The one week mark!

Started off the morning with the GROSSEST breakfast of all time which, while my mother watched me, I quickly gulped down, debated feeding to the dog, smashed it up, hid it under another plate and ran to my room for my water and a power bar and without hesitation told her thank you and I liked it a lot. I really have issues telling her I do not like something especially when she cooks just for me!
It was steamed plantains with sugar and cinnamon  I had 4 large pieces and I cannot believe I put half of that in my body. When we arrived at the nunnery for the day, to my surprise...what is my lunch...THE SAME PLANTAINS. But I was actually glad I had them because I could take a picture and show the rest of my group the horror(I'm not dramatic at all).

My breakfast and lunch...

Along with this I had potato pancakes, strawberries that were molded, cooked pumpkin, and bread. This was just one of those days where a power bar was going to have to suffice. 

Today along with four hours of spanish, we learned about the products we are going to be giving to entrepreneurs to sell locally. Every product was engineered specifically for places in Guatemala and had a lot of thought into the best design and price in order to sell the product to people who need it along with keeping the business running. The products include reading glasses, corrective near vision glasses, water filters, stoves, seeds for food, and solar powered lights and flashlights. These are all goods that are not available in the places we are going to be bringing them and the net gain the people can gain by having access to these products is really incredible. We have been convinced that the demand exists for these items because of the lack of access but I am excited to see how the people in these towns react to having access and if they take advantage of this economic opportunity. I also am interested in comparing these results to if we had just gone into the village and given away these products. We have been told many times this strategy is not effective because when people are given something it usually is not appropriate for their culture, does not go to good use because they have not invested any person sacrifice into attaining it, is only a temporary solution, and actually works against markets forming where these products could actually be available at a market price which would eliminate the problem in total. 

On the way home when we dropped off other students at their town we stopped to get our home stay moms flowers!

The flowers we bought for our mothers! (I have a strangely long neck in this picture it is very unclear why)

I got home gave my mom her flowers and walked around Santa Lucia. When I returned home I got to meet Daneysa's boyfriend I have been hearing so much about! I ate dinner which was beans and eggs and once her boyfriend left we watched City of God together, not so sure that movie was the best judgement call on my part. 

I am excited because tomorrow is our first day of work! With our teams we go to different villages and start publicizing the days our entrepreneurs are going to be selling our products and telling them what we have!