Week 2: Hats on for Catering!

Welcome back to the TN blog!

After our thorough planning, it was a relief to get stuck in and put our plans into action - ahead of schedule (note the competitive spirit!). On Monday the team got a taste of the catering service. So, donning the ultra-swanky TN ‘service traiteur’ uniform (below), Rumbie and Jordy embarked on their first catering expedition – afternoon tea for a local organization. The frequent catering requests kept the team occupied throughout the week, meaning good business for TN and opportunities to raise the cooperative’s profile, hopefully leading to future business as well. We all alternated on the catering front, so everyone had a chance to wear those cute hats!

The TN girls getting their catering spirit on

TN Catering in action

We encountered our first torrential rainstorm whilst at work this week. Whilst it kept us nice and cool inside, and made for an interesting background sound to work to, it also temporarily curtailed our catering plans.

Catering aside, most of the international volunteers’ time was spent writing letters to our local rotary clubs, in order to raise funds. Rumbie made inroads into online travel sites, managing to set up a profile for TN on TripAdvisor and WikiTravel, whilst Salman focused on uploading the rest of the bronze products onto the website. Jordy and Esther worked on figuring out a way to ship an order to Togo, and Achille and Francis wrote up a reference letter to take to prospective funding partners in preparation for next week.

Meanwhile, we carried on with our Mooré and French lessons at the IS office after work, and ended the week by putting our lessons to use in the local market, much to the amusement of the locals!

Other than that, we’ve been busy making our presence felt on Facebook and Twitter, and last but not least, consuming delicious lunches at the newly opened TN kiosk.

That’s our sweep of the week - thanks for reading and stay tuned!