Batey 18 & Batey 22

Today we went to visit two Batey's. These are small, rura, communities on a sugar plantation. In this case, the government issued their houses because the husband worked with cutting the sugar during the harvesting months. They were very run down houses and almost resembed small bomb-shelters. It was very rural and we had to drive a while and on some pretty rough roads.

We got to observe a credit committee meeting where each person that wanted to take a new loan from Esperanza would have to get approved by all the current borrowers. People who were going to apply for another loan would have to state their purpose for the money and need approval by all. We met a woman who although she sent the repayments in with her friend had missed more than 5 meetins. Because of this, she was now not elligable to take another loan.
We also went to interview a few borrowers a lot of whom were Haitian immigrants as expected from being on a sugar plantation.

Credit committee meetings

Looking down the road from Batey 18

She wins... cutest child thusfar