Archive for November, 2008
First Thoughts
I am sitting quietly in the cool, green room of a family operated hostel called Dos Molinos in San Pedro Sula. Shortly I will leave for a long bus ride to Tegucigalpa where I meet up with Prisma staff who will show me to my new home.
As I prepare for Monday, when I want to hit the ground running, I find it hard to focus as my mind begins to wander all over the place (though maybe it’s just the vestiges of chloroquine induced dreams…)
My boyfriend prefers professional football to college. He likes brute force of it, and feels closer to the professional teams, which represent to him, his hometown in California more than any college team could. They are old friends, and a powerhouse of activity. Me- I can’t stand football, but the only games I’ve truly enjoyed are between college teams. These are players that still play for the love of the game, for the camaraderie, to make their coach proud, for Mom, Dad and maybe a girl in the stands. They play less for the money than they do for the love.
This is like me- I want to work for the love, and not for the money. This is why I’ve left my paid job for an unpaid Fellowship, left my apartment, friends and family and most of my worldly goods to move to Honduras. I’ve already met the kindest people, sobre todo, the folks here at the Dos Molinos. I find myself thinking, somewhat pedantically, what kind, wonderful people. I’m depressed by the next thought which is, “yeah, but they are only nice to me because I represent money”.
Is that true?
Worse, is my commitment to using microfinance not only to raise the standard of living, but facilitate global connections and understanding actually condemning the world to a game of professional football, where we loose that intangible human nature for a structured, monetary interaction? I love Kiva for its commitment to people, and for using technology to make the world a little smaller, but what do we lose in doing so? And how can I minimize the loss and maximize the benefit?
What can I do to make technology real in people’s lives, relationships both personally and financially prosperous, and us all a little happier?
I will explore these questions here in the coming months here. Join me.
Wednesday saves the week
Wednesday morning was a blast. I had to get up at 5 and get ready to go into the field alone. It was my first time to go alone, but I had set up a meeting with some of the clients from one of the centers in town so I could do a few extra interviews. I had never been to the center, so when I reached the junction the center was at I had to start asking for directions. The first woman I asked was carrying a bucket of popoffs (fried dough balls) and was on her way to the market. She grabbed my hand (holding hands is very common here), and led me to the bottom of a hill. She spoke to a friend of hers who apparently agreed to show me up the next leg of the trip and placed my hand inside my new tour guide’s hand. We walked up the hill and reached the local water tap. Children were lined up with large buckets waiting to bring back water for their family to prepare for the day. There, I was given a new tour guide—a girl around 10 years old with what had to be 20 litres of water on her head. She didn’t spill a drop as we walked quickly to the center. In front of the center waited 10 eager and excited clients, all of whom rushed over to greet me.
After conducting my interviews, I came outside to find two of the members waiting for me. One was the center chief of this particular center. They were standing with the neighbours and called me over. The mama of the home was drying out her fried grasshoppers and when she saw me coming immediately yelled at one of the children to get a ‘big paper’ (plastic bag). She filled a fairly large bag with grasshoppers and I thanked her. We continued down the hill. We walked through some compounds (essentially like someone’s back yard), to get to the Emelda’s shop. On the way, one of the neighbours was cooking her grasshoppers still. She went to talk to Emelda and asked if I could watch them. Of course, I immediately pulled out my camera and started taking a video, letting a couple jump out. Abraham, the center chief, assured me that would have happened even if I was stirring them properly.
At Emelda’s shop, or ‘off license’ which is similar to a bar, she sells beer, wine, cold drinks, and some food items. She wanted me to ‘snap her’ (take her photo there), but she had had to hide all of her drink items off the shelves yesterday when the tax collectors came by; she didn’t have enough to pay taxes this month and knew they wouldn’t be going to help her people anyway. So, she decided to hide her items and pretend she had been doing very poorly in business. Next we went to Abraham’s farm. Emelda helps Abraham on the farm as well. The farm was huge, he was growing cabbage, tomato, sugar cane, njama njama (leafy green vegetable), pepper (jalapenoish), fish (in a fish pond), you name it, he had it. They had created an irrigation system by digging ditches through their farm land starting at the top of the hill (the farm was all on a downward slope). The ditches crossed back and forth over the approximately 5 hectares of land, finally ending in the fish pond. It was pretty muddy and slippery, so it was suggested I leave my sandals at the top. As we were walking around, the sun was starting to get pretty hot; Emelda had an extra head scarf and tied it on my head to protect me. Abraham decided to cut down some sugar cane stalks so I could take them back to the office. He cut down about 6 or 7 huge sticks and tied them together with grasses. They were about 4 to 5 feet long; they came up to about my chin. We left the farm and made our way over to another friend of Abraham’s who also helped on the farm.
He explained to me that here in Cameroon, you should not try to do it on your own. Your business and life will fail. He says life is too hard here to try it alone, you need the support of others; even just to cover you when you have malaria or 
typhoid, you need support. That’s why he likes being with GHAPE, they all support each other. All of them work together to make their lives better. Not a bad way to approach a problem. This other friend had three large pigs that had all just recently had piglets. There were quite a few of them all trying to jump out as soon as I looked in. I think they thought I was bringing them food or that the camera was food, because after a couple minutes they all became fairly disinterested in me. We walked up to the road so I could catch an okada (local term for motorbike here) back to the office. I still wasn’t wearing shoes (I know, could have caught all kinds of worms and bugs through my feet) and was wearing Emelda’s head scarf still (she said she would get it from the office later—it was too dusty to take an okada without it. I was now also carrying 7 or so long stalks of sugar cane over my shoulder and snacking on grasshoppers out of a big garbage bag; needless to say, I felt very Cameroonian. As I hopped on the bike and held the sugar cane with one hand, I rested my grasshoppers in my lap and pulled out my cell phone with the other hand to send out a few messages. It was only about half way through the ride home that I thought, “what am I doing? Hold on to the bike, put your grasshoppers and your cell phone away! What are you thinking?” Everyone was really happy to see me come back to the office with gifts of grasshoppers and sugar cane. They all went outside and began chopping off pieces of about one foot for each person. I was lucky enough to get my own stalk!
I have run out of time here, and have to get ready for Foumban this weekend. Foumban is about 4 hours outside of Bamenda and apparently has a huge cultural festival every two years. I will add some more blogs when I get back from that. However, I will say that this week, I successfully created the first GHAPE website! It was a bit over my head, but with a lot of trial and error it is up and running! Check it out and keep in mind there are still a lot of little details I’m still fixing up. www.ghape.org . I also added new photos to jenmcq.smugmug.com
You know you’re in Bosnia when…
In honor of the brilliant Tanzanian posts: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/10/10/you-know-you%E2%80%99re-in-tanzania-when%E2%80%A6vol-iii/
You know you’re in Bosnia when…
1. Any healthy foods must always be accompanied by sausage.
2. Your coworkers refer to annoying things as “liver” because “they cause the liver to feel pain.”
3. People mix their wine with coca cola.
4. The most popular musicians are over the age of 40, and are usually accompanied by accordions.
5. Pizzas are baked without tomato sauce, but you are welcome to squirt ketchup over the cheese, if you like.
6. Men wear identical black berets.
7. Graphic pornography is sold at convenience stands, next to the candy bars and gum.
8. You feel physical pain when you walk outside in the winter, as your brain contracts from the cold.
9. Cocktails cost $1.
10. US lotteries use 6 numbers. Bosnian lotteries use 19.
Also, here is a borrower update that I recently prepared on Daliborka and Nevenka Javanovic.
pero yo hago tamales….
but I make tamales
I spend most of my time meeting small business owners who have received funds through ADMIC, the local non-profit microfinance institution, using Kiva funds. I have this opportunity to enter people’s homes and hear them talk about the development of their businesses. Yesterday I met three women who make and sell tamales.
While the tamale recipe isn’t necessarily complex it is labor intensive. The spreading of the masa into the corn husks alone takes muscles that aren’t put into play by those of us who labor over a computer. As the cooks in my family have taught me, there is no technique that can replace “putting in the love” to everything you make.
Today I met three women who bring extra resources to their families by making tamales at home and selling them at the market or to th
eir neighbors. These two women used their loans to
purchase additional pans to make the masa and increase their production. They buy the masa ready made, prepare the various meats and assemble the tamales and cook them. They then take orders from their neighbors or hit the streets selling them door to door. Each dozen tamales sells for $35pesos (a few months ago that would have been about $3.50 but this week is $2.65) Tamales are hard work hence there is a market for them.
The third woman I met was straight from “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain. Senora Maria Ofelia 
makes tamales for the love of making tamales. She makes everything by hand. She takes 22 kilos of corn and grinds it
herself into the masa- “porque no sabe igual en maqina”/”because it doesn’t taste the same in a machine”. 22 kilos of corn makes 44 kilos of masa. She makes tamales de cabeza- “because that is what my clients request”. She prepares the meat 
herself to get the best for the tamales. She peels each chile de cascabel and takes out the seeds. She uses fresh rather than dried corn husks. She skips not a single step “porque no sabe igual”.
She makes tamales once a week. 55 dozen each time that she sells for $40pesos a dozen. She gets up early in the morning and only breaks from 5-7pm for church “because what do you have if you give up on God”? She then goes back to making tamales until 2am. She sleeps for a short while until 4am. She gets up again with the help of her husband because he sells them to his coworkers at Pemex. The orders were placed in advance and if she doesn’t deliver they won’t have lunch.
For this labor of love, Senora Ofelia will earn $2200 pesos or $157 before ingredients and material costs.
Her family tells her that tamales are too much work. Her blood pressure is too high. She should try making bread. Her response, “pero yo hago tamales”/”but I make tamales”.
Sra Ofelia’s ADMIC/Kiva loan was for $5000pesos was to purchase additional pots to steam the tamales. Now that one is paid she is hoping to take out another loan for a new larger refrigerator to store more ingredients and finished product. She wants to bring her sister on board to expand the business.
Call Bourdain….I have his next clip.
A Muslim from Togo
“We thought you were a Muslim from Togo,” the Director of Alidé told me on the way out of the Benin airport.
“Pardon?” I asked, wondering if I had heard correctly.
“You see,” he explained, “Lawson is a common Togolese name, even sometimes a Beninese one, and in West Africa Sarah is usually a Muslim name. So I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect.”
I explained to him that Lawson was originally English in my case. M. Valère Houssou, the Director of the NGO Alidé in Cotonou Benin, is an immediately likeable man. He is a small, fast-moving person, who was recruited to head Alidé when Alidé separated from the French NGO ID (Initiatives Développement).
Alidé means “another path always exists” in Fon, the local language of southern Benin. Alidé believes that another path always exists for the most poor, and aims to help the most marginalized women of the urban areas of Cotonou to move out of poverty. Alidé also stands for Association de Lutte pour la promotion des Initiatives de Développement in French (Association to Promote Development Initiatives), and is an MFI located in the capital of Benin, Cotonou, with 7 locations around the city.
Benin is a small country in West Africa bordered by Togo to the West, Nigeria to the East, and Niger and Burkina Faso to the north. Its lingua franca is French, followed by Fon and Yoruba. Benin is one of the few countries in the whole of Africa that has had two peaceful transitions of power, and enjoys a close relationship with the United States. President Bush visited last February and has directed a lot of funding towards fighting malaria. Benin has had 18 years of multiparty democracy. Its staple crop is cotton, and GDP per capita is about $1500. Many people practice Voodoo or an animistic religion, but Christianity and Islam are large minorities.
M. Valère Houssou stopped in a questionable-looking neighborhood not far from the airport. I tried not to feel scared as he said my homestay was near, and M. Vivien Hounkpe, one half of my homestay couple, jumped into the car to lead us into a more secluded alley.
I liked Vivien. He is 37 years old and the director of a smaller Alidé office in Cotonou. He served Valère and I chocolate cookies and Coke before Valère bowed out and I went to bed.
Or tried. I am not yet to get used to the intense heat of West Africa. I lay there in the humidity, thinking I was just not tough enough, and read a lot of Audacity of Hope. Finally, I asked Vivien if he could lend me his fan, and I slept for two hours before Alain picked me up at 7:30 a.m.
