A Day in the Life

You guysssss!
I’m the worst blogger ever! In fact, I may not even be able to call myself a blogger anymore (not that I take great pride in that title…). Anyway, I am sorry I have been SO remiss in writing and updating. I have been busy, yes, but business usually doesn’t keep me from blogging. More than that, I think I’ve just settled into this routine where time has started passing without me noticing too much. All I’m doing is going to work every day, and it seems a little bit unremarkable.

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of you keep asking, “So, what is it that you DO exactly?” I told you I’ve settled into this routine, so the routine is what I’m going to record. Hopefully that will also provide a little window into what I do day-to-day. Yesterday was a very average day, so I decided to keep a record of it to share.
That being said, this could be the most flop of a flop blog post ever.

7:45 am. I hit snooze and snuggle deeper into the covers. I am at that perfect sleeping temperature, and morning came too fast. I drift in and out of sleep, rallying myself to wake up. I remember how last night I was too lazy to wash the sand from the beach off my feet before getting into bed, so I put socks on to keep the bed from getting sandy. I regret that decision.

8:02 am. The sandy socks get shaken out and thrown in the laundry. I put hot water on for coffee (gotta boil the tap water to kill the germs!), put my contacts in, wash my face, brush my teeth, and pause for a moment in front of the mirror. I think I look wonderful and happy. I think that I look young, that these freckles are signs of a life being lived. I wonder if my skin is going to age prematurely because of all the sun exposure. I put sunscreen on, like always.

8:20 am. I’ve thrown on a tank top and ratty brown capris that Molly (PEACE’s founder) gave me. They are soft and worn in, and I’m enjoying the delicate morning as I grind coffee beans, cut up strawberries, and pour some yogurt (Activia!) for breakfast.

8:30 am. I’m working now. Well…kind of. As I eat breakfast, I look at before and after tsunami pictures of Japan, and shoot up a quick prayer for them. I pray that they find grace, that they find moments of peace and clarity in tragedy. I pray that everyone has at least one other human to cling to as they deal with their changed lives. I pray for calm. I check Facebook, and pray for safe travels for my Mom—she’s driving to my grandparent’s in Missouri today. The boys are up now, which to my continued confusion always fills the apartment with a cacophony of grunts, burps, and low grumbles. Their voices are about an octave lower in the morning, and they shuffle around sleepily. I am kind of grossed out by the burping. I wonder I could ever be married to a boy and not be grossed out by those waking up sounds. Maybe my boy will be a quiet waker-upper.

9:00 am. The boys are packing their backpacks and heading to Vallarta for the day. They tell me their plans and confirm bus routes with me. Yes, I say, switch busses at the cruise dock and get on the one that goes toward the Rio Cuale. We agree to meet back here at 6:00 for our friend Kathy’s book talk. From 9:00 to 10:30 I answer emails, translate a document for my boss, and calculate loan renewal rates and group renewal rates for our loan officer, Mar. I figure out that exactly 75% of our clients take out a second loan after completing their first loan cycle. Our group growth rate is 118%--that’s good. I once again think about how I need to update my blog. This time, I actually have an idea. I write what you just read. ☺

10:45 am. I wash my breakfast dishes and pour the extra coffee from the french press into the jar of iced coffee in the fridge. I put on my blue collared Sé Más shirt. I hate my Sé Más shirt. I put my hair into a ponytail and look in the mirror before heading out the door. I worry that I dress like I’m 31 instead of 21.

11:04 am. I head toward the hardware store. Tomorrow the plumber is going to install our first water tank (for the loan product that I created)! I’ve arranged discount pricing with a certain store since we’re providing them quite a bit of business (and since my boss is dating the owner…), so I’ve got to stop by to make sure they have all the supplies ready for the plumber to pick up on his way out to the client’s house tomorrow. Once I arrive, they have nothing ready but they promise me that it will be ready by tomorrow. Suuuure.

Our loan officer, Mar, is supposed to pick me up at 11:45, so I walk down to a corner store for groceries in my extra few minutes. I pick up the ingredients for some awesome vegetarian chili and run home to drop the groceries off. On my way home I walk past a welding business, and try to maintain a serious face as 10-15 men stop their work and lift their masks to whistle and cat call. In Mexico I am “la guera”—someone who is blond or has light skin. I’m never sure if cat calls like this are flattering or offensive.

11:50 am. Mar calls me and tells me he’s running late. I give him my usual response: the clients will be late too. This is a joke between us. No matter how late we are it seems the clients are always later. We are going to fill out applications with a group of potential clients in a town about 15 min south of Bucerías.

12:08 pm. Mar finally arrives, and he risks both of our lives in an effort to arrive to the meeting on time. We arrive to find that although we are 20 minutes late, no one is there yet. Welcome to Mexico. The house where we are filling out applications is typical of our clients. The living room is furnished with buckets for seats and plastic patio furniture. A bedazzled TV rests on of those Sterilite plastic sets of drawers, and a single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling. Potential clients start arriving around 12:30, and Mar presents our loan product. He explains our interest rates, the way financial education works, and hands out credit applications.

By 1:15 pm all nine of the clients have filled out applications—this is fast. Most of our clients have never done even a simple budget before filling out the application. It is difficult for me to explain math and budgeting to them in Spanish, although I’ve gotten much better at it. Most of them have less than a high school education, and they struggle to understand concepts that to me seem obvious. For example, we ask them to list their expenses. They list things like food, transportation, rent, and the electric bill. However, they write how much they spend on food every 3 days, how much they spend on transportation every week, how much they spend on rent every month, and how much they spend on electricity every 2 months. They rarely understand my efforts to explain that to make a budget, they must list everything in the same unit of time. It’s not that they are stupid—they aren’t. But these are things we learn in school, and these concepts aren’t obvious to them. I thank God for my education and guard myself against taking it for granted.

1:30 pm. Mar drops me off back in Bucerías and I spend the rest of the afternoon calculating growth rates, entering data from the new applications, updating the Sé Más Facebook page, calling clients to remind them of our meeting tomorrow, responding to email, and working on our social impact survey. I stop for lunch around 3:00, heating up leftover black bean burgers and eating half an avacado straight out of its skin. The heat fogs my brain, and I struggle to focus. I listen to the new Kanye and Adele cds, as well as James Taylor’s Greatest Hits.

5:00 pm. Ryan and Kurt come home. They tell me about their day, and I still have stuff to get done, but instead I Skype with Meagan. Working at home all afternoon alone wears me out, and by 6:00 I’ve given up. Ryan tells me we need to get going to our friend Kathy’s book reading. I look like a ball of trash, but I quickly put on some mascara and switch the ratty capris for jeans and a nice top. Kathy is a retired Bucerías resident, and she has written a book about her grandmother’s journey from Palestine to the US to Mexico. It is an inspiring tale of a woman of strength and of softness, and the story makes me tear up. As Kathy reads, we watch the sun set over the water in the background. Ryan and I are the only people under 50 at the event; that’s what happens when you live in a town of retired US and Canadian ex-pats. Someone yet again asks us how long we’ve been married. By now we’re good at laughing off this particular assumption, and you can’t blame people for jumping to this conclusion (most women don’t wear their diamond engagement rings in Mexico).

9:00 pm. We come home and I put pasta on to boil while I take a quick shower. I douse the pasta in fresh pesto from the Sunday farmer’s market, and watch an episode of Mad Men as I eat. By 11:30 I’m both tired and out of stuff to do, so I go to bed.

Wow, recording a day in my life is exhausting (and long, sorry!) It makes me feel like I’ve lived the day twice—hopefully this was at least moderately interesting! I’ll write again soon.

Amy