Slaving away...

We’ve been working literally day. All of us just sit around in the hostel’s living room on our computers, usually completely silent. Sometimes we’ll break out into conversation and ask some questions about each other’s progress. Every few hours we’ll get up and buy something to eat. I feel bad getting served, but during dinner for example, we were pretty much comatose and had to all our dishes taken from us. We’ve taken over the lower level of the hostel. What are we working so diligently on, you ask? Our group has finally finished the product catalogue, which looks absolutely fantastic. We’ve run into several problems, however. The first is that the entire file, even in compressed PDF form, is way too large to attach to an email. This bodes ill for our intentions, since we originally planned to have Jessenia attach an electronic catalogue on emails to clients. The other is that although we have a great final product, teaching Jessenia to use this format and template herself for the future and employing the kinds of marketing techniques that she needs to be independently successful is going to be enormously difficult. Again, Spanish speaking abilities and genuinely having good content to talk about it is important, but more important to being successful in this kind of “consulting” work is being personable and engaging, something I have difficulty doing in another language and culture. 

Some of her beautiful notebooks.

In the past day, I’ve also made six different marketing flyers for Jessenia to choose from (we’re going to have to be careful on how we present our information however; we don’t want to overwhelm her with information and choices). I also helped create a presentation and how-to guide in Spanish in operating basic Word and email functions. The biggest challenge is somehow making this all interactive, easy to learn and non-intimidating for Jessenia, someone who has had no experience whatsoever with marketing or computer use. With only two hours to work with her on Friday, we’re operating against the clock. Although we’re here for eight weeks, time flies. For every project we receive, we have about four days to work on it; this week for example, we only had two hours to consult with our clients before devising a final deliverable. 

Tomorrow is our off day; we’ll be hiking up to a great spot on some mountain outside of Matagalpa. There’s a beautiful waterfall and swimming hole area that we’ll be visiting. Knowing how much I like to swim outdoors, I really hope that we’ll be able to take a quick dip at the very least, if not stand right under the waterfall, a scene I’ve seen pictures of in tour guides so it’s not out of the question. Goodnight!