* * *
Alidé is covered in little inspirational quotes such as “One never gives you a dream without the power to achieve it” or “Demand a lot of yourself and little of others. Thus you will save yourself a lot of worry,” which are a good metaphor for the atmosphere of the place: optimistic and hard-working. Alidé is a small office of about 10 employees: the Director General, Valère, the Director of Operations, Alain, and the Internal Auditor, Michel. Landry is the Kiva contact, Rosaline the secretary, Caroline is starting a new program, and a few other young men work here as well as credit agents. There is a small yard in the back. However, the office holds two major attractions for me: air conditioning and Internet. These two attributes allow the 12 hours to be more enjoyable. The office day is structured quite differently in this tropical zone. We work from 8am-12:30pm in the mornings, and then break for lunch and at least an hour long siesta until 3pm. The workday officially ends at 6:30pm, but we usually leave at 8pm. I think the day is set up much more logically than an American workday as I never get any work done mid-afternoon anyway, I just wish it were a little shorter.
Landry is my Kiva contact here, and we are fast becoming friends. Following a morning meeting, Alain and Landry took me out to lunch at Maquis le Yao, or the Underground Woman in French and Fon. We ate rice, French fries, plantains, and fish of the sea. The restaurant was mostly full of men. Landry took me for my first motorcycle ride to change money and get a few groceries. From the start, it was a harrowing one as I ripped my dress getting on and burned my calf on the engine getting off. However, we were successful in all our transactions. As I grabbed some pasta noodles and eggs for dinner, I remarked to Landry that I had never been shopping with two men before (another man insisted on carrying my purchases).
The pollution in Cotonou is frighteningly awful, worse than I saw in China. It careens out of the back of a motorcycle as it slams on its breaks, and it coats the sky in the morning. Many people wear a handkerchief around their mouth, and I think I will have to emulate them because I find it hard to breathe. It is sad the way the environment is completely destroyed – it is rare to see a tree, or grass uncovered by trash. I now understand the impact of the rapid pace of urbanization in developing countries. It may be seen as a step forward for their economies, but the total devastation of the environment not only lowers the beauty of life, but becomes dangerous to the health of the population. I always joked about Hybrids and Priuses before, but watching the gas spewing out of the back of the motorcycle in front of me as I covered my mouth and coughed has made me a true believer in clean energy.
Most of the structures in Cotonou are low-ones, perhaps less than 25 feet tall, and look haphazardly constructed. The Marche Dantokpa of Cotonou, reputedly one of the best markets in West Africa, is simply a collection of topsy-turvy structures along the sides of an intersection.
I am still reeling, and cannot wait for a good night’s sleep tonight. Alidé has given me a spare fan, and I am putting it as close to my face as is humanly possible.
* * *
Another Version of Day 1, Now that I can write about it
I won’t sugercoat it for you. My first night and day here gave new meaning to the term “culture shock.” It was my first time in the developing world where I wasn’t a tourist, and my first time in Africa. My psyche could not withstand the new world, and I quailed before the explosion of unrelenting poverty. I simply could not react to what I saw.
There were no buildings, there were no Westerners, there was trash in the street, motorcycles, and no traffic laws. There were people living on top of each other, and dirt everywhere, and the pollution blotted out the sun. And I was going to be living in the middle of it, and working right off the street with giant potholes, or maybe just giant holes in the sand, with chickens running around. In the face of such poverty, I had a difficult time acting “normally,” I had to pretend to be “professional” and the lack of sleep amplified every difference. The morning looked bleak, and I wrote a lot of agitated e-mails.
A cup of coffee mid-afternoon helped the images sharpen around me a little, and I tried to stop literally stumbling around but I was still slow to process basic facts. I had not slept at all the night previously, covered with sweat and pressed close to the fan I had pleaded for at 3 a.m. after I could not breathe anymore in the room. That was when I broke down, and wished I was home, not so much for homesickness but because of the frustration with the Equatorial mid-night humidity.
Improvement came in the form of lunch, but then I burned myself on the engine of the motorcycle. By the end of the day, I functioned at maybe a quarter of my usual self, and there were still a few more hours of French left at dinner. I convinced sleep to arrive by tricking myself into seeing the fan as cold waves of air conditioning, and my body slid restlessly into submission.
* * *
Day 2- Friday
Last night I ate at a restaurant with Vivien. We walked down the street and since there was no electricity outside, we ate in the dark. He used a cell phone light to show me my food. We talked a lot about microfinance. Vivien is very passionate about having me in his house. He has spent a lot of time with foreigners and also has told me that I must work hard at Alidé because they have very high expectations for me, a statement which filled me with the fear of disappointment. However, it was nice to eat with him, and it warded off the crushing homesickness that descends with the darkness.
The fan Alidé gave me helped with the heat.
* * *
This morning I thought, it’s poor. Okay, and moved on a little faster.
I have my appetite back! For the first time in 2 days, I was actually hungry. As usual I satisfied my cravings with a healthy object – les biscuits chocolats (chocolate cookies). Landry and I went to lunch at the hospital, an unlikely place to eat, but there was a restaurant there and Landry ran into his childhood friend. When Landry introduced to me using my last name too he asked, “Mais, tu es Béninois?” (“But you are from Benin?”) Just trying, I thought, and answered, “Américaine.”
* * *
Day 3- Saturday
Vivien and I started out eating a breakfast of Mielo (a coffee/hot chocolate mix) and sort of soft, but tasty, baguettes. The plan was to head to Porto Novo, a city about an hour away and Benin’s political capital, so we stopped by his parents’ house to borrow their car. The road to his parent’s house is very bad. In terms of appearance, Benin reminds me a little of Haiti. The road traveled from ok (where we live) to very poor, so poor that the sand road is littered with trash and excrement and the “structures” are really just lean-tos of rusty metal. I didn’t talk at all during the ride because I was trying to digest it all, and Vivien kept asking me if I was ok. I was, it’s just that I seem to encounter many situations in Cotonou where I don’t have a clue what to say, which is funny given that you can’t keep me quiet for one second in the States.
In France, people will usually ask me about American pop, or to talk about American culture. Here that happens very little, as people never ask, and I wouldn’t even know where to start explaining. The one American person we can talk about is Barack Obama. Vivien introduces me everywhere as “This is Sarah. She worked for Barack Obama.” This gives me immediate star power, and is totally great. Barack Obama is such a popular figure that I seem to gain immediate social capital from this statement.
We went first to to one of Alidé’s seven agencies, the Santa Rita Agence, where Vivien is the Director. It was very modest, but it had a little guichet (counter) through which to disburse loans. I met one of his friends with whom he studied abroad, and who now does research in sociology and law. He also works to stop the trafficking of children. This was a subject that interested me very much. I always thought I should be a sociology major, but chose international relations because it sounded more impressive. I told him the research he does sounds very important.
I also met the first Alidé agent who spoke a little English, Raoul. Unlike in France, where everyone attempts to speak English with you regardless of their level of proficiency, here everyone speaks French to me. A few people asked me if I could teach them English.
We were on the way to l’enterrement de son pere, or the internment of Gille’s father. Gilles is a loan agent at Alidé- Allada Agence. It reminded me of the first chapter of Camus’s The Stranger. The ceremony was crazy because when we got to the church, hundreds of people were outside along the grounds, just listening, because the church wasn’t big enough for everyone. I wasn’t sure if the Alidé people would be more observant, but they didn’t pay much attention to the service. In fact, there was a great feeling of camaraderie among everyone as representatives of different Alidé agencies got to see each other. Everyone greeted each other very warmly, and most of them are young men. I was happy when Caroline got there (Caroline sits with Landry and I) with her little sister, as I was one of the only women present. I hang out most of the time with African men. It’s a good thing I’m not in the least bit intimidated, because I’m definitely the odd one out. They do try very hard to include me. In most social situations however, everyone speaks Fon with just a sprinkling of French, so I didn’t understand most of the conversation. That was fine with me, as it gave me a chance to relax a little. Every time I start to daydream about home or to reflect on something here, someone says, “ça va, Sarah?” (“you ok?/how’s it going?”) So I realize I have to re-engage, or at least appear to be engaged.
The Alidé men clowned around during the service, and then we got into the car and on motorcycles to go to the party afterwards. Of course I had no idea where were going, due partly to the dullness in my mind created by the tropical heat (oh, camus), and my general incomprehension of the French/Fon that kept floating my way. But I kept gamely spontaneous, and after getting lost a few times, we finally decided to go to a bar because no one had arrived at the party yet. After a few beers, everyone started shaking their shoulders in their chairs and then we all began to dance. They were excited when I tried to dance too.
We went to the party, and it was absolutely huge, as large as the service. There were at least 500 people, if not 700, and the party took over the whole street. There were both a DJ playing African rap and drummers playing traditional music. The servers brought out crates of drinks and then enormous coolers of steaming hot rice and meat, pâte, and fish. Pâte is corn flour, a mushy potato or grit-like substance, and is the staple carbohydrate of Benin. It is served with a spicy red sauce for dipping, and usually with fish and very fishy dark sauce. I haven’t yet learned to like it, but the rice was delicious. I sat with Clement, who works at another Agence, and the heads of the Porto Novo and Allada agencies.
Today I was the only Caucasian person at the whole party and mass. I read that there were 5000 foreigners in Benin, but where they are, who knows? Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen one Asian and two white people. Surprisingly, people don’t really holler much at me, they stare a little blankly, as if disbelieving that I am actually there. Yes, the little children call me “yavo” (white person), but the reaction is wholly better than I had expected.
On the way home the mood turned more somber as we passed Diamond Bank, scene of yesterday’s shooting. Last Friday night in the Dantokpa Market bandits entered and began shooting in the air. They were a well-organized and well-armed group from Nigeria. In April, the same group had tried to rob the same Diamond Bank in the center of Cotonou at Dantokpa Market. They failed, but robbed Diamond Bank in Cameroon and Nigeria. Yesterday they returned to Diamond Bank better-armed and robbed the Bank of about US $786,000 and won a 5-hour firefight with the police and some military back-up. In the panic that followed, 20-100 people were injured by stray bullets and a stampede that took place as people attempted to flee. The bank was targeted because of its high liquidity; the market women, some of whom are Alide clients, deposit their funds directly as they have nowhere else to keep it. The bandits escaped from the harbor in motorboats. As Valere put it, it reminded him of a “Western” or “Rambo.” Everyone here is frustrated by the poor security, and the fact that bandits were allowed to rob banks at least three times and get away with it. Most blame neighboring Nigeria, where the bandits have almost certainly sought safe haven. We watched the events unfold on live camera on the TV at Vivien’s parents house. Landry saw the panic as he passed by on his way home.
Late in the evening we went out with Vivien’s friend, Auguste, and his wife, Lareine. We began by talking about Ouidah, a nearby city which attracts a lot of tourists. We discussed tourism and also the different religions of Benin, namely animism. Vivien pointed to Lareine and said, “her step brother is the highest Voodoo priest in the country. Would you like to meet him?”
“Oui!” I answered. I think that would be fascinating. I tried to explain to them how Voodoo is a misunderstood religion in the U.S. I told them that since it had come to Louisiana, many people thought it was a violent practice and it had a somewhat negative connotation. I decided not to mention human sacrifice. Voodoo is the religion of about 45% of people in Benin. They agreed that I could help build a better reputation for Voodoo when I returned armed with knowledge. However, they emphasized that I would not be told all the secrets, and that I should take care to ask before taking photographs. Vivien added that if I was told not to bring a cell phone to a Voodoo ceremony and I brought one, that my cell phone would start to burn. I didn’t catch whether someone would light it on fire due to my insolence, or whether it would spontaneously burst into flame.
Lareine also makes traditional African clothing, and she offered to sew me an outfit to take home. We ended dinner with a lesson in Fon. Vivien explained that they were actually speaking three languages at the table – French, Fon, and their village’s language. Auguste decided to teach me hello in Fon.
