The tricky bit....who gets the loans?

22 May
The big day, the selection process.
we were able to carry out the selection today, confirmed 9 loan recipients from 31. We could only choose 8 however managed to retrieve 50,000 from peter after going through his requirements to start his sunflower oil business. He was able to purchase the bottle himself and make the oil himself, this would save 50,000 TSh. Therefore I transferred this into a small loan for Seon. Very small , bt will make a difference to her living condition as she is currently supporting herself and 2 grandchildren on less than $1 a day, so I couldn’t let this go. Therefore due to the fact she has had 10 yrs of selling experience I caluculated she could by a plot of veg and sell at the markets. Although Dan was a tad unsure if we did the right thing as Seon is not as advanced as the others, in terms of her financial understanding on profit/loss and forecasting. Although the other's did not use any of the processes we use to forecast out business, some of this carried this out mentally but without record keeping.
Although it took us 4 hrs to do the selection, a further 4 hours were spent trying to retrieve some funds for Seon and in the end I did it. Today was a difficult day as it was hard to try and remain open-minded especially as the selection criteria took into account living conditions, health, income , business acumen etc. I felt crappy that some applicants met the criteria in terms of low scores for living/income but they also scored low on their business ideas so if these wernt balanced we had to exclude from the selection. I didn't like this but had to try and not be bias.

AND FINALLY THE WEEKEND!

Church servivice at 7am, large aspect of Tanzanian livestyle and it was the harvest feastival.Live goats and chickens brought to the front alongside food and bedsheets. What is going to happen with them ws my question. Enjoyed the gospel group who were so energetic and happy at 7 am! I had to get up and introduce myself in front of 200-300 odd people at the start of the service, this was the part I dreaded. Very embarrassing I shit my load. After all that live animals and goods were auctioned to raise funds for the church itself!

Me and sam visited the arusha hotel and sat by the pool reading and having some cold beverages.Although we did burn and hit with sun stroke..but was nice none the less as we just chillaxed needed a god day off work and some luxury in the weeks we had been here.
Evening was great as the whole family took me for some traditional nimochoma and goats meat..was such a brilliant atmosphere I had such a great time. Moma is like a real mother to me and it feels so nice having here there, it feels weird as she always includes me alongside the the other girls no matter what. Meet was tough bt tasty no fat lol! Was a live band which I had been looking forward to all day too.