The times they are a changin’

Today was a great day for us in Casco Viejo. We started with a breakfast at “Super Gourmet Deli” which looks like a new your boutique deli straight out of Union Square in NYC. After breakfast we sent the students out to the two businesses that we are working with in the Casco, a tourist souvenir shop and a cobbler who is making shoes with Mola Patterns on them as well as purses, both with a leather foundation (pictures to come). We met with a sign maker for the tourist shop and the students spent a fair amount of time brainstorming business ideas and marketing strategies including store layout concepts and store fixture ideas.

For the tourist shop whose owner also has a fairly succesful t-shirt line, we are focusing in on some basic needs. Ricardo, one of two brothers owns a t-shirt line called Panama Collections. The designs are single color and very clean, and as far as I’m concerned, the only t-shirts worth buying in Panama. His design is basically the same as the classic Hawaiian t-shirt with the band of hibiscus across the chest, but with mola patterns instead. Like I said, very clean, very nice. We get the sign quote in the morning and we will have pricing on store fixtures tomorrow by noon. Our budget for the city group, (because we only have 5 students) is only $500, which even in Panama isn’t quite enough to do much with 2 clients. Because of this limited budget, we’re prioritizing the tourist shop sign over other things for them and supplies to make samples for the cobbler.

Oh and one more thing…So I’m supposed to go to Chorrillo in the morning to take photos with the police in tow and one of the members of the organization called Darma who is a supporter of the work our students are doing with an orphanage about 2 hours away from Panama City. After meeting the folks from Darma on Sunday afternoon I told Tom that I really wished I could do some more work with them (meaning Global Business Brigades) and he said, “well, I’m coming back Wednesday, so get your work done and come back to the orphanage with me”. So Wednesday I leave for the orphanage to take photographs there and then Friday we head to Costa Esmeralda which is East of us here in Panama City and only about a half hour from El Valle where the orphanage is. As a famous dude once said, “life moves pretty fast…”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 12:40 am. It is filed under Panama, Photography, Projects, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.