“ ‘AH-FON-ghan-ji-yah’ means good morning. ”We lo, Ah-do-ghan-ji-ya’ means fine, how are you?”
* * *
I remembered striking up a conversation with the French woman standing next to me in the Customs line when I first arrived in Benin. After she complimented me on America’s selection of Barack Obama, I asked if she was staying in Cotonou.
“No!” She replied. “Cotonou is awful! Full of pollution. I would never stay there.”
I told her I would be staying in Cotonou for 3 months.
“Oh, well,” she said, “The people of Benin will make you forget the city of Cotonou.”
(Les Béninois vont vous faire oublier de Cotonou).
A fact which is proving more true every day here.
Thankful.
By Cynthia McMurry, KF5 Peru
When FINCA staff interview clients to write their Kiva profiles, the last question each client is asked is “What are your dreams for the future?” As I looked at the profile of FINCA client after FINCA client, I was struck that almost everyone had some variation of the same three dreams:
1) “For my children to graduate with professional degrees” or “For my children to get a good education.”
2) “To open my own store” (for ambulatory vendors), “To open another store,” “To expand my store,” or “To offer a wider variety of merchandise in my store.”
3) “To build my own home,” “To own my own home,” or “To improve my home.”
Something bothered me about seeing the same dreams repeated over and over, but for a week or so I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that bothered me. In part, I think it challenged a mindset instilled in me from early on, reflecting a PC, middle-class American upbringing laden with positive reinforcement, self-esteem boosters and the notion that everyone is different in a good way. I can see the motivational posters on the walls of my second-grade classroom now: “Reach for the stars!” “I can do anything if I put my mind to it!” “The sky is the limit!” and so on. If you’d asked me then about my dreams, I would have told you that I wanted to be a professional ice cream taster and have my own calf for my backyard (my family lives in the middle of Minneapolis). My dreams today are the same size, though they’ve gotten less fattening and more socially oriented over the years (I don’t want to say what they are for fear of jinxing myself; I never did get that calf).
I think I expected clients to have similarly grandiose responses. To me, offering a wider variety of merchandise is a goal, not a dream. Winning the lottery is a dream, being a world-renowned artist is a dream, traveling to faraway places is a dream. Dreams are limitless and fantastic: if you’re really lucky you get close, but otherwise a dream is something to set your sights on and work towards as you go through life. Goals are concrete and attainable: if you plan ahead and work hard, you should be able to reach and even surpass your goals. I wanted clients to see that their dreams were in fact goals. What happens once you do start selling a wider variety of merchandise? Once your house has a second floor? Once you have two stores? Where do you go from there? It also bothered me that clients’ dreams didn’t involve working less or retiring. Most of the women I talk to work 50 or 60 hours per week and have large families to support; their kids usually work with them while not in school. But no one dreamed of not working. Many older clients told me they dreamed of continuing to work for as long as possible.
A couple of days ago, I came across a woman whose dream was “For my children to grow up to be better than me.” That made me cry, and I realized that this woman’s bluntly-put “dream” is in fact the common theme shared by everyone I’ve talked to. Any given combination of dreams #1, 2, and 3 is just a way of saying “I want a better future for my children.” I think this is probably the common dream shared by most mothers of the world, and I feel silly for not realizing this sooner. It doesn’t really matter if they’re dreams or goals; either way they represent small steps forward, and maybe it’s easier to go step by step than to look to a place miles away that you are trying to reach, since you might get discouraged once you realized how far away you currently are.
Being at FINCA for Thanksgiving has given the holiday a new meaning for me. I’ve always known that I have more material goods than most people in the world and that I’ve been blessed with a good education and a loving family, but I never thought about how much I’ve been empowered by those around me throughout my life. I was given a childhood of leisure time and had the luxury of dreaming about cows and ice cream; I didn’t see any doors closed to me. I never fully realized that my family has already achieved what most families only dream of.
The art and science of communication
Language is said to be the thing that separates man from animal. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow. It is also the way in which we can most easily communicate our deepest thoughts and desires with another. It is a tool that we use to bridge us together.
Yet since I have arrived in Ghana, I have begun to define language in an entirely new way. It is a constant ebb and flow of words and understanding. It is a roller-coaster ride of gerunds and participial phrases that mean all the world to some people and don’t make any sense to others.
Ghana is a tribal-based country with about 80 languages. In any given region of the country, a different language is spoken based on the tribe or tribes that reside there. In addition, Ghana is a former British colony so English is the official language—which means that people who receive an education study the language of their region and English during their schooling, and the language is used in government and business practices. This leads to an interesting work environment in that none of my co-workers other than myself speak English as their first language. On top of that, while much of the work does involve speaking native languages, not all of the employees speak the same native languages. At least three different languages from three different regions are spoken in the office on any given day, and not everyone understands each others’ tribal languages, so the use of English becomes a middle ground where employees can meet to talk to each other.
Even the English that is used here in Ghana is different from the English that I am used to. People in Ghana learn British English, which is not all that different from American English, but they have taken it and changed it in their culture to make it their own—in part, I believe, due to a lack of exposure to the way the English language is used in the Western world.
Take the word fuel, for example. I kept hearing the CRAN drivers saying they needed foo-elle. Foo-elle, I thought. What in the heck is foo-elle? Oh, fuel, of course. Then there was the time I walked around the entire University of Ghana-Legon looking for the math department and asking everyone I met for directions while being pointed in every direction. Apparently they didn’t know what math was. I found out later that the word math is pronounced mass here. If only I had asked for the mass department, they would have known exactly what I was talking about. There are many words that are now pronounced differently, for lack of knowing how to pronounce it perhaps. Either way, it is culturally right to pronounce such words that way; otherwise, no one will understand what you are saying.
At first I thought that the people in Ghana have a whole different and less-than-American grasp of the English language. As a vivid reader and copy editor, my understanding of the science and art that is the English language is strong, and I saw a lot of rules that weren’t known and that were broken. I realized that the people I work with and interview only use it as a second language and don’t have the poetic vibe that being fluent in a language brings—that ability to truly and clearly articulate the specific words desired. Granted, there are varying levels of English and some are quite high, but each is different than that of a native English speaker and each is developed in accumulation with the culture.
Interestingly enough, despite the fact that many of the people I interview for Kiva profiles didn’t have much schooling and don’t speak English much or at all, they all know and use some English words on a daily basis. English has somehow fused with the native languages to become, in a sense, their own native words. Rather than saying Good Morning or Good Afternoon to someone in a tribal language, you actually speak these words in a sentence. For example, “Paucho, Good Morning. Ete Sen?” Translation: Please, good morning. How are you? In response, you might say, “Boco,” with a long o at the end. This means “I am cool.” What is funny is that even when speaking in English and I ask them how they are doing, people still respond by saying, “I am cool.” In that same way, the word please (paucho), a commonly used term of respect, is often used in the English language. Thus a waiter at a Chinese restaurant I went to once—that’s right, Chinese in Ghana—responded to our orders by saying, “Please, one order of rice.” And “Please, here is your coke.” The fun of this is that I can and do say “please, thank you” on a daily basis.
Many of my interviewees don’t speak the English language, yet they use a few English words—words that have become a part of their daily speech. So someone who lives in a rural area and who never went to school—someone who claims to speak no English—still says sorry when he or she bumps into someone.
Ghanaians have taken the English they learn and created an entire new way of speaking with it. I have been told a few times not to speak in slang—something that can actually unnerve me considering I am speaking proper American English and not slang at all. Until I learn Ghanaian English and start using words like foo-elle and mass in the proper settings, I will always be speaking slang to some Ghanaians.
I still love the English language with all its rules and regulations, and I love my understanding of it. But living in Ghana has taught me that the true role of language is to communicate, and sometimes that means throwing all of the rules out the window and telling people that mass was my least favorite subject in school and asking how much foo-elle prices are right now. The true purpose of language is to bridge a gap between the ideas and thoughts of two different individuals, and while I still love the rules, sometimes they don’t help me do that here. I will adjust over time, just as Ghanaians have included the English language into their own speech. And despite all the rules, isn’t it true that language is a melting pot of culture and a constantly changing means of expression anyway?
My university grammar teacher would be horrified.
*Note to reader: The language examples are Fanti, a language spoken in the Central Region where Christian Rural Aid Network is located.
Trusting, corrupt Azerbaijan
I’ve been in Azerbaijan for just over six weeks now, but I this is my first blog post since my arrival.
I haven’t known what to say, really. It’s not that I’ve been awed into silence by the exoticness of this Caucasus nation. I live in Baku, and we have six McDonald’s (so I hear — I’ve managed to visit two). Anyplace with that many McDonald’s fails some kind of exoticness test somewhere. Well, maybe if it was Japan and there was shrimp-burger on the menu, but the most exotic thing you can order at my McD’s is a MacArabic — basically, a really mediocre chicken wrap.
No, Azerbaijan’s foreignness reveals itself in small ways. The streets full of Land Rovers and Hummers and Mercedes and BMWsalso share space with Opels and Daewoos, and tiny, box-like Soviet Ladas and Zhigulis. You can buy a Snickers and some milk at the market, and a goat’s head as well. And, everywhere you look, there’s a cat. (More on that in another posting…)
I’ve had trouble pinning down just what makes this place tick. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and talked to a lot of people, foreigners and locals alike, but I still don’t know.
Azerbaijan is a study in overlap. It’s a Venn diagram country. If you took eastern Turkey, northern Iran and southern Russia and forced them all to share a room, you’d get Azerbaijan. If you took Shi’ia Islam — like you’d find in Iran — but diluted their vigorous, all-pervading faith with the atheist hangover of a formerly Soviet state and the secular flavor of Turkey’s Islam, you’d get Azerbaijan’s approach to religion. They speak Azeri, which is kissing cousins with Turkish, but a lot of people speak Russian and the more educated people might speak some English. On the subway, you’re apt to see advertisements in English, Azeri, Cyrillic and Farsi. The nation straddles Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It could be grouped with the ‘stans, the Middle East, or its Caucasus neighbors, Armenia and Georgia.
The people are amazingly trusting, and yet, somehow, it’s one of the most corrupt nations on the planet.
On the one hand, here’s an example a friend in the Peace Corps, who is working in microfinance in the north of the country, shared with me.
People in Azerbaijan often refuse to use banks. This is understandable, as a banking crisis not that long ago wiped out the savings of some. But the banking system is much improved, and one bank is trying to lure people into opening accounts by explaining how the account might help a family share funds. The bank explains to prospective customers that a son or daughter working in the capital, Baku, can deposit money that family members in an outlying region can then withdraw.
What’s the point of that? they ask. Why not just give the 100 Manat to a taxi driver — along with 3 Manat for the drive — and have him bring the cash up from Baku to the village, two hours away? Azeris think nothing of trusting a stranger that way.
I’m from New York City, so I’m paranoid. I watch my belongings like a hawk wherever I go. But I would feel better about leaving a bag or a jacket unattended in Baku than in London or Paris or my hometown. Violent crime doesn’t exist, and even petty theft such as bag-snatching and pick-pocketing is hardly a problem. Women walk home alone after 1 a.m. through downtown Baku without looking over their shoulders.
And the people are hospitable to a fault. I’m treated like an honored guest at each of the three MFI’s where I’ve been working, Komak, Aqroinvest and Normicro. Tea is brought, lunch is paid for. The other day Ayyub, my boss at Aqroinvest, took me to a hamam, Turkish bath, to steam away my troubles. If you try to go outside with wet hair or a wet shirt, someone will get in your face about how you’re going to catch cold. That’s just how it is here.
But, oh, the corruption! As a foreigner, I’ve heard many stories but had little personal interaction with that ever-present force. (No one thinks twice of overcharging me for any purchase I make, but I’m not sure that qualifies as corruption.) Rather, I glean what I can from my reading and from the stories I hear. I can’t vouch for any of them, but everyone seems to have a story.
The most corrupt country in 2008, according to the watchdog group Transparency International, is Somalia, ranked 180. Iraq and Myanmar are tied for one spot better. The least corrupt countries in the world, sharing top honors on the list, are Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden. Transparency International rates countries on a scale called a Corruption Perceptions Index. It’s a 10-point scale. Those three countries range from 9.1 to 9.5 on the scale.
