October 22: Business Troubles

Business has been rough since we have been here. We have been making progress in understanding the more intricate details of individual departments, and still, after two months of work, we can't seem to make much profit at all. Honestly the center was run so poorly by a previous manager (who is no longer involved) that we are facing around 250,000 US dollars of debt owed to around 25 different individuals or organizations. We are definitely swimming upstream. It seems like at least every week someone else shows up here wanting the money we owe them, which Julianna and I didn't even know that we owed until that moment! It is so frustrating to see our employees work so hard to make the grounds and the food presentable for guests; and then the little profit that is made is forked over to a butcher that did a favor for the old manager, and now needs the money that was promised to him two years ago. Unfortunately we just discovered that there is documentation for all of the debts so we can't write them off as lying.

Every day the restaurant seems to spend more than what they make because our prices are so low and because of lack of customers. The problem is, as soon as we make less food, we have 30 customers and more than half get upset and leave. So then the next day we make more and no one comes. We can't raise the prices, because if we were to raise the prices out-the-blue without making the renovations first, then we would even loose the few consistent customers that we do have. We usually make enough that if we had 15 customers we could make some profit, but the Rwandese pile their plates so high that only about 10 or 11 get through. It would make sense, but now we don't have the refrigeration or ability as of now to make individual plates by order.

The employees have not been paid for September or October, and just when we think we will be able to pay them, we get the water bill which is 250,000 RWF ( about $500.00). If we don't pay it, then they shut the water off which then makes our clientele even smaller. I won't go into detail about all of the strategies we have been trying to implement that don't cost money (we haven't received the money for renovations yet), but just know that we are doing what we can for now.

With that said, you can imagine how eager we are for business of any kind, whether someone is staying for 3 months or someone is just coming for a cup of tea. Each positive business transaction slowly builds our reputation back up to being a decent business. Today was a busy day, and most everyone on staff was bustling with someone or something, preparing, recording, cleaning, escorting, explaining, and so on. I had just finished fixing some lights that were needed for a meeting taking place tonight in the bungalo when Julianna called me over and told me we had a customer who wanted a room for a few nights. We have been trying to be good examples of customer service (as it is very poor here), so I put on my best face, eager to have another customer and walked over to introduce myself in the best Kinyarwanda I could. "Miliwe, amakuru (Good evening, what's the news)?" I asked, earnestly shaking his hand. He replied as expected "Ni meza, Amakuru Namwe (Its good, and you)?" "Sawa (good)" I said and continued. Rwandese either think it is hilarious or impressive when a mazungu speaks kinyarwanda, and I wasn't sure what he thought yet so i kept going, "Urashaka Icyumba (do you want a room)?" "Yiego (yes)" he said. Then out of desperation, for my word bank was running low, I asked him if he spoke English, "Uvuga Icyongereza?" He did and we laughed and talked a bit as I fumbled for the keys to a few of the rooms. My plan was this: to take him to the nicest rooms first and allow him to see what he could have, and then bring him to the less nice rooms and allow him to choose, hoping that he would be longing to be back in the better rooms.
 
We walked to room A-4 talking about his occupation and our plans at the conference center until my struggling to unlock the door broke our train of thought. This one door lock has a reputation of sticking and tonight I was embarrassed that it was as I was trying to woo this customer into our "nice" rooms. Eventually, Francois, our effervescent assistant manager, saw me struggling and came to help. I was getting ready to run to exchange the key for another when he got it open. "WHEW," I thought, "That was rough, but its OK now we got it open. Now we will show him the room and if he chooses it then we will move him to an identical room with working locks." I was on the right track, but I did not notice until it was too late that Francois wanted to try the lock from the inside. As I showed the customer the room and the bathroom I heard Francois mumbling in French, "mfmdffjn petetre dklnb" and then CLICK-CLACK. He was pleased to find that the door indeed locked from the inside. Unfortunately for me, Francois, and the customer, the door would not unlock from the inside. The "nicest" room became the smallest and most awkward place imaginable. After about ten minutes of Francois and I trying to unlock the door, we gave up and Francois decided to call another worker to bring another key. He dialed her number to call her but realized he did not have any minutes left on his phone. He then turned to me, hand outstretched to use mine. For some reason only known to God, I had put my phone on my desk and not in my pocket, and therefore I had no phone to use either. Francois and myself then slowly....awkwardly....and painfully turned to the customer to ask if we could use his phone to call our employee to come let us out of our own hotel room. One of the house-keepers came and rescued us.

This was not the typical welcome we have for guests here at Seeds of Hope, but it is certainly is typical for life around here as a whole. Thankfully he ended up getting a room anyway and he laughed with us all about it later, so maybe we could implement it in the future as a business method.