not been presented with an opportunity that I feel fits those criteria for a grant.

He just kinda has this smirk on his face and says well whatever, if I don’t want to do anything that’s my decision.

I wanted to hit him in the face and scream at him! This is exactly what I hate about this whole situation here. This grant hunger from everybody here. Moldova gets so much free money for bull crap projects that require no sustainability and its poisoning the people. They all just want handouts and they are not willing to put in the effort. ( I realize I just made a strong statement, I recall ALL from that statement because there are plenty of examples that prove the opposite, it is just the vast majority who work in NGO settings are guilty of this).

So I sit in my office for a little more then leave pissed off at life and my situation here. I was ready to never go back to work again. I plan on going back tomorrow of course, to sit at my desk and work on my business plans, helping with some computer problems that come up throughout the day while I keep myself busy. CONTENT! BE CONTENT WITH THAT!.... so I struggle.