Archive for June, 2008
Tororo, Uganda
Each morning before heading into the field, I read the New Vision, a daily newspaper in Kampala. A few weeks ago there was a special article about a town in Uganda in which the men do nothing but drink, gamble and nurse their hangovers while the women work and tend to the house, children and their needy husbands. The article speculated that the men needed therapy to deal with their lack of motivation resulting from the extreme poverty they are living in.
Upon mentioning the article to my associates at work, they said that one of MCDT’s branches, Tororo, suffers from a similar situation and that I should go visit. With that, I found myself making the three and a half hour drive to Tororo from Kampala for a visit.
My first impressions left me with two questions as follows:
1. Why did we pass the town of Tororo forty minutes ago and we haven’t yet reached our destination?
2. Why have we passed two infectious disease trucks?
My visit provided me with the answer to both of these questions.
During our drive I noticed many things that were different from the Kampala slums I visit. First, instead of motorbikes that are extremely popular as a source of transportation in Kampala, there were mainly regular bicycles and almost no cars. Then I noticed that the majority of the people, from adults to the school children, didn’t have shoes. Finally, there was the realization that these people didn’t live in brick or even wood houses but rather in huts made of mud with grass roofs that leak when it rains. Even the slums in Kampala could not compare to the slums I saw in Tororo.
But, we weren’t exactly in Tororo as MCDT is the only microfinance institute (MFI) that serves the villages in the bush outside of Tororo (why we drove over 40 minutes from the center of Tororo to the first site). The centers are so spread out that it would take at least a day to walk from one end of the MCDT district to the other. It is truly incredible that MCDT even has the capacity to serve these people as many other MFIs have opened branches, but then closed them due to the high costs of serving these villages that are so spread apart.
Once we reached the first center, I was greeted with singing, hollering, dancing and hugs. The women were so excited to see me and I was quite embarrassed being the center of attention! This continued through all three center visits and I continued to turn red with embarrassment each time.
The women were just as amazing as was their singing and dancing. They face so many obstacles beyond husbands who do not pull their weight including domestic violence, HIV/AIDS (hence the infectious disease trucks) and famine. The woman are subject to a high level of domestic violence in this area due to lack of food and high incidence of alcoholism, for when their husbands come home after drinking and are hungry, they are often upset with the lack of food and beat their wives. However, with the MCDT loans, the women are better able to provide for their families and therefore MCDT has seen a decrease in the incidences of domestic violence.
The drinking and subsequent alcoholism has also caused the increase in HIV/AIDS infections as there is a high level of casual sex. The ramifications are horrendous as one woman mentioned she cares for her brother’s children who are infected as he and his wife have passed. In addition, a large number of the women are infected and even have children who have passed due to the disease. The loans help these women get access to the drugs that lengthen their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren.
In addition to the domestic and health problems, the women also face a yearly drought that causes a famine. Unlike Kampala and its immediate surrounding areas, the soil in Tororo is sandy. The combination of this and the lack of rain make it difficult to grow the vegetables and fruits that are so abundant in Kampala. Therefore, the women must purchase their food, making the act of providing essential nutrition a huge hurdle.
Yet, despite this, the women are happy and motivated. When I asked them how they are able to get up and work each morning, the women explained that it is difficult, but with the loans from MCDT, it is easier as they have seen an improvement in their lives. Before MCDT, the only jobs available were digging and even then the pay was infrequent and extremely low- never enough for school fees. Now the women can bring in their own money and help support their families.
Despite the many differences between the women in Tororo and the women in Kampala, there is one very striking similarity: like the women in Kampala they work so that they can provide their children with an education and hopefully a better life than they have had. Although they know they will not be able to send their children to university or even senior level schooling, they hope that by providing some education, the children will be able apply their knowledge of carpentry and agriculture to their own businesses and support their families. In addition, the women hope their children will care for them when they are older as they have cared for their children in their young age.
Upon returning to MCDT’s offices in Kampala, I relayed my experience to the women who work in the main branch. And after hearing about my experience, they asked me the question they face – How could we leave these women? I said the only thing I felt – You can’t.
To see currently fundraising loans from MCDT on Kiva.org, please click here.
