Day 10

Its a good thing I spent a year in advertising because the poster you see to the side here would have turned out a lot worse if I hadn't. Actually, I can't take all the credit but I think it turned out really well. It is a sign we helped work on for the VisionSpring project. VisionSpring is actually a pretty cool idea where they have been able to get simple prescription glass manufactured at a very low cost. VisionSpring trains people in lots of underdeveloped areas how to administer simple vision tests and then sell glasses at a low cost. It helps people see better, and it gives others a job. Maria Jose to the left of the sign is the person in charge of this region. She manages about 15 "vision consultants" here in Chinandega and some of the surrounding areas. They are going to use these signs to help promote sales.

We also went back to visit with Axel (not Rose, but for all I know the Guns 'n Roses signer could be floating around down here in some Nicaraguan bar, I'll keep my eyes open...). Axel is the guy I talked about yesterday. We took the list of his inventory we created and married that up with his sales records for the month of April this year. We calculated that he made 478 Cordobas last month which is equal to about $24. Not much to live on. We discovered in our analysis that his tire business, which he thinks is the most profitable, is actually running in the red. He makes 2 trips a month to Managua to buy these tires and the trips alone cost him about 900 Cordoba. He only made about 1200 Cordoba profit from his tire sales in April. Not hard to see that 1800 is more than 1200. He's got a lot of money tied up in tire inventory that isn't selling either. The ironic thing is that we also found out that batteries are a different large dollar item that are also high margin items. He doesn't have any money currently to buy any though. Ding Ding Ding, if we were to scrap the tire business and start the battery business he could realisticly improve his income by 4 to 5 times! Without changing anything else, we could get him over 2000 Cordobas a month. Hopefully our ideas prove worthwhile and implementable. Not sure if implementable is a word or not, but I make up a new Spanish word every 15 minutes or so, so why not in English too.