Shorshodi Village Day 4 (August 11)

Wednesday, August 11th, we were to shadow a center manager for part of the day, conduct loan utilization analysis on randomly selected members, interview a struggling member, and finally travel to the Area office for a tour.  The group was a little late to start, so we had to meet the manager at the center after breakfast.  It was a usual meeting, but with a much more communicative and inquisitive crowd.  After listening to new loan proposals and collecting installments, we proceeded to the next center meeting about half a mile away.  At the next center meeting we performed our usual tasks, except the group of ladies at this particular center was even more inquisitive than the last.  They asked us many questions about where we come from and the purpose of our internship.  They were very interested to know what kind of crops are grown in our respective countries. 

After our second meeting, we took a break and spent some time talking with the locals.  We then headed back to the branch office to begin loan utilization audits.  Each center manager must perform several loan utilization audits per day, which is essentially auditing the financial statements of members with outstanding loans.  Several members were randomly selected and set off to their homes to inquire about their business operations.  This task, I felt, was a complete waste of time.  Rather, the method used by the center manager was ineffective and accomplished absolutely nothing.  We essentially asked the member how things were going, and received the typical everything is going well response, inspected the assets and went off the next audit after a quick glance at their bank book.  I suspect that center managers are performing these audits out of formality, without following prescribed methods they were trained with.

On the way back to the office, we had a chance to observe a school run by BRAC International, which is a development NGO based in Bangladesh.  The kids well behaved and the teacher were energetic and appeared very passionate.  They sang a song for us in Bengali before we left.