11 comments 30 June 2008
The Road to Khujand
It’s 5:30am and after lying in bed all night, sleepless from both the strange Central Asian bacteria inhabiting my stomach and the sheer excited anticipation of my coming journey, the time has now come for what will be one hell of a ride. Kenjal, my trusty driver, arrives on time in his battered, white 4WD, his gold teeth shine in the morning sun as he greets me with the traditional “Osolom Aleikum!” “Vy gotovi? (Are you ready?),” he asks me in his thick Tajik accent. “Da, konechno, poyekhali!” (Yes, of course, let’s go!”) I reply with an enthusiasm that reveals the true extent of my American naïveté. And we’re off! Cruising past the suburbs of Dushanbe, I gaze out through the cracked windshield at the denizens of this small Central Asian capital getting ready for the hard, hot day ahead. Women with unibrows (some kind of fashion statement here, no joke) sweep the streets with handmade brooms as children ride to and fro on the backs of donkeys, smiling amidst the dirt and the poverty in which they have been fated to live the rest of their young lives. Kenjal, gregarious even at this ungodly hour, begins to interrogate me about my life in America with an intense curiosity that is understandable given the fact that there are only 450 of my compatriots (including embassy staff) currently living in this far off outpost of the former Soviet Union.
“Are you married?” he asks me to kick things off (typical first question in a country where family really is everything).
“No, I’m not married,” I curtly reply, knowing exactly what’s coming next.
“YOU’RE NOT MARRIED?!!” Kenjal is simply astonished. “And how old did you say you are again….25? A man your age should be married, you should have five kids by know.”
“I know, I know” I say giving him a response I have already practiced a few times, “It’s just that in America we get married later in life. We grow up a lot more slowly than you do in Tajikistan. It’s a very different culture. So, are you married?”
He smiles mischievously and says “Of course! Not only am I married but I have TWO wives. One in Khujand and one in Dushanbe. I also have nine kids.”
“Wow,” I say, still recovering from the shock of the whole polygamy thing. “Two wives and nine kids, you must be a busy man! Is it normal in Tajikistan for men to have more than one wife?”
“No, not really. But, you have to understand, I’m a bit of a hooligan.” He gives me a knowing wink and continues, “I don’t have that many kids, at least not for a Tajik. During Soviet times Tajikistan was famous for having the highest birthrate out of all the republics. My brother, for example, he has 19 kids… all from one wife!”
I keep smiling although at this point my heart is going out to that poor, poor woman somewhere in the Tajik hinterlands who has spent most of her adult life in a constant state of pregnancy. I take a break from our strange conversation and look out at mountains growing steeper and more beautiful with every minute. Wide, flat, and nicely paved, the road at first is sheer pleasure. This is Central Asian sightseeing at its best, its most luxurious. I’m loving every minute of it as we get deeper in the countryside, the river beside which we are traveling now nothing but pure whitewater. About an hour and a half into the drive, the road is still paved and I’m thinking to myself, “This isn’t so bad,” when we hit our first delay in the journey. “Kitaitsi rabotayoot,” (the Chinese are working), Kenjal tells me, and for the rest of our trip he will utter these two words like a Buddhist mantra.
Apparently, the Tajik government contracted out a series of major improvements on the M34(the “highway” between Dushanbe and Khujand) to a Chinese construction firm and all of a sudden there they are , these Kitaitsi who will be our companions for the next 11 hours. They work like automatons, welding, digging, hauling, laying concrete, asphalt, tar, gravel…I’ve never seen such roadwork in my life. And the conditions in which they live…my God! Felt tents that look like nomadic encampments litter the barren hillsides. It’s like some kind of industrial revolution-era workcamp, a place where men work so hard that the life simply oozes out of them. Even for the Tajiks who are accustomed to tough conditions, the filth in which these unfortunate Chinese make their meager livings is simply shocking.