I’ve read that a good rule of thumb is that in any country under a 3 on the scale, corruption pervades all aspects of the daily lives of its citizens. In the 3 range you will find countries such as Niger, Egypt, Belize, Mauritania, Togo, Thailand and Saudi Arabai. Azerbaijan barely musters a 2, with an index range of 1.7 to 2.1. It’s tied with Burundi, Venezuela, Angola, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and the Republic of the Congo for a dismal 158th place.
On a drive to the regions with two of my friends from one of my MFIs, we were pulled over by a cop. We hadn’t been speeding or anything like that, so I was a bit alarmed as the cop got out of his car and approached the driver of ours. But our driver said not to worry.
He hopped out, greeted the police officer, and they shook hands and turned around and walked back to the police car. The policeman rejoined his partner inside the police car and my friend chatted with them through their window. No tickets were written, no admonishments made. It wasn’t until later that someone explained to me how it works. The supervising highway police have a quota they give their highway patrol to fill. The highway patrol must pull over X number of drivers each day. The standard bribe is 5 Manat (1 Azeri Manat=1.24 U.S. Dollars). When he shook hands with the cop, my friend was paying the bribe as you or I might pay the toll on a bridge. Any bribes the policeman can take beyond the quota he gets to keep.
Another example, much worse: schoolchildren pay for grades. It’s not that the poorest students bribe their teachers not to fail them: ALL students must pay. If a bright student who knows the material doesn’t pay, she fails. If a student who never opened the textbook pays the price, he passes with high marks. That’s the system. All the incentives that might produce an educated elite are out the window. Apparently, it’s gotten worse in recent years, with teacher’s assistants lining up the students before exams so they can pay the bribes one by one.
Azerbaijan doesn’t face the kind of poverty you find in many Kiva countries: people are poor, and often hungry, but they aren’t dying of easily curable diseases left and right, or one meal away from starvation. The incredible oil and natural gas wealth that supplies the dozens of high-end retail shops in Baku with customers has managed to trickle down a bit to the masses. But, despite its wealth relative to the very poorest nations, I still think Azeri schoolchildren lining up to pay the bribe before the exam is a singularly hopeless, discouraging image.
I hear other stories. Politicans buy appointments. Official document are only delivered with some baksheesh, and if any of your documents are out of order, expect to pay the price. Successful owners of large businesses — from doctors’ offices to supermarkets — must periodically pay thousands of Manat to police who march in and demand that the doors be shut. Bribes lubricate the gears of this country, both large and small.
I’m not sure what makes me more upset: that this goes on, or that no one seems bothered enough to speak up about it. I think, however, that it bothers many people, probably much more than it bothers me, but they lack the tools — a true democracy, a free press — to do anything constructive with that anger, and so they hold it inside.
When you leave the capital — and most of the Kiva clients at my MFI’s live outside the capital — it’s really like travelling back in time. You go from Cosmo Magazine, the Bulgari store and Japanese restaurants right into an agrarian society. Picture the 18th century, but with cell phones and cars, and all the farmers and sheep herders wearing pinstripe suits.
Driving through the regions, it has the look of a Disney movie — ducks crossing the road here, a puppy and kitten wrestling there, a cow grazing on the left and a herd of sheep on the right. Of course, you’re apt to have some enormous metal contraption the USSR left behind, something meant to leech the gas or oil from the earth, rotting in the background, but ignore that.
There is no industry for these people. The oil boom that makes Baku so Western — all of those petrodollars being pumped out of the Caspian into someone’s pocket — don’t reach these people. They survive on their wits. They find simple business opportunities. They raise cattle and sell the milk, or make it into yogurt or butter and sell that. If a calf is born, they might sell its meat. They raise chickens for the family to eat. Pomegranates from the tree in the backyard are sold at bazaar.
If they can raise enough capital, they might start a more formal business: a general store, a shop peddling auto parts, a hardware store, a butcher shop. This is where microfinance comes in. Kiva and its three partner MFIs in Azerbaijan does such good work for these people. The capital is the missing piece. It’s often the difference betwen a family of four or five living on $2-3 U.S.D. or living on $10. Nearly every entrepreneur I’ve had the chance to interview has made a point of asking for another loan.
If Azerbaijan weren’t so corrupt, microfinance might not be so important. But as it is, measures of this nation’s wealth are misleading. The richest, best-connected people, making millions off oil, skew estimates for everyones’ wealth. They hide the reality that outside the petrol industry, people have to build their own livelihoods. Thanks to microfinance, hardworking, honest people don’t have to be confined to poverty here.
Rai’s Way
Across from DINARI Foundation’s office, there is a large concrete lot with two long warehouses lining the perimeter. In the middle of the lot, blue tarps covered three mounds that were perhaps fifteen feet in diameter. In the morning, workers removed the tarps, revealing piles of what looked like sand as high as the men’s waists. Two of the men wheeled out mechanized plows and bulldozed the piles, gradually spreading the material across the concrete in messy spirals. A third worker appeared with a bandanna covering his nose and mouth, looking like a bandit. He and the others used large curved rakes to spread the sand in a thin even layer across the ground.
The lot across from DINARI Foundation
The men then disappeared into one of the warehouses. They returned with rectangular mops and swept the sand back into piles. The entire process would repeat throughout the day, interrupted by breaks when the workers squatted in the shade, arms draped over their knees. Sometimes trucks came and unloaded more material. Once a customer entered the lot and left with a big white sack strapped to her bicycle and another balanced on her head. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the men placed the tarps back on the piles, and activity ceased until the following morning.
When Rai came, he explained that the mounds were rice, not sand. The lot was part of a rice mill, and the men were drying the rice in the sun, which helped remove the husks. Farmers like Rai brought their crops there. In exchange for ten percent of the farmers’ supply, the mill processed the rice and the farmers could then sell it for twice the price of “rough rice.” In a one-hectare plot (about two and a half acres), most farmers could harvest five to six tons of rice during a four-month season. Rai’s record was 15.3 tons in 85 days.
He began farming ten years ago when he was twenty-seven years old, renting a small plot surrounded by buildings in Bali’s capital of Denpasar. At the time, he owned an art gallery in Kuta, the touristic heart of Bali. He sold his own paintings and ceramics, and he also designed jewelry and landscapes.
His family came from Blimbingsari, a rural Christian village in western Bali, and his father worked in Bali’s national park.
“Every day, I learn about nature,” Rai told me. He had wavy black hair that flowed down to his khaki shorts and dark stubble that reached up to his prominent nose and cheekbones. My first impression was of a Native American shaman, but his tan New Balances and ankle-high socks befitted a country club staff member.
His grandfather was a rice farmer, and Rai would watch him farm in the traditional way, burning the old stalks and flooding the paddies.
“As a child, I see this, and I think this is wrong.”
Rai studied economics and cinematography in college and never received formal agricultural training. But he read on his own about plant ecology, oxygenation and organic farming. He was concerned that traditional farming in Bali polluted the environment and strained its natural resources. He learned that burning the spent rice fields killed microorganisms necessary to aerate the soil. He began testing farming methods from Thailand and Madagascar, incorporating techniques that worked and disregarding those that didn’t.
“I have no rule,” he told me.
Most farmers filled their paddies with twenty centimeters of water. Rai speculated that with less water, the new stalks would receive more sunlight and oxygen. He irrigated his field with just one centimeter of water, and the stalks produced twice as many shoots. Less water also allowed the soil organisms to flourish and enrich the soil.
Ardi, one of the staff at DINARI, also grew up in Blimbingsari. He told me he would help his father plant rice. At the start of each season, he would follow behind his father, dropping five seeds in every hole. The method required 40 kilos of rice seed per hectare, at a cost of Rp. 2 million (approximately $200). Rai found that the rice grew better if he planted just one seed at each point, and he needed just 12 kilos of seed.
Rai began composting his discarded rice stalks instead of burning them. He cut up the stalks and mixed them with sawdust, cow dung, and rice husks. He added microorganisms he had collected from various trees, grasses, and bamboo bark. He then covered the mixture with a tarp for two weeks. The chemical processes released so much energy that the compost would measure 70° Celsius, so he had to open up the tarp after the first week to let everything cool down.
Rai understood that burning the rice fields wasn’t sustainable and required additional fertilizer to make up the nutrient deficit. A kilo of fertilizer cost about Rp. 3,000. At first, farmers might only require a ton of fertilizer per hectare, but every year they would have to buy more as they depleted the natural soil.
Burning also released pesticides that had been sprayed on the crops. Mothers often carried their babies with them when they worked in the field, and many infants died as a result from a bleeding disorder. Rather than applying chemical pesticides, Rai protected his rice with lemongrass, watered-down pineapple juice and leaves from the neem plant. I had seen neem extract bottled in a swanky natural foods store, claiming to treat diarrhea and inflammation.
Rai’s methods required time and careful planning, and the results were not immediate. But over the span of a few seasons, yields increased from 60% to 200%. Initially, the costs were similar to traditional farming, but by sparing traditional fertilizers and pesticides, Rai could eventually save millions of rupiahs for every hectare planted. His rice also grew faster, so he could plant four harvests each year instead of three. And because the rice was organic, he could sell it for twice the price of the conventional variety.
Rai in the rice paddy
“Your story is bullsh*t,” one farmer announced when Rai tried to explain his approach.
Most farmers believed that organic farming produced smaller yields, and few believed him. Some people got angry at his seemingly outrageous claims. Rai once ran away after a man brandished a knife at him. Rai decided to set up demonstrations, renting small farming plots in the villages and growing his own rice.
“My crops are like this,” he said, raising his hand level with his chest. He then dropped his hand below his waist. “And theirs’ are this. Then they listen.” His laugh was somehow both guttural and giggly.
Maybe only one farmer out a hundred would adopt his method at first, but gradually he won more and more converts. Farmers began visiting Rai to seek advice, often staying until the early morning hours. His wife ran out of coffee. Exasperated, she brought out a kettle of hot water one night, announced she was going to bed, and told Rai to get his own coffee.
Sometimes he was so busy he forgot to eat. His wife packed lunchboxes and implored him to drink more water. He recently spent three days in the hospital after contracting typhus.
“Perhaps I work too hard,” he admitted.
He wanted to “open minds”, to fundamentally change how Balinese people viewed farming and farmers. Most Balinese people looked down on farmers as dirty, poor, and stupid. Because the traditional way of farming was simplistic and shortsighted, Rai believed it instilled a mindset in farmers that served to justify the stereotype.
The rice field behind my guesthouse
Rai once received a call from one of his daughter’s teachers, who suspected his child had played a prank. His children attended good schools with expensive tuition, and most of the students came from affluent families. The children had been asked to write down their parents’ occupations, and the teacher did not believe Rai’s daughter when she wrote that her father was a farmer. Rai happily confirmed that his daughter was telling the truth. Later, when his daughter brought her schoolwork home, he saw that the teacher had crossed out “farmer” and written “businessman.”
Few young people chose farming as a career, instead seeking better wages in Bali’s cities and tourist areas. Often they would earn only Rp. 750,000, or $75, in a month.
“It’s crazy,” he said, smiling in disbelief. “Go to the city be a crime.”
He lamented that Bali had squandered its position as a rice producer and now had to import rice from the island of Java. He thought Bali’s shift from agriculture to tourism had been disastrous, as evidenced by the economic collapse following the 2002 bombings.
Rai’s own finances imploded after the terrorist acts. Vendors who previously bought his ceramics stopped ordering and began importing from Vietnam. Rai was forced to close his art gallery in which he had invested Rp. 500 million of his own money.
He couldn’t earn enough to feed his family, and it was not yet time to harvest his crops. He ate only one meal a day but didn’t tell his wife for fear she would get upset. He pleaded with his mother to send milk for his daughter. He tried giving her tea in the nighttime, but she told him she could taste the difference.
“It is sweet, but it is not milk.” As Rai recounted the story, his eyes moistened.
