Teaching my first business class

So I know I’ve told many of you how excited I am to be teaching a women’s group how to create a business plan.  They took a class on how to make beaded designs on flip flops, and needed some basic skills to get their business up and running.  It all seemed so perfect, but I was in for some cultural suprises…

During my first class last week, everyone showed up late.  When I say late, I don’t mean American late… the class did not even start until an hour after it was scheduled!  I have learned here that American’s and Paraguayan’s have very different understandings of punctuality, basically it does not exist here.  I also learned that it is completely acceptable to answer your phone and have a 5 minute conversation during any meeting, class, or presentation.  I found this to be quite distracting that people were on the phone while I was trying to teach.  Overall though, the first class went well.  We had a lot of interesting group discussions, and I taught the group about the importance of market research and feasibility studies.

The class this week was a whole different story.  The women’s group told me last week that they would like to learn about pricing and budgeting.  I prepared for 3 hours for the class, making sure I memorized how to draw my charts and learned the Spanish vocab for profit margin and break-even point.  I even brought candy for anyone that arrived to class on time and didn’t use their cell phone.  Unfortunately, the cooperativa that planned my class decided that they would hold a meeting during the same time as my class, which meant that 2 people were unable to attend.  The rest of the class… they just didn’t show up.  What a disappointment!  I have talked with people at the cooperativa about the situation, and have learned that it is “just a cultural thing.”  However, I’m still having a lot of trouble understanding why people would ask me to teach a class, have me spend a lot of my time preparing, and then not show up!  I guess this is just one of the frustrations I will be dealing with here :(.  I am planning to call all of the people in my class next week to confirm if they will be coming.  We’ll see…

On a more positive note, I had a really fun day yesterday.  First I went with some people at my cooperativa to walk around to different businesses in the community to introduce their new microcredit product.  Then I met up with a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer to go on a mission to find the best Asian food in Mercado 4 (the huge market near where I live).  We did find a great restaurant, and then walked around the market for a couple hours.  And later, I went to TGI Friday’s (yes, they do have one in Asuncion) with about 15 others from Peace Corps to watch some American football!

I also have big plans for the weekend here.  I am going to a potluck Rosh Hashanah dinner tonight with about 20 people from Peace Corps.  I will be making apple risotto.  Tomorrow I’m going to visit my first host family in Ypane because the little baby will be turning 1.  On Sunday night I will be attending Rosh Hashanah services with a friend’s famiy and also having dinner with them.  Pretty exciting life!

Yours Truly, Julie G