First delay..not so bad…15 minutes for a little dynamiting operation. 20 km later, after passing President Emomali Rahmon’s highly gaudy roadside palace (I think this is number 11 or 12…slightly reminiscent of a certain Iraqi dictator who also had a penchant for overdone architecture and numerous residences) the asphalt reaches its end and the fun begins. We enter the Anzob Tunnel, an unventilated work in progress that feels like going down a mineshaft. No lights, no ventilation, just a lot of old Soviet trucks spewing toxic diesel fumes as we maneuver through the small lakes created by mountain streams gushing out of the rock face. After the tunnel we hit our second delay…a lot worse than the first. We eat plov(national dish of rice, carrots, and some kind of meat) and drink green tea amidst the breathtaking scenery of the Fan Mountains as the Kitaitsi lay asphalt on the road for 3 hours. Sheer drop-offs of thousands of feet keep me awake and terrified for the next 180km as we maneuver through the treacherous heights of the Shakharistan Pass. All along the steep mountainsides the wrecked and rusted carcasses of unfortunate vehicles provide silent, eerie tesimony to the hazards of the M34. I breathe deeply and trust Kenjal…even though he is slightly crazy and can’t hear very well, he sure knows how to drive. Finally, we descend down our last mountain and cruise the broad, flat plains of Northern Tajikistan. Soon, a big smile comes to my face and the sweat on my palms begins to dry up…after 350km of the worst roads I have ever traversed in my 25 years, I have reached Khujand at last!
To see currently fundraising loans from MLF Microinvest on Kiva.org, please click here.
3 comments 30 June 2008
Straws and sandpaper
It was kind of an inside joke between my father and I when I was younger that I would make fun of him for never using straws when he drank beverages. “Dad, it makes your life so much easier! You don’t have to bother picking up the glass. You just lean forward a little and drink. It’s great.”
My dad would shake his head at his twelve-year-old daughter. “Straws are superfluous. It’s an unnecessary step between me and my drink. I don’t need a tube to help me drink- I can do it fine on my own.”
We would argue like this back and forth. I don’t remember why such a mundane topic came up repeatedly during my childhood but it apparently occurred often enough for me to still remember today.
I promise this relates to Cambodia.
There are a lot of things here that can frustrate a foreigner. The buses are usually not on time; when they are, they usually still manage to arrive at your destination late. They stop at a small town to pick someone up and then drive two hundred meters to pick another person up. They are slow and inefficient. It can be frustrating.
On the days I go in the field I sometimes get incredibly dirty. I made the mistake of wearing a short-sleeve white button-up when driving to Khsach Kandal district, a rural area about forty-five minutes and a long ferry ride away from Phnom Penh. The roads in Khsach Kandal are dirt, which means passing cars, trucks, and motos disperse huge plumes of dust as they rumble down the street. If you are even the least bit sweaty (and I don’t think I have stopped sweating since I arrived a month ago) the red dirt turns into a very thin sort of mud that lines your collar and sleeves. It’s pretty gross and hopelessly futile to try to rescue the bright white color your shirt once was.
The roads in the rural areas are bumpy, even the paved ones. I have never gotten carsick but the bumps jostle your insides enough to make them start to hurt. I sometimes groan under my breath on the back of a moto (whose shocks I swear are nonexistent) and hold my stomach in a feeble attempt to keep my spleen and liver in their rightful places. I don’t know if spleens and livers can move to other parts of your body but to me it’s not worth taking the risk to find out.
Every meal is a gamble. Most often the ice is transported in large rectangle chunks without any sort of covering in the back of dirty trucks or on the back of motos. It is dropped, handled without gloves, and set directly on the street to cut into smaller pieces to sell to restaurants. I have no desire whatsoever to place a few drops on a petri dish and see what happens. The meat is possibly undercooked, the fish most likely left sitting out for several hours. It tastes delicious but the pleasure can sometimes be short-lived… two hours later your body makes you keenly aware of its disapproval in your lack of dietary discretion.
The electricity goes out, usually opting for the most inconvenient time to take its leave. It’s the middle of the day and 96 degrees outside and you have no fan. You have twenty-three Kiva journals to post before 5 PM and the internet has been out since 2.
Things don’t happen when you want them to, how you want them to, or the way you had planned. You are constantly inconvenienced, hot, sweaty, annoyed, tired, pressed up against the language barrier wall, put out by the cultural differences, pushed away from the comfortable and the expected.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t mind all of these challenges and quirks. I do mind. They are frustrating and emotionally and physically draining. But at the same time, there is something incredibly…. refreshing is the wrong word… cathartic?…. about not having every convenience handed to me. In Phnom Penh, I cannot step out of my air-conditioned home into my own personal air-conditioned car and drive to my health-inspector approved favorite air-conditioned restaurant, return the lemon pepper salmon because it didn’t taste quite right and have a new one brought to me at no cost, and drive back home to enjoy an evening of television and relaxation. But while I greatly appreciate being able to do this in the States, it feels good to experience something other than abundant comfort for a while.