Even though he didn’t have any money, he arranged for a local television station to auction ten of his paintings for the families of the bombing victims. He raised Rp. 300 million.
Gradually, as he harvested his crops and the economy recovered, Rai rebuilt his life. He began dedicating most of his time to farming. He worked every day, three for his own livelihood and four to help the farming communities. After farmers implemented his approach, he would expand to new areas, renting farmland all over Bali in places like Klunkung, Karangasem, Tabanan, Singaraja, and Nagara. He spent half his money providing for his family and the other half for social work. He bought a car and a motorbike and sent his children to good schools, but he had no savings left over.
His friends told him he was crazy to spend so much money on his social work. He asked them how they kept good conscience while their neighbors lived in poverty.
“How come (can) you eat? How come (can) you loving?”
While growing up in Blimbingsari, Rai went to school with several children from the local orphanage. Sometimes a dozen would come to his home to study. When his mother came home, she demanded to know why all the food was gone. Rai recalled how, when he explained to his mother where his friends lived, “she not angry anymore.”
The Balinese rice association, however, was still angry at him. The market price for conventional rice was Rp. 7,000 per kilo, and the price for organic rice was twice that. But Rai sold his rice for Rp. 3,000.
“When I can grow so much rice, it is enough.”
I wanted to make sure I understood him correctly, that he voluntarily sold his rice for a fraction of what it was worth.
“That is why my friends say I’m crazy.” He laughed, scrunching his cheeks so that his eyes squinted.
I asked whether he could have a greater impact if he sold his rice at the market price, since he would have more funds for his social work. Poor people subsisted on rice, he told me, and he thought his first priority should be to help them, rather than just help farmers increase their production and hope this would lower the price of rice. But he struggled with the decision.
“It keeps me up at night,” he said.
A few months ago, Rai borrowed Rp. 9 million from DINARI Foundation when he ran out of funds. He wanted to rent a plot of farmland in the nearby town of Sempidi, hoping to convert more farmers to his sustainable agricultural practices.
He told me that banks also looked down on farmers and would not lend to them. Farmers were forced to borrow from “bloodsuckers” who charged 10% interest rates, often leaving the farmers with little or no profit at harvest time. Rai hoped that by lowering farmers’ costs, he could cut out the bloodsuckers.
Rai invited me to join him the following afternoon to watch him instruct several Sempidi farmers how to make compost. I saw this as evidence that his DINARI-financed project had proven successful. I agreed and gave him my energy bar before he left, worrying whether he would have time to eat.
The next day, as I followed him on my motorbike, he pointed out a driveway full of sand-colored rice, drying in the afternoon sun. His hair was tied up in a samurai’s bun that peaked out from beneath his helmet, and his unbuckled chinstrap flapped in the wind.
We pulled into the farmer’s house and parked in a grass lawn beneath a tree. There was a small dirt yard in back, and we sat a bamboo bench and one of the farmers’ wives brought us donuts and sweetened coffee. The farmer’s rice paddy lay beyond.
There was a pile of dried rice stalks on the ground, and two farmers began chopping them up on small wooden cutting boards. At times, the knives synchronized into a percussive duet. There were two sacks and a red plastic bag next to the pile, and Rai opened them to show me the compost ingredients: wood chips from a carpenter’s shop, coconut fibers, and rice husks. A pile of cow manure lay behind the rice stalks.
Inspecting the composting ingredients
As the farmers continued the prep work, Rai and I walked along the edge of the rice paddy. He knelt by one of the shallow pools and pointed out resting tadpoles. Frogs lived in the water now that the farmers had stopped using conventional pesticides. He showed me a neem tree growing behind a farmer’s house, its leaves fanning out in a modest circle. A number of farmers had learned of Rai’s techniques and begun poaching branches.
He explained that the paddy would be re-terraced to improve the irrigation system, and the farmers would work together to improve each other’s land.
“Hundred years ago, farmers work together. Now, they work together again.”
We checked back on Rai’s students, and Rai retrieved a plastic liter-size bottle filled with brown liquid. The bottle housed Rai’s microorganisms and would be sufficient for two hectares. Rai poured the brew into a bucket and mixed in sugar and water. The farmers could buy soil bacteria, but it was very expensive, so Rai would show them how to make it themselves.
After the farmers had combined the dry composting ingredients, the microorganism concoction was funneled into a canister and sprayed on top. The farmers took hoes and spent the next fifteen minutes vigorously mixing everything together. An old farmer, wearing a hat but no shirt, earnestly raked the pile until the veins on his sinewy arms swelled. Rai swept in the scattered remains, and finally a blue tarp was placed over the pile and weighted down with rocks.
A farmer mixing the compost
The farmers listened for a while as Rai smoked a cigarette and discussed his methods, and then gradually they left. Other men from the village began arriving with roosters, children, or both. They sat on the grass lawn, and I watched as the men decided which cocks would fight one another. The two owners then fluffed up roosters’ feathery manes. The men took turns holding each bird’s neck out for the other cock to peck, and the fight commenced when the roosters were worked into a sufficient frenzy. Sometimes the birds went at each others’ heads, and other times they launched into flying kicks.
The neighborhood cockfight
It was past six o’clock, and the sun had dropped below the distant trees. Between rounds, I looked over at Rai. He was sitting on the bamboo bench with his back to the action, smoking another cigarette and speaking with the last man and woman who remained with him. If not for me, he might have stayed long into the night.
Rai transporting microorganisms
While I always welcome your comments, I would also like to ask for your assistance this time. I have offered to help Rai find organizations involved in sustainable farming that might be interested in supporting his efforts. My knowledge of agricultural organizations is minimal, so I would be grateful for any suggestions you might have. You can leave a comment on this blog or on Rai’s profile on Kiva:
http://partners.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=62697
Please expect a new post from me in about two weeks. I encourage you to watch for new loans from the DINARI Foundation here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=82&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_tpg=fb
Sometimes the Most Boring Client is Really the Most Interesting
In the past week I have met with almost 50 clients, which is way more than I met in the previous six weeks combined. I should feel inspired and excited by that accomplishment, but I mostly feel tired and battered. That’s because all of the clients I met with were BORING! I’m not exaggerating – I didn’t have one interesting interview. At least, that’s what I thought in the days surrounding the visits….
When I meet with clients, I ask a bunch of questions about their business, family, and personal history in order to get a better understanding of the benefit they have experienced from working with a microfinance organization. The clients in and around my home base of Khujand haven’t exactly talked my ear off, but they’ve been surprisingly open and forthcoming with their responses. So when I took a week to meet with clients in the southern part of the country, I was shocked by their consistently brief and reticent responses. Here is a sample interview from the past week:
Me: Why did you decide to start a business?
Client: Because I wanted to.
Me: Why did you decide, after 9 years of owning your business, to apply for your first loan last year? Client: Because.
Me: What has been the impact of the loan on your business?
Client: It’s been good
Me: Can you provide any specific examples?
Client: No
Me: Do you have any goals for the next few years, for your business or family?
Client: No
It was the same thing, client after client. I wanted to scream – didn’t anybody have a wedding to pay for; a child to send to college; or a satellite dish to buy (all very typical responses to the goals question)? I pulled out every trick in the bag: rephrasing my questions; asking follow-up questions, smiling more; and talking about their family. But, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get anything out of these clients. We tried different communities, different branches, different translators and still nothing….the clients simply would not talk.
My first reaction was to chalk it up to the fact that microfinance isn’t always ‘sexy’. It isn’t always the glamorous success story that, as a lender, you hope to hear. My second thought was that this part of the country was simply more religious and therefor more reserved. But, I wasn’t satisfied with either of these explanations and decided to ask for some help from my IMON coworkers.
It turns out that the “boring clients” are a complex and emotional consequence of Tajikistan’s civil war, which erupted in 1992, just after the country had gained its independence from the U.S.S.R., and lasted until around 1997. The violence took up to 50,000 lives and resulted in widespread and devastating food shortages. While the northern cities were able to avoid most of the conflict and suffering, it was a different story in the communities I visited around Dushanbe and Sharituz. In these towns, up to 30-40% of the women are war widows; almost one hundred thousand people fled to neighboring Afghanistan; entire communities were burnt to the ground or otherwise destroyed; and most people lost their job or simply stopped getting paid. That’s why microfinance was so necessary and therefor so successful in Tajikistan. It helped individuals and communities create their own jobs and futures after the war.
When I went back through my interview notes, signs of the war and the ensuing reconstruction were glaringly obvious. I realized that most (indeed, almost all) of the clients had had some sort of career before starting their business: they were nurses, teachers, managers, government employees, factory workers, on and on. And they all said the same thing when I asked why they had started the business: “because I lost my job”. I also noticed that many of the women I interviewed were widows. Even my colleagues from IMON filled in part of the big picture. I had two translators: one to translate from English to Tajik and the other to translate from Tajik to Uzbek – because the English translator missed out on learning Uzbek when he fled to Afghanistan.
Even during our conversations, it was clear that the entrepreneurs had started their businesses in order to get back on their feet after the civil war, but I still couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t talk. I wasn’t asking questions about their deceased husbands or their burned down towns or their abandoned factories – I knew well enough to stay away from all of that. No, I was just asking questions about their current successes and their future goals – why wouldn’t they want to talk about that?
Because, I couldn’t join them for a cup of tea.
Tea is an integral part of the Tajik culture – we have it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between. It is the first thing you are offered when you enter someone’s home and, as an honored guest, your hosts will never allow you to pour it yourself. Most of the clients I meet with ask me to stay after the interview in order to have tea, even if I am meeting with them at the very busy central markets. This is such an open and giving culture that it feels very natural to accept the invitation and focus on issues other than work but, when I am representing Kiva, I always decline the offer. First off, my MFI has strict rules about never accepting gifts from a client. And secondly, even though I have all the time in the world to sit with clients, I am always joined by a translator and loan officer who have very busy schedules.
So it wasn’t that my clients wouldn’t talk, it’s that they wouldn’t talk right away. Unfortunately, you can’t always get the interesting story in a 15 minute interview and you don’t always have time for a cup of tea. And, when you have a business history that includes death, war, and struggle, you’re not always interested in ‘cutting to the chase’ and explaining how it’s all connected.
I’ve learned a lot of things during 7 weeks in Tajikistan, mostly that this country is way more interesting than it often appears on the surface. The people are a complex mix of religions, languages, experiences, and dreams for the future. And the more work you put into uncovering these complexities, the more you are rewarded. I’ve learned to slow down when I am at work and when I am communicating. And I’ve learned to establish more realistic expectations about success, because sometimes it’s less about the answers and more about the process of getting there. To truly succeed in understanding Tajikistan and the people who live here, you must find that balance – as a Kiva Fellow and even as a Kiva lender.
Click here to learn more about IMON’s work and clients. As always, thanks for your wonderful support!
Culinary Delights in Vietnam
My mother grew up during WWII. She can make a little go a long way. But she’s no match for the Vietnamese. A couple of nights ago, at my translator’s house, we had chicken.
It is no fun being a chicken. But at least they weren't battery chickens!
Not chicken breasts or chicken thighs but chicken vertebrae. The amount of meat on a chicken’s vertebra is virtually nil. Common sense would accurately lead you to such a conclusion. But the Vietnamese serve up cooked vertebrae and you pop them into your mouth and then suck out all the juices and do your best to find some meat. Not exactly a satisfying meal. Thank goodness for rice. Not that I should complain. My translator and her father are poor people; I used to make in a week what they each make in a year. And yet they have invited me to their home for dinner on a number of occasions. Eating chicken vertebrae, however, beats eating cat – which is what I had for dinner on Sunday evening at a new-found friend’s house.
