The little pig visit

The surprises of working here in and outside of Cajamarca is that sometimes when I go to visit a loan recipient I get to witness her recently, less than a day, old piglets. Desy and I had to visit a crochet class yesterday outside of Los Banos. Before visiting the crochet students we made a visit to another loan recipient's house closeby. Juana and Silvia are in the village bank Azucecans that formed only 2 months ago. Since I haven't seen them since they formed their village bank I wanted to see what they were up to and why they haven't come to classes at the Hope House.

Well, my answer was clear.
1. Their pig was giving birth that very afternoon and (pictured above) you can see the new piglets. They were attentive to the pigs needs, as they didn't want Mama pig to squish little piggies, which have a market value of about $50 each.
2. They have to take care of their pigs and give them a good amount of food every afternoon. The pig feeding and cleaning starts at 4 and goes until 6pm. That is when most of our Hope House activities are planned.
3. Their houses are not next to the Hope House. They have to walk 10 minutes to the street where buses pass, get on a Cajamarca bus for about 1/2 hour before they are within close walking distance to the Hope House. When classes end around 5:30-6pm, they have to do the same thing in reverse. So, it is not that easy to just sign up for a class.

Desy and I were getting a taste of the campo reality that doesn't allow all our loan recipients to easily sign up and participate in our learning opportunities that Hope House offers. Solution: Let's do a class here in your house. We are in the midst of looking for another sewing machine so we can hold a sewing course in Silvia's house. Then, the only people that need to travel are Desy, myself and the teacher!

P.S. I don't know if I introduced Desy in a previous post. She is my new co-worker and I love having her here! There she is, modeling a scarf with our knitting class this week.