My dad doesn’t use straws because they are waste of plastic and an superfluous convenience. The one-eighth of a calorie it probably takes to pick up a glass to him outweighs the desire to make his life unnecessarily easier. It’s a miniscule decision in his life but it’s representative of a larger perspective.
I had a friend one time describe a bad decision he made as one chosen out of the desire to “rub his thumb against a piece of sandpaper.” It was a conscious choice to step out of the ordinary and the easy and to place himself in an uncomfortable situation, to feel something rough and slightly painful, if only for a short time. I didn’t quite understand what he meant at the time, or why he would want to impose on himself anything less than the path of least resistance.
I think I understand it now. I think there is something to be said for not being completely obsessed with saving time and worshiping efficiency. The world is a dirty, dusty place, and it is natural to sweat. There are bumps in the road to Khsach Kandal and sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice to actually feel them, to not have hundreds of pounds of rubber and metal isolating you from the natural terrain. Food tastes better when it hasn’t been soaking in preservatives for three days, even if it might cause me a slight stomach ache later. I’d like to think my immune system is stronger if it does. Internet, electricity, and air-conditioning are luxuries; I am lucky to have them but I am not entitled to them. Power outages remind me of that.
It will be nice to go back home in a few months and take a shower at the precise temperature of my choosing, have a pizza delivered to my house with the press of a few buttons, to have constant access to information and people, and know with almost absolute certainty that things will go as I want and expect them too.
In the meantime though, I will appreciate living a life that is a little more natural, a little less insulated, one with slightly fewer straws and a little more sandpaper.
To see all currently fundraising loans from MAXIMA on Kiva.org, please click here.
5 comments 30 June 2008
First Day
Patan Business and Professional Women (BPW)
It was my first full day of work and the director of BPW decided that the best way for me to get an understanding of how her organization worked would be to start from the beginning. So, with that goal in mind, I was sent to observe a “recognition exam” which she would be administering to a group of 10 new borrowers.
The exam serves as an opportunity to reiterate the principles of the MFI, clarify the terms of the loan, and showcase the business plans of the individual entrepreneurs. The exam opens with a round of formal introductions and the reciting of the MFI’s core principles (set to a lovely tune and sung). Next, Urmila, the director of BPW, quizzes the new borrowers on the policies of the MFI and the specifics of their loans. After she feels that the understanding of all the borrowers is sufficient, the group is allowed to begin their business proposals.
BPW distributes loans to individual women who enter into groups of five. These groups are bound together by shared liability. If any member of the group defaults on the loan, it is the shared responsibility of the other four members. This bond of liability is strengthened by preexisting social connections formed within the small communities in which these women live. A key part of this trust process is the business proposal and group approval.
Called forward individually, each woman presents her detailed business plan to the group. The group, along with the director and loan officers, is then allowed to ask questions and assess the viability of the plan. Once all questions have been asked, it is ultimately up to the group to decide whether or not the loan will be given. On this day, every applicant is granted a loan.
Walking back to the office after the exam, Urmila explains to me how the recognition exam fits within the core principles of BPW and the larger micro-finance world. Micro-finance is about the enabling of the individual, while also strengthening the bonds of the community. BPW is able to accomplish both by encouraging individual creativity in the use of the loan while relying upon the strength of social bonds and peer approval.
Simple, but effective.
3 comments 29 June 2008
First weeks in Cape Coast, Ghana
I have been in the country for two weeks now and I love it. Ghana is known for its warmth—both physical and relational—and thus far, it has lived up to its reputation. The Ghanaian handshake, with its snap upon release, seems to epitomize the general tone of life here. Friendly and laid-back. In the town of Cape Coast where I’m living, taxi drivers remember your name and children invite you to games of make-shift pool (using long sticks and marbles). Religion is also a very prominent part of life here. 70-80% of the population is Christian, and those of the faith display it proudly. Most vehicles boast bumper stickers that remind us to “Love Jesus!” or of “Jesus Christ: Someone You’ve Got to Meet!” The names of shops often contain biblical allusions as well. My favorites thus far are, “Man! Know Thyself Enterprises” and “In Christ’s Blood Beauty Salon.” Although it could easily be overwhelming for Non-Christians, I think there’s something refreshing about such an unabashed commitment to one’s faith.