The cat arrived in the early afternoon. Fortunately not on foot but in a bag carried by one of his friends. I wonder what it had done to deserve such a fate. I spent the next hour or so hearing them chop it up outside. And I spent the next couple of hours not looking forward at all to the moment I’d have to eat it. Fortunately, a shopping trip with the my friend’s wife and her sister took my mind off the evening’s dinner. I bought some silk for the lining of a new suit that I’d ordered from a local tailor a couple of days ago. I wonder what the $100 suit will be like. She bought shoes and a new outfit. But back to the cat. It didn’t taste good. Perhaps it would have tasted better if I had been on the fast road to getting drunk, like the others. How much was psychological as opposed to physiological I can’t say. It reminded me of the time I supped on turtle and piranha in the Amazon rainforest. At least this time, the meal didn’t have me up all night. I’m not looking forward to eating dog. No wonder dogs are all so well behaved in Vietnam; they rarely so much as bark. Snake, porcupine, termites and congealed gelatinous blood don’t appeal either. But generally though, the food here is good.
For me, one of the pleasures of international travel is, generally speaking, eating the local food. I particularly enjoy street food and meals bought from little restaurants frequented by the locals. In that regard, today was a stellar day. I had three tasty meals, all for a total outlay of US$3! In the morning, I had a 2 egg omelette in a French roll from the woman who has a stand outside the MFI’s office ($0.50).
A kindly street vendor who makes my breakfast omelette
Each day she greets me proudly with a new English phrase; today’s was “good morning”. And then for lunch, I had Vietnamese tapas: a small bowl of cuttlefish, a couple of small pork chops, a local variety of roll, some freshly roasted and salted peanuts, rice, a small plate of sliced boiled potatoes with herbs and a larger bowl of boiled greens in their broth (which one pours over the rice). All for $1.60.
My local lunchtime restaurant
And for dinner I had beef pho. I’ll blow the budget later on $1 beers when I meet the only other Westerner in town: an Australian who runs a bamboo company.
Using GPS to Map Out Borrowers
In my last post, I talked about visiting a client with Phanith, the AMK Kiva coordinator. The client officer (a.k.a. loan officer) was not available to take us, so we relied on a hand written map that got us lost many, many times. We had to ask almost every villager we saw, before we finally got to the client.
Getting lost in a village got my mind thinking about how nice it would be if we had an actual map with the locations of clients and how to get to them. So I spoke to Paul, the CEO of AMK, about how we could give GPS devices to our client officers. This would let us track them as they go to each village bank and client, creating one massive map of Cambodia with the locations of every AMK client. The benefits of such a map include:
- Client officers and other branch staff are often rotated to other branches as a fraud preventive measure. When a staff member arrives at their new branch, they could use the map to help them locate clients, instead of having to rely on other staff members at the new branch.
- Staff from the auditing department could easily locate clients, allowing them to do spot checks on loan amounts and loan payments to help reduce fraud.
- The research department could use the map data to keep better track of clients to further assess AMK’s social impact.
- Organizations that are partnering with AMK to provide highly beneficial services to AMK clients, for example the water filter company IDE, can use the map to find clients instead of having to rely on AMK staff members to direct them.
- Kiva Fellows could use the map to easily find Kiva clients and report back to lenders on their status.
Paul liked the idea and asked me to try it out. I got a GPS device and took it with me on my last village visit with Phanith and Kieran. In case you haven’t already checked it out, Kieran made an awesome video of our journey out there. I also made a video of the trip using Google Earth and the data from the GPS device. We were going to figure out how to sync these two videos together, but instead we made separate videos and set them to the same music 
If you think AMK is doing great things you should definetely check out their loans that are currently fundraising on Kiva. Also if you think AMK is awesome as much as Kieran and I do, you should join the AMK Fan Club!
Microfinance in Action
This week has been completely exhausting, but one of the best weeks I’ve had here. I’ve been out in the field every morning this week—I still have tomorrow morning as well. Some of the centers have been quite far away, requiring me to leave at around 5:45 or so in the morning and catching a bike while it’s still dark. I like the longer rides though, I get to see more of Cameroon and get out of Bamenda. One of the rides to a center, Beatrice and I shared a bike. The driver told us he knew a short cut, and we went zooming through a foot path. The grass had grown over and was now hanging into the road standing at about 6 or 7 feet tall. It was smacking the driver and us in the face as we weaved around the ditch that had formed in the center of the path from the past rainy season. The whole time, Beatrice and I were just laughing at what was going on; the driver kept telling me he had taken us there on purpose—to show me the real Cameroon. It was a gorgeous view from that path; we could see the hilly countryside scattered with palm trees and crops as the sun was rising. I wasn’t able to take a picture—I was a bit more focused on holding on as we bounced down the path.
In two of the meetings now I have been given lunch after by some of the clients. At one of the meetings, all of the clients stayed behind after to have a lunch of achu (ground plantains and taro root) with a spicy, pepper and fish soup. Then at another meeting we were given koki (made by grinding koki beans and corn flour together and then frying with tomatoes and onions) and njama njama (huckleberry, a leafy green vegetable, fried with tomatoes, onions, and spices). The koki was really good. One of the clients sells groundnut koki (koki beans ground and fried with ground peanuts) on the main street in Bamenda and promised to get me some for Friday. I may try to get down there tomorrow.
In Wednesday’s center, two piglets were given out. GHAPE gives female piglets to female members; when you receive a piglet you have to raise it and breed it and come back to the center with two female piglets to give to other members. It is definitely an interesting and neat way of giving back to the center. All in all, the people are what make the early mornings and long dusty bike rides worth it though. These people are so unbelievable. They have hurdle after hurdle and even with a number of disappointments, they remain positive, optimistic and grateful. There is never any anger or negativity when you talk to them about their failures, just optimism about the future. I have never met anyone that works as hard as a lot of the GHAPE clients; they all have about four different jobs requiring varied skills. It truly is inspirational to hear what they are able to do with such small amounts of money; moreover, how what they do can change their lives. Just consider what this woman was able to do with her loan of $1,200 US.
Bih Allan, or Mangye as she is called by those that know she has had twins, is a woman with a lot on the go. Despite her busy schedule, she is relaxed and spends the entirety of the interview giggling. She not only has the daunting task of raising 6 children, but must generate enough income to pay for their school fees and daily needs. Although her husband contributes, she comes from a polygamous home and so her husband must divide his income between his other wife as well. Thanks to GHAPE and Kiva, she has been able to ensure that her family situation has not affected her children’s education and future.
Mangye grows cassava, yam, corn and beans on her farm. Much of her farmed vegetables are eaten; however, some are used to sell and some are used to make cooked food which she sells. She only sells her yams when she needs money, say to make her GHAPE payments or when school fees are due; she can sell them for 5000 CFA ($10 USD)per pound. To make garri and waterfou, two staple carbohydrate dishes produced from cassava, the cassava must be ground. This is a tedious and tiring process involving a lot of manual labour. She takes her cassava to be ground by a neighbour who has a cassava mill. For 4 pockets of cassava, it will cost her 3500 CFA ($7 USD) to grind it; she can then sell these four pockets for 9000 CFA ($18 USD).
Twice per week, Mangye sells waterfou (made from cassava), rice, stew, corn chafe (corn and beans cooked with spices), and eru (a leafy green vegetable fried in spices). She sells these items on the roadside to school children and passerbys. She can make around 6000 CFA ($12 USD) per day. She also rears pigs. She purchased two pigs for 17,000 CFA ($34 USD) and 13,000 CFA ($26 USD) and just recently sold them for 60,000 CFA ($120 USD) and 45,000 CFA($90 USD) respectively. It cost her 3380 CFA ($6.75 USD) per bag, and during the time she was raising them, she used 6 bags. She also purchased medicine and vitamins for her pigs, costing a total of 1600 CFA ($32 USD). She spent a total of 21,880 CFA ($43.75 USD) to rear them and was able to make a profit of 53,120 CFA ($106.25 USD).
She is currently raising ten fowls. She keeps her fowls for about 3 months and feeds them one bag of feed costing 13,500 CFA ($27 USD). The fowls cost 1300 CFA ($2.60 USD) each when she purchases them. She recently sold her last batch of 15 fowls for 52,000 CFA ($104 USD), or 3500 CFA ($7 USD) each. This last sale resulted in a profit of 20,500 CFA ($41 USD).
Mangye is also the proud owner of a motorbike now thanks to her GHAPE/Kiva loans. She purchased the bike for 530,000 CFA ($1060 USD) including all the documents and forms. She has contracted out the work to a driver who pays her 3000 CFA ($6 USD) per day and drives six days per week, resulting in an income of 72,000 CFA ($144 USD) per month. The bike can pay for itself in seven and a half months.
Mangye is proud that she can now rear pigs and fowls herself, sell products herself, make her profits herself and manage her life herself. She is happy to see her children’s school fees being paid easily and her family eating well and healthy. She thanks all those that contributed to her loan and says that these loans really have changed her life.
Every morning I have gone to a center and have had a different, but equally inspiring experience at each. Wednesday’s center prayer was quite interesting. Each center has a prayer at the beginning of the meeting led by one of the clients. When people here say a prayer, it is not your typical rehearsed or memorized prayer. This one referred to god as Papi God and Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth; Jesus being Jesus of Nazareth wouldn’t be so strange if they didn’t say his name every two or three words. There were some references to thanking papi for having this whiteman with them for the meeting, and pleading that papi would chair the meeting for them so it could function well. There was a prayer for the whitemen countries as well, “We also pray, Jesus of Nazareth, for the whiteman countries in the world and pray that you Papi God and Jesus of Nazareth look over them and keep them safe Papi God and Jesus of Nazareth.” In case anyone was worried before about the future, there are thousands of people in Cameroon praying for the whiteman—I am told about 60 plus times a day that I am being prayed for. I never know how to respond to that, I usually say thank you, but it seems like a response offer my prayer for them would be more appropriate.
I have yet to meet a client who has been disappointed with their involvement in GHAPE. I am looking, but I don’t think there are any. There are people who have had failed businesses and what not, but they all manage to make their payments and take out another loan for another venture. The results I am seeing here are far beyond what I imagined even after studying microfinance and the empowerment of women. The women I meet here who have been in the program for a while are independent, powerful women. Some own businesses where they employ their husband and pay him a salary. In a society where women have been treated as property even within society and the legal framework in the past, it is truly amazing to see these women providing for their families and being treated as equals in the household.
Shine on Sierra Leone, Shine On…
By Adam Grenier, KF6 Sierra Leone
Excerpt from recent conversation with Archibald Shodeke, Finance Manager, SMT:
Archibald: “Would you like to participate in a market survey of the Waterloo district near Freetown? We are considering a partnership with a U.S. based organization called Shine on Sierra Leone that may enable us to open a branch office there. They heard of us through the Kiva website.”
Me: “Definitely! Can you tell me more about it?”
Archibald: “Well, I think it was founded by an American artist or actress…Stephanie Parsons? Or, Tiffany Spears? Something like that…”
Me: “Britney Spears?!”
Archibald: “I’m not sure. We’ll have to check the website.”
For a moment, I actually thought Britney Spears might know where Sierra Leone is on a map of the World, never mind the possibility that she was part of anything meaningful, like a partnership with a microfinance organization. Alas, the founder is not Ms. Britney. And no, I’m not disappointed. The organization sprang from the creative mind of filmmaker Tiffany Persons.
The partnership Archibald referred to has the potential to be a very special one. Shine on Sierra Leone is “a human service foundation that provides education, mentoring, and nutritional support to African diamond mining schools.” A partnership with Shine on Sierra Leone (visit http://www.shineonsierraleone.org) will allow SMT to expand into the Waterloo market. This is a very exciting opportunity for both organizations.
During a recent trip to the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) School in Waterloo, we interviewed 23 parents of FAWE girls – 21 moms, 2 dads – to get a sense of whether they are interested in the services we provide. Their daughters are particularly vulnerable to the poverty trap. At any given moment, they may have to be removed from school to work, to generate income for their families in the Waterloo area. Providing microfinance services to their parents improves the daughter’s chances to stay in school.
The results of the FAWE survey were as follows:
- All 23 were interested in SMT’s microfinance services
- 5 of 23 have borrowed from other MFIs, but are willing to switch over to SMT
- Most common loan amount needed = 500,000 Leones ($167 USD)
- 22 of 23 would prefer group loan product versus individual loan, seeking cohesiveness and building community relationships
These results verify the potential to provide a much-needed service to these hard-working parents. More importantly, their daughters can continue their education in a positive learning environment found at FAWE.
