Quick update on Blog, Kili, Bike, India and Scholarship!

Habari!

Firstly, I would like to thank all those who regularly visit this blog. I've installed a hit counter and I'm amazed at how many people actually read it. Yesterday, 26 hits with an average of 7 minutes!!! WoW! The number of hits has increased this week but the average visit time is down, which is perfectly normal since most have already read the previous posts. THANKS and please keep visiting! It's a great motivation to keep writing!

It's now confirmed, I am participating in the Great INSEAD India tour. I will join around 40 other INSEAD students to visit Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. There are several meetings planned with leading businesspersons, as well as top Indian officials such as the Prime Minister etc.. All the details at http://www.geocities.com/irvi26/index.html


My project has now officially started with the opening ceremony yesterday. Each mother received a certificate to confirm their participation in the program, and we will start establishing their businesses today. I will physically accompany each person to the suppliers and purchase their first stocks. I will then visit their place of business to help them set up the merchandise in an attractive fashion and give them small marketing tips... At the end of the day, I will make sure that they understand the basic bookkeeping taught to them during the training session. Obviously, Mr. Elias will also come along as my Swahili is improving but is very far from holding a business conversation.

In other news, I will make an attempt at Mt. Kilimanjaro from July 2nd-6th. Standing at just less than 6000 meters, Kili is the highest point in Africa and highest free-standing mountain in the world! The climb is slow and steady, and I’m told the biggest difficulty is altitude sickness. My guide book says you should be able to run for 30 minutes without being out of breath… I can’t go up the stairs and not be out of breath…. It would be an amazing achievement to succeed, and I have committed to going forward until I drop! I make a point to walk as much as possible each day.

I finally got my bike fixed. The repair guy worked on it for 30 minutes, fixed the brakes, the seat, inflated the tires etc… and charged me 50 cents! Now it works almost perfectly. The gears are quite worn out so I may have to change the derailleur at the back, which would cost around $6.

Lastly, I received a scholarship for 3000 Euros!!! For adding to the class’ diversity… I played the 24-year-old card, as well as the small business background. A couple more scholarship requests were turned down, and I am still waiting to hear from two or three more. 3 down, many many more to go!

Cheers!