I am here in Ghana for 11 weeks this summer working with an NGO called Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN). CRAN’s mission is to improve the livelihood of the rural and semi-urban poor, particularly women and children. CRAN started its microloan scheme in 1998. Since then its microfinance program has grown to encompass approximately 70% of its operations, and in the past two years, the organization has increased its number of active borrowers from one thousand to five thousand. In addition to extending microloans to small-scale entrepreneurs, CRAN also offers a nontraditional “susu” savings option. With this type of savings, participants in the voluntary program pledge to set aside a certain amount of their income per day, generally somewhere between one and five cedis (roughly one to five dollars). For a small monthly fee equal to a day’s worth of savings (such that clients pay in accordance with their means), a CRAN representative collects the money daily from the client’s residence. CRAN then stores the money safely in a bank account where it can be withdrawn upon the client’s request. Such a program helps clients build a personal safety net for rough times and, for those with loans, helps ensure that they can make repayments in a timely fashion.
Working with the Kiva coordinator, my main responsibility this summer will be to interview clients for the purpose of writing journal updates. Because of CRAN’s small size, however, I’ll have the opportunity to take part in several other projects, which I’m really excited about. At the end of July, CRAN will undergo a social impact assessment of its lending program. In preparation for this, we’re trying to conduct our own mini evaluation. I have been able to help with both the development and execution of this assessment, which has been really exciting. I believe that the extension of reliable and affordable credit to the poor undeniably meets a critical need that was long overlooked. The question, however, of whether it actually contains the potential to help alleviate poverty and empower women is still fiercely debated within the sector. The issue fascinates me, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to explore it with CRAN.
I want to end with a quote from a book I just finished reading. (I’d recommend it to all travelers in Africa, and particularly females.) It’s a quote that put into prose so perfectly what I have felt since I arrived in Ghana:
“In Africa, the boat leaves when it’s full. You might wait an hour; you might wait two weeks. If you spend that time tipping forward into the future, you sink. The best think to do is just to sit on the boat and look around at the other humans who are sitting there with you. You might discover that you like the view.”
- Somebody’s Heart is Burning, by Tanya Shaffer
To see all currently fundraising loans from CRAN on Kiva.org, please click here.
1 comment 28 June 2008
Unclaimed Baggage
After all of the horror stories I had read on the Internet (kidnappers waiting to grab Americans at the airport, planes crashing because someone tried cooking over a coal fire in the back, rampant corruption and required bribery) I was a little nervous before embarking on my travels to Nigeria. Somehow Nigeria had been built up in my head as a complex mixture of culture and chaos– afrobeat music a la Fela Kuti and colorful clothing, big personalities and the complex flavors of jollof rice embedded in the “Wild West” of Africa. By the time the wheels of my plane touched down in Lagos, however, the nervous voices inside me were subdued. I owe this sense of calm to Delta Flight 50.
My arrival in Nigeria began well before the plane’s windows fogged up with humidity on the runway or the immigration officers stamped my passport. I entered Nigeria at the very serene and un-scary Gate E2 in the Atlanta airport (due to Lagos’s lack of appeal as a tourist destination 95% of passengers were Nigerian with that other 5% primarily populating business and first class). It was a reassuring 11-hour introduction to the normalcy that is more prevalent in Nigeria than the horrific urban legends that proliferate on the Internet. There were no coal fires and no scammers, just a few babies crying like any flight to Hawaii or Hamburg. Passengers were friendly, but not overly so.
I deplaned with confidence. I buzzed through immigration pausing for only a moment to gawk at a fellow American who apparently had not been the victim of Googling “Nigeria Travel Safety.” He wore a stars and stripes button-up collared dress shirt (the stars caressing his right shoulder), blue jeans, cowboy boots, a bushy grey mustache waxed and twirled at the tips and a confederate-style beige hat complete with the emblematic crossed swords above the brim. “Bold,” I thought.
I changed money and collected my baggage (leaving my fear spinning around the conveyer belt). On my way out of the airport I was pulled aside by a friendly concierge. Not immediately seeing the men who were to meet me from LAPO, the Micro Finance Institution (MFI) I would be working with for the next 3 months, the concierge let me borrow her cell phone. The phone was ringing when the large LAPO sign caught my eye across the airport drop-off. There they were, as expected.
