Volunteering joys and despairs

I guess from my photos it looks like all I do is travel to tourist destinations and go to parties, but that's just because normally those are the places I take my camera. However, the week before Semana Santa (Easter week) I did manage to remember my camera for a meeting of the women's group - one of our best sessions yet.

Women's Group at Las Prusias

So the good news for the women's group is that we're going to be trying something new to sell the handicrafts: an afternoon set up on a stall on the Parque Central (Granada's main square). Apparently we've been given permission by the vice president of the artisans who usually sell there (or so the boyfriend of one of the volunteers, who works there himself, tells us), but we also need to speak to the Mayor's Office. Anyway, come what may, assuming all permissions are granted and we can borrow the required table and chairs, Friday afternoon will see Fiona and I taking turns in supporting Mirna with the sales pitch! The bad news is that the reason we're taking this new step is because we have way too much inventory at the moment, and sales are starting to drop off after the tourist season peaked and now the number of visitors to Granada is starting to fall. The rainy season is not long off (in fact, we had a big rain storm at 6.30am this morning)...

This week has also been a bit troublesome for the dentist project. Yesterday morning, when I checked in with the clinic about our newly rearranged timetable of visits to fit in another one session per week from the school whose visits are paid for by the New Orleans Catholic Missions, it seemed there was a big crisis. After numerous phone calls to the clinic and its director we were asked to suddenly halt the school visits until we had an emergency meeting to sort out the accounts. That was all a complete frustration because actually, as of a meeting we had a fortnight ago, La Esperanza has been waiting for a bill to come from the clinic so that we can pay it. Just the usual Nicaraguan crisis out of an easily solvable situation! But we had our meeting this morning, sorted it all out (hopefully) and things are back to normal, with a few tweaks, as of tomorrow. But all the work I put in arranging the new timetable - visiting the schools, talking to the teachers and sorting out a volunteer helper schedule for this week wasn't needed after all. Oh the joys of volunteering... But never mind, we're back on track now, and I've just this afternoon finished the mammoth task of updating the spreadsheet in which we record all the children's dental visits and details of the dates and treatments. I think I deserve some cake and ice cream in celebration, so it's a good job I'm going to a volunteer birthday party tonight.