Thanks to Kiva and the people at Shine on Sierra Leone (heck, you too Britney, if you’re reading), there is a very good chance Kiva will be able to provide their services to the FAWE parents and the broader Waterloo market. This is just another wonderful example of Kiva’s reach and mission to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.
The odds are 1 in 14 million
Wow, this Kiva world is small. The other day, while I was attending a United States Presidential election-day event with a good portion of the other expats in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I noticed a woman just as teary-eyed as me as the results rolled in for President Elect Barack Obama. Both overwhelmed with emotion, we gave each other a hug out of pure joy. Then we just started talking, launching into a familiar round of questions you ask when you live or travel abroad.
Kiva Fellows at the Foreign Correspondence Club in Phnom Penh (left to right): Teresa Dunbar, John Briggs, Sanjaya Punyasena, Kieran Ball
“So are you traveling or do you live here?” “Where are you from?” “Where have you traveled?” “Do you recommend any countries or cities to visit?” “Are you traveling by yourself?”
After about 15 minutes into the conversation, the question that might have opened it all is asked. “Oh, and by the way, what’s your name?”
We introduce ourselves to each other. Her name is Erica, and she’s traveling with her husband Joe. Erica asks me, “So what are you doing here in Cambodia?”
I say, “I am a Kiva Fellow. Have you ever heard of Kiva?”
I’m about to give her my 10-second Kiva pitch, but she beats me to the punch and says, “Of course, my husband and I are Kiva lenders.”
Completely surprised, I say, “Wow, really? How long have you been lending on Kiva?” I’m expecting they’ve been lending for six months or less, since Kiva has only been around for about three years, and is such a young organization.
She says, “Since about 2006, I think.”
Surprised even more I ask, “How did you hear about Kiva back then?”
“We saw a piece on Frontline, and have been lending ever since,” she replies.
When Erica and Joe first visited kiva.org in 2006, they found that all the loans had been funded. But they persisted and revisited the site a week or two later, lending their first $25. Since making their first loan, they have made more loans. As the loans are repaid by Kiva-funded borrowers, they have re-lent all the money that Kiva has credited back to them – so far their money has been through at least two or three cycles of loan funding and repayment.
So — a Kiva Fellow meeting a Kiva lender somewhere like Cambodia. What are the odds are of this happening? If there are 6.72 billion people in the world (per Wikipedia), and there are about 360,000 Kiva lenders, then the odds of me meeting a Kiva lender are about 1 in 18,611, but I think the odds of a Kiva Fellow meeting a Kiva Lender are more like 1 in 14.4 million. Then again, since I’m a very social person, let’s just put the odds at 1 in 15,000 or 1 in 14 million.
Not so accurate back-of-the-napkin statistics aside, my point is that our meeting seemed like a rare thing. So I thought is I’d take the opportunity to ask Erica and Joe if I could interview them for the Kiva Fellows’ blog. They graciously agreed.
Erica had mentioned that she and Joe were not feeling well the day of the elections. They had caught some nasty bug, and I offered any help or advice on Cambodian medical facilities I could since I had been sick not so long ago. We emailed back and forth a few times, checking to see if they needed anything, but eventually they recovered and we went out a few nights later.
The weather was perfect since it was the tail end of the rainy season, and we opted for a low-key night of art, food, and conversation. We met up at The Meta House which is an art gallery/ movie house, and enjoyed a series of short films. After that, we headed to a lovely outdoor restaurant quiet enough for me to hassle them with questions.
Erica and Joe left Brooklyn behind in June to travel around the world for a year. So far they’ve been through parts of Africa, and India, and Thailand, and are now traveling through Southeast Asia. When I met them, they were staying in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, for about a week. Prior to traveling, Erica worked in the non-profit sector with low-income housing initiatives, and Joe was a software engineer for an e-commerce company.
“How many borrowers do you think you’ve lent to over the years?” I asked them.
Humbly, they say, “We’ve lent to about 30-40 entrepreneurs,” without disclosing the amount of money they’ve lent.
Erica and Joe say that from the loans they’ve made, they have received about 5-6 journals, updates on borrowers posted by Kiva Fellows or partner MFI staff. While they don’t remember any journals distinctly, Erica and Joe say they find them interesting. However, they consider journals to be the icing on the Kiva cake, and not the reason they actually lend.
“So how do you choose who to lend to?” I asked next.
They said at first they started to lend to entrepreneurs that live in countries to which they had traveled. So they split their loans 50-50 between Latin America and Africa, and at the same time they split their loans 50-50 between men and women, to reflect their gender division as a couple.
Joe said for a while he was fond of trying to fund loans to completion, topping them up and enjoying the moment when the loan is completely funded. However, that’s more difficult to do now on Kiva because loans are completed more quickly, and because of a $25 per-lender cap. Now Erica and Joe just want to keep as much of their money lent out as possible, so they can continue to have an impact.
When I asked why they lend, Erica and Joe said that they simply to want help effect positive change in the world. They said that when they’d traveled in Latin America and Africa and talked with people who owned businesses, they heard many stories of how people were being charged very high interest rates by moneylenders. When they heard of Kiva on Frontline, they thought of the small business owners being taken advantage of, and thought that lending through Kiva could provide a great alternative for entrepreneurs in the developing world who needed loans
Erica stressed how she appreciated the difference between what Kiva does and what many charitable and philanthropic organizations do. Access to money from Kiva for developing world entrepreneurs is simply faster, and hopefully easier, for them to get.
Kiva money is channeled through partner microfinance institutions (MFIs). MFIs require all loan applicants to fill out an application, and requirements for Kiva-funded applicants pose little additional burden – a photo, and a follow-up interview. So for entrepreneurs, great effort isn’t needed to get a Kiva-funded loan, and they are able to use their time to get done what they need to do.
This is something philanthropy just doesn’t seem to know how to do, with its numerous application forms and individualized reports that each foundation and lending body requires. They ultimately keep the person from doing what they were given the money to do, which is just not a good use of the person’s time and a drain on financial resources for everyone.
While we sat, a late night monsoon rain hit. We headed for a covered area of the restaurant, and continued our conversation in between moments of shared laughter with the waitstaff of the restaurant as we watched them maneuver between puddles, trying not to get to wet. They were quite skillful and resourceful.
Multi-purpose table umbrellas, I knew I should've packed one.
While Erica and Joe are the first Kiva lenders I’ve met by chance since I’ve been a Kiva Fellow in Cambodia, I’ve met others here. Since the MFI I work with is Kiva’s oldest field partner in Southeast Asia, they have received a few requests from lenders to visit borrowers they have lent to. The MFI is open to the idea, so when a Kiva lender made a request a few months ago, the MFI agreed, and we took the lender into the village to meet the borrower he lent to.
With that story in mind, I had to ask Erica and Joe if they had a desire to ever meet the entrepreneurs they’ve lent to, especially since they could do so while traveling around the world. Their answer was a quick and firm, “No.” But, they also feel that their answer might not reflect what most lenders would say.
Erica said she thought such visits would be a drain on MFIs financial and staffing resources. Moreover, she said that borrowers would likely become overwhelmed, depending on how many lenders came to see them, and that the visits would take the borrower away from his or her work. Erica and Joe said that the money it would take to travel and visit borrowers would be better used on Kiva to fund more loans.
I had so many questions for them, but it was getting late in the evening. And the torrential rain was finally pausing, providing us an opportunity to get home without getting soaked. So I asked one last question, quickly.
“Would you consider taking your money out of Kiva since the economy is doing so poorly?” I asked.
“No,” they said, after thinking it over a bit.
Erica and Joe said that they would only withdraw their money from Kiva if things got really dire — if they really, really needed it. But they just do not foresee themselves needing the funds more than the people to whom they lend.
We finished our food and drinks and paid our bill. As we parted, we wished each other happy travels. I hope Erica and Joe are enjoying their travels, and are doing so in good health. From what they told me, I think they might be in Vietnam about now. I wonder if they’ll meet up with any other Kiva fellows along the way? What would the odds of that be?
Kiva Fellows and Kiva Lenders hanging-out (Left to Right: Teresa, Erica, Joe, and John
Portrait of a Client
The noon-day heat of equatorial sun beat down on tin roofs and dirt roads. It was quiet, the sounds a little muffled outside the paint shop of Rwandese Kiva client Marie Chantal Mukasafali.
“The business is good here,” she says, “thank goodness our inventory doesn’t spoil.”
Marie Chantal, operator of this small enterprise for well over a decade, has kept her eyes open for opportunities. She chose to begin a paint shop, she says, because housing construction became a large market in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which many buildings were appropriated or destroyed.
“I got the seed capital for my business by selling my former house.”
Today, Marie has bought another, larger house than the one she sold for her business, complete with a dining room and indoor plumbing.
Marie’s story is by no means an anomaly among the many Rwandan micro-finance borrowers funded by VFC. All around, the clients visited demonstrated keen business acumen, quick to take advantage of any opportunities they could find.
One farmer on the Rwandan-Congolese border-town of Gisenyi has taken advantage of his location to export tomatoes to Congolese merchants. A retail seller of clothes and shoes near Kigali treks to Kampala, Uganda (a nine-hour bus ride) instead of the nearby capitol to get cheaper goods to sell in his shop. An owner of a fabric store in the south of the country sells not only to her own neighborhood, but also across the border to land-locked Burundi.
Entrepreneurs who have some more savings plow their earnings back into the business, often with master strategies.
Small grocery shop owners invest in wholesale purchases of goods – beans, rice – during the harvest season, so that they can sell them for higher values during the later months. “This grain was 250 RwF per kilo when I bought them,” says shop-owner Yvette Mukamana. “Now they are 350.”
Irene Nsabyimana, a cook for a children’s school, has even invested money in school dormitories, so that more children can board at school and eat from her business.
This diversity of business strategies is no oddity. Many clients are involved in several businesses at once. For instance, one shop owner conducts buses in his off-hours. Another drives a motorcycle-taxi to make some extra money.
The work ethic encountered in the clients I have interviewed in the past few months is matched only with their generosity. A majority of families in Rwanda (almost all of the clients interviewed) are taking care of foster dependents. Many are teen-age orphans who lost their families in the 1994 Genocide.
“The vulnerable children come from so many places,” says John, my Kiva colleague here at VFC. “Some of them, their parents were killed. Others, the parents are in prison for what they did.” Then there are offspring born of rape. Families have taken in the children from all sides, as many as could be provided for, though the associated cost is often difficult.
“The school fees are very high,” says Marie Chantal.
But for the entrepreneurs, and the families they care for, Rwanda is a nation of hope and growth.
“I want to take English lessons,” says Claudette Nyiragicari, a fabric-store owner. Rwanda has just recently moved to eliminate French in favor of English in public schools. “And when can I get another loan? This loan was not enough.” She has already made enough money to pay off her current loan, months ahead of schedule. Gesturing to the bundle at her feet, she says, “I was only able to buy a few bundles of fabric.”
The call for financing is echoed all over the country. Many shared their future plans and hopes.
One convenience shop owner expressed her desire to start a hair-salon business. Another wants to start a wholesale trade, which offers better returns and faster turnover than retail.
Even John, Marie Chantal’s husband, shared his goals. “I’m going to driving school now, and want to buy a car for a taxi-service.”
Each in her own way, the clients interviewed in Rwanda are modestly working towards a better standard of life.
“I’m able to buy some more food for the kids,” says Domina Ngirimana, a mother of nine.
A long overdue staff introduction
Yes, as I am leaving. Julie Ross, the next Kiva Fellow to be placed in Rwanda, will take over with better and I’m sure more consistent postings here. But in the meantime, a quick note on some of the staff here at VFC, whom you will soon meet in more detail:
The Managing Director, Shem, is a genial and humorous man from Uganda. He is a new director here, having done previous work in other accounting and finance positions, including the largest microfinance institution in Uganda. He joined World Vision, the Christian international umbrella organization for Vision Finance Company, as Senior Financial Specialist in Africa, then moved to Rwanda to help with financial management. At the same time, the previous MD for VFC resigned, so Shem stepped in.