For a few hours following, we navigated the horrendous traffic in Lagos and visited one of LAPO’s branch offices. The staff was all smiles and we chatted a bit, all enjoying the fan that moved the otherwise damp and heavy air. I practiced getting used to the somewhat tricky Nigerian accent through excessive ambient noise (created by fans, air conditioners and generators).
Back to the airport in time to check-in for my three o’clock flight, I enjoyed a few moments of solitude again. This would have been a prime opportunity to reflect on how it felt to be here – how the expectations I had had were playing out, what commonalities and differences were apparent between Nigeria and my previous experiences in Southern and East Africa, what new questions had surfaced about LAPO and micro finance, etc., but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I sat one arm on my precious carry-on bag and the other cradled my forehead as I struggled to get some rest while maintaining a slice of consciousness.
The rest is a bit of a blur…propeller plane, walking off the runway at the very basic airport in Benin [City], brief introduction to another kind gentleman from LAPO who greeted me and began to tell me about his role in the Strategic Planning Department and finally the hotel after 24 hours of travel…big firm bed, cool shower and CNN. I cooled down and fell into a relaxed reclined position, grabbed the remote and caught up on developments in Zimbabwe trying to keep myself awake until a reasonable hour so that I wouldn’t wake up refreshed and ready for the day at 2:30 am. After a few hours and what I have come to learn are frequent and expected power outages, I took the 9:14 pm blackout to be a divine sign that it was time to sleep.
I dreamed of Fela Kuti, dancing, fried plantain and welcoming smiles rather than ransoms and rebels.
To see all currently fundraising loans from LAPO on Kiva.org, please click here.
3 comments 27 June 2008
Arrival.
(About a week late due to power outages and internet disconnection.)
After almost six full days of travel, I’ve made it to Kathmandu. Flight delays, cancellations, rerouting, and an unexpected detour through Hong Kong all made my trip here much more interesting than I had expected. But, at last, I have arrived.
It’s been about six months since my last visit to Nepal, and much remains the same: The roads are crowded with taxis, tuk-tuks, wondering sadhus, and lounging cows. Walking down the street, one’s nose is filled with a mix of burning juniper, sandalwood, diesel fuel, and burning trash. People go about their lives, making things work while the newly-formed government remains stuck in a weeks-long deadlock.
I contact my MFI director, Urmila, and we make plans to meet as soon as this most recent transportation strike lets up. It could be a day. It could be a week. This is Nepal; and this is how things work.
1 comment 27 June 2008
Two Buckets and a Potato in Sierra Leone
I’ve been in Sierra Leone now for about 6 days. It feels like I’ve been here for about 6 months. Not in a bad way, though. It’s just a very intense experience. Minus the unrelenting sweating it’s quite nice. It’s kind of like a bare-bones boot camp in the jungle, but instead of a screaming drill sergeant there are a lot of excited little African kids waving at you. Getting a feel for this place is all in the details. So here are a couple quirks from Sierra Leone to get things started:
The Two-Bucket Bath:
Running water is rare here, and showers are virtually non-existent. So what I’ve been introduced to is the two-bucket bath. (But note that this is the luxury version in Sierra Leone… cheaper versions include the one-bucket bath and the no-bucket bath.)
I start with a large bucket, set it on the ground, and fill it with cold water. Imagine something like a garden bucket taken from your back patio. The first time I did this, I was debating standing in the big bucket. But I’ve since been told that only an idiot would do that. So now I know. Anyway, I stand NEXT to the bucket because I’m a quick learner and pick up the second bucket. The second bucket is something like an old butter dish. Mine is actually a margarine container. I then dip the little bucket into the big bucket, fill it with cold water, and dump it on my head. Ahhh, that’ll wake you up in the morning! I repeat as I continue to convulse and spasm. Add in some scrubbing and some more dumping, and that is your typical Sierra Leone shower.
It may seem fairly idiot proof, but I made a critical mistake during my first bucket bath. I wet myself down and then went to town with the soap. I got a nice rich lather going, thinking to myself, “I’ll show this African dirt how we do things in America.” What a mistake. It was freaking near impossible to get all that soap off by dumping little buckets of water on myself. Dump a bucket, still soap suds. Dump another bucket, still soap suds. After about a billion buckets I just gave up. I would have had to use all the water in the Africa to get that soap off. So the rest of the day I just left a little trail of soap bubbles wherever I went. It probably looked like I have a major case of OCD with soap bubbles leaking out of my clothes all day. Lesson learned: not so much soap next time.
