July 13th

So here's the latest from the RIM.... today we had a speaker in that worked in partnership with the World Bank at one time, but also for Manpower international in Glendale!!! wow... small world! He's from the RIM, studied in Minnesota, and lived in the USA for 9 years. It was a very interesting discussion on the role of Islam in business practices. He talked about the different prohibitions, how people circumvent those, and then also the basic business structure of Mauritania. Apparently there is about 5-6 families that control basically all aspects of the formal business sector. These families each have a wide portfolio of companies from banks to contruction companies... to top things off... they don't really pay taxes making it nearly impossible for anyone else to get into the market. So that's why we're focused mostly on the development of the informal sector.

For my Stage projects I'm doing a tourism feasibility study looking at the possibility of having a map of the city that we're currently situated in. To the best of our knowledge, the only "map" if you will of the city is the outdated google earth image that apparently has one red building on it??? So we're going to be looking at if the map would be useful to tourists and how distrubution and financing for the map would work. The other project I'm working on is a consulting project for a womens' cooperative in microfinance. This lady we're working with is essentially a microfinance lender for three distinct groups. The first group is an official cooperative that has filled the paperwork with the government, but to the best of my knowledge cooperatives do not pay taxes. Each member brings x amount of dollars to each meeting as a sort of investment that other members of the group can then take out as a loan in certain amounts. For the one group that has papers filed they are able to collect "interest" on the loans. Keep in mind that collection of interest is forbidden in the Koran, so it's more of an administrative fee. The interest returns are then put in the bank for 3 years and then taken out and split. Members receive 50% of the interest and 50% goes to saving for capital. With the other groups, there is no interest. You have a certain amount of time to pay back what you've borrowed from the group. I went to one of the meetings Friday and they chose who gets the loan by picking a name out of the hat. Then the next time you're no longer eligible for the loan. Very different for sure, and still trying to understand all of the little details... but it's becoming clearer. If you're interested on these topics and I didn't quite explain well enough just shoot me an email (I love mail!!!) or comment on the post.

And a comment on food because I know how much we all love food!! Here, you don't plan to have food for x number of people. Rather you just make some food. There is always food left over and it usually goes to the goats.