Students gearing-up for school!

Eight students from La Libertad are being sponsored by friends of the project.   In January they did their back-to-school shopping.  We prepared a trip downriver for Tuesday, the usual day that members of the community travel to the city.  But first, for the boys, back-to-school haircuts.

Everyone love a haricut!

Waiting for the other kids

The trip from La Libertad to the city of Leticia takes about four hours.  Four parents went with the students to help with the trip.  The group left the village at four in the morning, an early morning for the kids and adults.  At 8am I greeted everyone at the dock at the port of Leticia.  Note the life vests which were also supplied by friends of the project.  Safety first!

While we required the kids to wear life vest, the parents did not want to.  Something else to work on.

After the long trip we went to a local restaurant to have breakfast.  We had huevos peticose (scrambled eggs with onion and tomato), two pieces of bread, and hot chocolate.  The chocolate is a treat the kids seldom have, and they were very happy to drink it after a cold early-morning boat ride!

Each breakfat cost $1.40 USD

And then off to the stores…

Shopping at El Vecinio

We did most of our shopping at two stores.  The kids were encouraged to try things on to ensure a good fit, but even with the encouragement we have had to make a few exchanges.

Buying shoes at La Regalia

The students must wear uniforms to school.  The shirts all have the insignia of the school and their athletic uniforms are set with the colors of the school.  If they or their clothing is dirty they are sent home.

One can never have too many pencils

Each student is also required to have notebooks, pens, pencils, colored pens, crayons, glue, a ruler, and many other small things.

Ready to leave

The whole shopping experience took about three hours.  At 12 noon they started the 4 1/2 hour trip back upriver to La Libertad.  In total their trip from the village to the stores and back took a little over 16 hours.  Try that with a group of kids!

The community, teachers, parents, and especially the students are all very thankful for the help that they received from their patrons.  We will send updates as the school year progresses.

Christmas Dinner in the Village

In 2013 we noticed that more than three-fourths of the children of the village ate only a small meal on Christmas. As the average wage in La Libertad is under 2 dollars a day, the Christmas dinners that our volunteers are accustom to do not happen. Starting in 2014 and every year since, Amazon Pueblo has provided a chicken and rice dinner to all 150 village kids and to an increasingly growing number of the adults.

Here are some pictures from this year’s feast!

Gustavo, his wife Rosalba and sister Betty are doing the cooking.

This cook-pot is full of cooked rice.  It weighs over 60 pounds!

Betty with arroz con pollo.

The dinner is BYOP, bring your own plate!

Rosalba serving the crowd.

Waiting in line.

A tasty meal.  For some, the only thing they will eat today.

Arroz con pollo (chicken with rice and vegetables) is a traditional Colombian dish.

Waiting for siblings after dinner.

Even small children are responsible for washing their own dishes.  They do so without being asked!

Thank you to all of our project supporters who helped to make this year’s Christmas dinner possible!

Possible new long-term volunteer guest house and office

Need for Space

As we are having more volunteers over peak times (Christmas and summer vacation) we need more space.  It is also nice to have a room for our volunteers who stay for multiple weeks or months.  This room can include an office with a WiFi signal amplifier which will connect to the school's Internet.  We should be able to build this two story guest house and office for less than $1,000.

Here is one possible design:

1st floor

2nd floor

Accounting at Amazon Pueblo! -It's accrual world out there.

Our New Accountants

The project now has professional accounting services!  We are working with Ballou & Associates based in Camden, Maine.  They are helping us to migrate our accounts to QuickBooks Premier, the nonprofit edition.

The director of Amazon Pueblo first met Tammy Ballou in the late 1990's when he was the interim director of the Teen Center in Camden, Maine, and she was our accountant.  The next time he spoke with her was when she taught him an introductory QuickBooks class in 2011, 

Welcome to the accounting department, where everybody counts.

The office of Ballou and Associates

Why are accountants always so calm, composed, and methodical?

They have strong internal controls.

Lori and our director hard at work

We have many challenges to our record keeping and accounting with the project.  We operate in two countries, so we must be aware of the exchange rate differences.  We must also find inexpensive ways to transfer money and to make purchases while maintaining good financial controls.  Additionally, time is a factor.  We have no full-time bookkeeper, so the system we use must be easy to operate and understand, while maintaining accuracy.

An accountant is someone who solves a problem you didn't know you had

in a way you don’t understand.

Our Accounting Programs

Our old program

We are now switching from our old accounting program, GNU Cash, to QuickBooks.  GNU Cash is a free, open-source accounting program.  We recommend it for anyone who needs a good, basic accounting program.

We switched to QuickBooks because we needed a program that could more easily handle inventory, donor tracking, grant tracking, and that can generate more customized nonprofit reports.  While our version of QuickBooks normally costs $350, we received the program at a $300 discount for nonprofit organizations through a grant program at Techsoup.

Our new program

Audit of our books

What do you call an accountant with an opinion? An auditor.

As we go forward with the project, larger grant funding agencies may require that we conduct an audit before they will give us a grant.  This audit will be much easier when we are using QuickBooks and working with an accountant.


Accounting tips:

How does Santa's accountant value his sleigh? Net Present Value

Did you know the IRS now offers a tax credit on the purchase of marijuana? You just have to file a joint return.

Questions or comments about our accounting practices are always welcome.  We are open books!

Where is our main office? In Maine? Bogota? In the Amazon jungle? Take a guess...

Where is our main office located?  It is currently "located" in Maine, but it is actually located in the cloud!  All of our documents and the information needed to run our nonprofit organization may be accessed on a computer anywhere in the world where there is a reliable Internet connection.  We are agile and lean.  Now you know!

The current "location" of Amazon Pueblo in Rockland, Maine

The main workstation and two of our laptops.  They are ready for work!

Another view of the office

Our office when in Leticia, Colombia

Our jungle office

In cyberspace