The Unwritten Rule:
I swear there is a rule here that every Sierra Leonean knows from birth. The rule goes like this: If you are under 10 years old and you see a white person, you are required to wave your hands manically, smile so all your teeth are showing, and begin screaming “Opotho” as loud as you can. Every child does this, without fail. When the small babies are squealing, it sounds something like “A Potato!!! A Potato!!!”
Opotho means “white person” in the native Temne language. And not because my complexion resembles mashed potatoes… but that’s not a bad guess. The mini history lesson goes like this: the first white people to explore Sierra Leone and come in contact with the Temne tribe were the Portuguese. Opotho is the Temne version of saying “Portu” or “Portuguese.” So the Temne are actually now calling all white people Portuguese.
I thoroughly enjoy the children screaming “Opotho.” When I go jogging in the morning, they like to stand by the side of the road and touch my hand. I’d like to get them more organized so they line both sides of the street and give me high fives on the home stretch. If I could set up a finish line ribbon and have someone dump some Gatorade on me I’d have it made.
-Nicholas Sabin
8 comments 26 June 2008
Ready to Start
Tuesday morning at 8:15, all 20 of the new Kiva Fellows were on time, crowded around the breakfast table where Noah’s bagels, pastries and coffee were available to power us through the intense four days of training that would follow. The table in the middle of the training room was perpetually covered with beverages, snacks and laptops for the week we were there. I was extremely grateful for every ounce of caffeine and every handful of trailmix that JD, our Fellows Program Director, had to offer us along with the 800 Powerpoint slides and hours of practice sessions. I could tell in the first hour that the other 19 Fellows in the room with me were just as psyched as I was to have the amazing chance to work with Kiva, who is only 30 months old, in their very new program. Kiva puts an incredible amount of faith in strangers, a four day course, and the selection process to gather crucial information for the website via these new liaisons between the San Francisco office and the many MFIs around the world.
The reading materials for the course seemed like a lot of information to digest, being about 150 pages of microfinance terms, practices and the history of Kiva, as written by Matt Flannery. When I got to meet Matt and Premal (who joined Kiva in the beginning stages), I felt like I was in the presence of celebrities, although their demeanor suggested that I was in every way their equal. I would come to understand that microfinance terms and practices were the mere tip of the iceberg and that what appears on the Kiva website is a highly refined, user-friendly interface to simplify the complex workings of what they do. I also learned that my job as a fellow was not to be a microfinance specialist (thank god!) but primarily to write journals because that’s the humanizing element that Kiva adds to this industry. I think that I can do that so we’ll see how it goes once I get to Cameroon.
I want to introduce myself to everyone who may stop by the Fellows blog every once in a while to read my postings. My name is Lucy Gent, from Santa Fe, NM. I just spent a year in Brazil as a junior in college, and this is my fourth trip to Africa. This last year has been full of travels for me, spending 5 months in Rio de Janeiro studying economics in the fall, then going to Egypt and Senegal for 6 weeks while I took my Brazilian summer break, and finishing the school year back in Rio. I flew back to the US last Sunday so that I could participate in the Fellows training on Tuesday in San Francisco. Friday night I came to Santa Fe and I’ll be leaving on Tuesday for Cameroon, as long as my visa and passport get back to me by my 11:00 AM flight. I had been investing with Kiva for about a year when I found the Fellows program and knew that it would be an amazing opportunity to work in this field that greatly interests me and gives me the chance to continue traveling in Africa. With my graduation nearing, I’m trying to find where I can place myself to make an impact in the world and see results to gratify the hard work I’m willing to put in. I was so discouraged in Brazil by seeing the extreme poverty on every street corner and then going to my classes where my peers owned iPhones and 7 Jeans, which in USD equivalent cost about $700. I just didn’t feel like I should be in classes if there was any way I could be working to bring people out of poverty. This may provide the circumstance to experiment with that. I’m most excited see first-hand the nitty-gritty transactions of microfinance in the field and to talk to the individuals who are benefiting from this work. Probably what I’m most nervous about is running out of energy to give to the people I’ll be working with. I’m stepping into an office that works 45+ hour weeks and who have been dedicated to the cause for longer than Kiva has been around. I want to do the best job I can to help GHAPE, the office I’ll be at, and Kiva, and I’m just a little anxious about how much effort I can squeeze out of myself for the 10 weeks that I’ll be there. We shall see.
