Youth Competition

Dear followers who have undoubtedly been hanging on my every word, I apologize for my absence.  I know I talk about going to rodeos and watching chickens get decapitated a lot but I DO have a job to do.  And it’s been this job that has kept me away from my recently neglected blog for this long.  Also it’s been raining so much that I’ve been afraid that if I leave my casa I’ll be swept away by raging rains.  Anyway, I have updates!

This Friday is the youth group competition.  We (and the 11 other training groups) have been working with youth groups since mid-May.  Last time I updated you, readers, we were struggling with what our final product would be for the business plan competition.  We had decided on repujado, an art that involves imprinting on aluminum but didn’t know what to do with it.  Well, as our genius would have it (aka luck) we made friends with a glass maker and we’re using his scrap glass to make candleholders.  Here’s one of the five that our team created:

It doesn't have the candle in it right now but bonito huh?

 More on our team.  It’s clearly the four of us trainees and three women who live in Nandasmo.  They’re all good friends and two of them are 24 years old which is ironic because we’re supposed to be working with “youth”.  Luckily the Peace Corps considers people under 30, youth.  So no big deal.  Anyway, we performed a market study and analyzed costs and prices and things are looking promising.  The selling price is 100 cords which is a little less than $5.  I don’t know if we’re in the running to win the competition but I’m hoping that someone will buy our product because the muchachas have worked really hard and deserve some earnings.  So the competition is Friday morning so wish us luck!