I’ll be arriving next week and hopefully I’ll be posting blogs pretty regularly. I would love to hear from anyone in the Kiva community about what their ideas and reactions are to what I’ll be experiencing so hopefully this is the beginning of a relationship I’ll have with you as the reader. Please feel free to write me or post comments. I’d love to hear from you! After getting pumped full of exciting information and energy from the training this last week, I’m ready to spring off into the field and I can’t wait to see what awaits in the field for me and for the other Kiva Fellows who will be heading off soon.
5 comments 23 June 2008
TIA
TIA
A Tanzanian friend, who stays at the same guest house as me, came up with an expression that can be used to make any frustrating, confusing, or illogical moment in Africa, funny. TIA (this is Africa!). I can’t even remember the origin of this phrase (bad referencing I know), other than that my friend said it on the way home from a club one night, and made me believe that it was a commonly used expression in Dar es Salaam (N.B. sadly my gullibility cannot be attributed to drunkenness, it’s a special characteristic of mine, despite my supreme intelligence). This gullibility led to me using ‘TIA’ at will, until I realised that no one knew what it meant! I confronted my friend, who broke down and admitted that he had made it up himself and just wanted to embarrass me (although further research tells me he may have lifted it from the movie Blood Diamond). The minor embarrassment it caused has been well worth it though, because TIA has saved my sanity a number of times since.
Example #1: Dana Lunberry, my fellow Fellow in Dar, accompanied me on a trip to train an MFI’s staff on how to use the kiva system. The staff were professional, punctual, receptive, hospitable, kind (they gave us gifts), and generally wonderful (so much so that we finished the training a couple of days early). Until our second-last day. Usually we were picked up from our guest house at around 8am. On this particular day, we didn’t hear from our hosts until 11am (this wasn’t so strange because everyone realised there wasn’t really much to do, and we had been on an epic adventure the day before – involving a five hour drive to Lake Malawi with a fish flying along next to us in a plastic bag tied to the car to prevent it spoiling. The flying fish was subsequently presented to the manager and cook at the beach resort, who agreed to cook it for us. BYO fish was a new concept for us, but our hosts couldn’t understand our amazement and hysterical laughter).
Back to us waiting at the guest house. Our host rang and asked us if we were ready, because they were on their way to pick us up. “Of course”, I replied, cheekily using an expression often used out of context here in TZ, usually in cases where the implied obviousness of the situation does not exist, and where a simply yes would suffice (in this case, at 11am, I feel my polite “of course” was justified). So Dana and I waited, and waited, and WAITED! Until 4pm, when we decided a) to go for a walk, and b) to stop speculating as to why someone would say they were on the way to pick you up and then not show up. ALL DAY! As we observed later, neither of us ever suspected that a fatal accident or other form of emergency had occurred. Maybe we’ve been here too long. Anyway, the next morning one of the staff members showed up unannounced while I was still in the bathroom. Dana answered the door, and after the usual polite greetings asked, “So, what happened yesterday?”
“What yesterday?” our host replied.
“HOW YOU NEVER CAME TO PICK US UP YESTERDAY!” (Ok, Dana did not shout, she never does, I just couldn’t resist writing it because it would have been really funny if she had).
Our unnameable host: “Oh, we decided you were tired and needed to rest”.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
When Dana relayed the conversation to me later, I asked her what she said. “Nothing”, she replied, and anticipating my hot-tempered reaction to her non-response, added “What can you say to that?”
“TIA!” we chorused in unison.
Disclaimer: I love Africa, and Tanzania, and SELFINA, but I have gone beyond the ‘culturally sensitive’ stage of accepting everything I come across (although TIA is a form of acceptance). It’s now gloves off when it comes to cultural observations and criticisms, and in my experience most Tanzanians find it funny and refreshing (maybe because I’m just as critical of my own culture!)
N.B.: More examples to follow – I can guarantee that ahead of time!
2 comments 23 June 2008
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