Antoinette is the head for administration and human resources here at VFC. She is a graduate of Butarye university, the nation’s best university in the south of the country. She studied public administration there, and joined World Vision right after college; she hopes in the next few years to start up a training center of her own. The target population is vulnerable orphans and widows – Antoinette hopes to teach them vocational skills they can put to use in making a living.
Patrick is the operations manager here at VFC. Having studied finance in university, he has been with World Vision for fourteen years – starting with a program for orphaned and vulnerable children. His involvement in this program led him to the calling of serving the poor and disadvantaged. True to nature, he can always be found with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye.
Donat: the finance manager here at VFC. (The name does not derive from the sticky sweet, but rather the French for “Donate.”) Donat exudes energy at all hours, even late at night while slogging through paperwork generated by external auditors. “This was supposed to be over with last month!” he complains loudly, in good cheer.
Ben and Providence are the directors of the MIS (the computer record-keeping) department. Ben is technically above Providence in rank, but let’s not talk about these things over-much, as the two just got married in September. They get teased about this a respectable amount.
Jean-Paul is called the “baby brother” Kiva coordinator. But don’t let the name trick you. Jean-Paul is indispensable to the Kiva process. When loan officers come to the headquarters, bringing photographs, stories, repayments and journals, he is the one who single-handedly posts it all onto the Kiva website, producing the content you see today. Jean-Paul, as are several other members of Vision Finance staff, is still in university. He holds this full-time job during the day, so that he can finance his education; then he attends classes at night.
Then of course, there is John Gasangwa. John has been absolutely instrumental in helping with Kiva work in my time here. Responsible for all donor relations (and now, also duties as a loan officer), John was the one who accompanied all my visits out to the field, whether for training, journaling, or just plain travel. John is, of course, as loud, crazy, and energetic as befits his position. Born in Uganda in a refugee camp (his parents left the country in the 1959), he has since returned to Rwanda to “be a part of the solution,” as he puts it, with a hope to serve the disadvantaged in his country. Having graduated from Butarye with excellent marks, he aspires to go to business school in the states – but is certain, by all counts, that he will come back to Rwanda to help solve the challenges that the nation faces.
For more about the kind and wonderful and generous staff here at VFC, stay tuned for Julie! There is sure to be more to come.
Moving Right Along…
With 7 weeks past and 8 weeks to go, my Kiva Fellowship is moving right along. As my colleagues around the world, from Cambodia to Uganda to Peru can attest, much of the Kiva Fellow’s life is spent in motion. Already I have had two days where the number of hours spent on buses to number of clients interviewed, if imagined as a see-saw, would make for one very boring recess hanging on a plank suspended in the air. But if my last post dealt with my feelings on productivity (see “Buses and Productivity“), now I am considering the more general implication of movement and capital and Kiva.
Financial institutions like EDAPROSPO function as intermediaries that allocate capital from those who have it to those who need it. In the for-profit world, this allocation occurs for its namesake: profit. In the nonprofit world, however, the allocation is done with a double bottom line: profit (just enough for the institution to cover its costs) and social impact. Lenders on Kiva lend their money for no profit and thus can be said to be interested solely in social impact. The desire to see lives changed for the better powers the movement of capital on Kiva from lenders.
Nelly Ruth Guerra de Donayre
And what of the borrowers? Entrepreneurs, at least here in Peru, join in by moving capital once dormant or confined to the house into the economic sphere. I have seen this phenomenon with one lady I interviewed recently in Puente Piedra (a northern exurb of Lima, Peru) named Nelly Ruth Guerra De Donayre. She decided that the lunches and soups she makes for her family could easily be sold to her neighbors. Now that a large military base is being built two blocks away, she has the incredible opportunity to sell to the hundreds of workers who will be building the base and later the hundreds of soldiers who will live there.
Lupita Rodriguez Torres
Another woman like Guadalupe ‘Lupita’ Rodriguez Torres first built a network of clients by selling products from an Avon catalogue and then utilized that network to sell her homemade leather goods and build informal savings and loan groups. She has gone even further by preparing breakfast and lunches to sell to the workers at the leather factory where she buys the leather for her aforementioned leather products. The entrepreneurs on Kiva move capital from the household to the economic sphere and thus use these goods and services to create the possibility of profit for them and their families. Borrowing money from Kiva through the Field Partners often allows them to overcome constraints that impede their profits or to create opportunities for faster accumulation (ie loan to buy a taxi rather than renting it, ability to buy more goods to sell, etc.). At the heart of most of the stories I hear are the motivations to provide a better future and education for their children and to build and improve their house (process described in “Buses and Productivity“). Thus, the desire to see lives changed for the better powers the movement of capital by Kiva borrowers.
So what I have seen is that the twin movements of capital, from excess capital to loans and from deficit capital to loans, are powered by a common desire to see lives changed for the better. While the outcome is assuredly right, I believe that the process is beneficial as well. There is something to be said about joining (the) movement. If this movement of capital for the sake of improving individual lives can be likened to a stream, then there are several possible parallels that can be drawn. Like entrepreneurs draw out personal items into the marketplace and gain profits and improve the lives of themselves and their families, so too will we change and be changed by bringing our personal talents and abilities into society. CS Lewis in The Four Loves talks about how each of us draws something out of each other; when one person enters the group, everyone has something new drawn out of them. In the same way an entrepreneur creates new capital for the entire economy, so too do we each add something new when we take a step outside of our private world.
A second parallel with a stream mimics Heraclitus’ famous saying: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. As the lenders on Kiva continually have new options on how to allocate their capital for the sake of changing lives for the better, so too do we have the option of allocating our capital – our talents and abilities – everyday to someone or something new. No relationship is stagnant; history accumulates everyday. No interaction with a person is ever the same; people change and so every interaction is a new opportunity to invest in someone else. And like the capital invested on Kiva, the effects of our invested time and abilities can have a cascading effect: a loan to one woman allows her to her invest money into the education of her children who may one day use their accumulated knowledge to transform not only their household but their community or even their nation. Imagine if Barack Obama’s paternal grandmother had received a microloan via Kiva to raise goats in rural Kenya, which led to enough saved money to let his father travel to the States which eventually led to the first African-American president (He didn’t but there could be someone today is starting a similar process). As springs become rivulets become creeks become streams become rivers become seas, a single movement into motion can become an ocean.
One of the things that drew me to Kiva was that it allowed me to put my idle capital into motion for the sake of better lives around the world. The cascading effect is particularly appealing. One person’s decision to let an extra $25 be used by another can lead to a changed life for the better. Another person’s decision to share their lunches with others can lead to a changed life and lives for the better. While economists have been slow to move away from the classic labor/capital divide to embrace the hybrid concept of human capital, I think Kiva captures that sense of that new word fantastically. Lenders and entrepreneurs on Kiva are engaged not only in that movement of physical capital but also in that broad societal movement of human capital. With profit, the word human capital becomes a hybrid – what matters is how humans fit into your enterprise for the sake of profit; you cannot separate the two. In fact the economist’s term ought to be humancapital. I believe the negation of profit for the sake of social impact allows Kiva to be in the movement of HUMAN CAPITAL. We are investing in each other, changing others and being changed ourselves, and the result is more humanity, more lives changed for the better. I believe that this is right type of capitalism, one that adds to the reservoir of capital in humans. Whereas profit treats capital solely as a summation of money, social impact treats capital solely as the summation of quality of human life. And as my job as a Kiva Fellow is to strengthen Kiva’s movement of capital, I like to think of it as building the strength of this brook so that it can join other brooks and form streams that will form rivers that will form an ocean that can cover the world. If this capitalist movement of capital facilitated by Kiva can be said to be linked to the bigger idea of HUMAN CAPITAL, then I could say my role as a Kiva Fellow is moving right (capitalism) along…
To move capital to fundraising clients of EDAPROSPO on Kiva, click here.
Welcome to the Jungle
Well here I am! The sweltering, tropical, humid jungle capital of Pucallpa. I just moved here from the coastal town of Trujillo three days ago and I’ll be starting the second and final stint as a KF6 fellow for Manuela Ramos. A former Kiva fellow hooked me up with a family here in the heart of the Amazon and I’m staying with them for the next couple of days.
The father picked me up from the airport and ushered me (mercifully!) through the hoards of mototaxi drivers out to the main road where we caught a ride a less then half the price hawked at the airports front doors.
I notice immediately that almost all transportation here is via mototaxi- where Trujillo had seven taxis for every car on the road, Pucallpa has the same ratio of mototaxis to single motorcycles or regular cars.
The sun was setting just as a arrived and the air was muggy, but still fresh. It’s hotter than a Florida summer here and I think my existence here is going to be defined by a constant and hopefully light sweat.
As we buzz down the road in our mototaxi I notice how different this town looks from Trujillo. It’s much newer having sprung up since the 1950’s when the paved highway linking the rivertown to Lima was completed. There are no colonial buildings or pedestrian byways around here. It’s dusty and full of people walking, running, chatting, eating, laughing.
Winston my host and I arrive at his house where he generously offers up his daughter’s room as my quarters for a couple of days. He and his wife entertain me over a couple of cold mangos and dang they’re delicious!
The next day, Sunday, I trekked all over the city looking for housing. Here in the Amazon basin where the temperature wavers around 85-95 degrees on a daily basis, rooms with air-conditioning are double the price of rooms with fans. The prices are surprisingly high and I decide my budget will allow for a non-AC room only. I will think of my new home as a breezy sauna where I’m sweating out all of my toxins nightly. I traipsed around town for several hours and finally – a bucket of sweat, a heat rash and a few breaks in the shade later – I decide on the Hotel “Happy Days”. The name bodes well doesn’t it?
After my marathon trek around the city I settle down in happy days and take a quick glance in the mirror – phew I’m looking beat! This heat is going to wilt me daily, I cant tell! The weather channel always says, 85 degrees but feels like 95 or 96 or 98 with the humidity. That hot sun is no joke and only gets better when it rains. I got caught in my first rain shower yesterday and it was a ducha abierta or downpour the likes of an “open shower” as they say here. I was caught totally off guard and literally had an ankle deep dash through streets in mid-miniflood as I raced for my hostel and my umbrella. From now on I’m carrying around my raincoat and sneakers should the skies open up and let loose on me again.
On Monday I was presented most graciously to all the women of the Manuela Ramos branch here in Pucallpa. The office is located in the city’s center which is humble as far as downtowns go. That afternoon I took my first trip out to the asentamiento humano Bolognesi.
Asentamientos humanos, or legalized squatter settlements, are formed when immigrants from other parts of the country invaden, or literally “invade” an abandoned section of land outside the main urban perifery. These immigrants may come from other Peruvian metropolises or more often from villages in the nearby jungle; but, all come with the dual purpose of finding work and owning their own home. The groups of families – two to five hundred people at a time – organize among themselves and form a neighborhood council that is charged with dividing the unused land into equally sized lots, one for each family. Once the land is equally partitioned, the families purchase the lots and register titles with the city government. Invasions have been occuring in Peruvian cities for half a century; some asentamientos are decades old while others, like the one I visited Tuesday are only two or three years old. These days families are paying around $400 for a 2,300 sq.ft. dirt lot.
This photograph was taken in the asentamiento Villa Oriente where an al fresco meeting of the Damas del Oriente was held Tuesday.
The socias (bank members) are listening to Rosa, the loan officer, explain the five “P”s of marketing – it’s like business school classes all over again! These women own and operate all types of businesses: roadside restaurants, door-to-door beauty product sales, lingerie shops, fish shipping, cheese making – you name it and a Manuela Ramos socia is doing it. I am continually impressed by their creativity, energy and sheer will to work several jobs, take care of several children and support this unbearable heat!
I met 71 year old Asuncion Rengifo Marin (pictured above) at the Damas del Oriente meeting yesterday and interviewed about her Kiva loan. We talked about her restaurant business where she works seven days a week from dawn to 11:00 pm preparing and selling breakfast, lunch and dinner. She tells me her daughter asks her all the time when she will retire and that always responds: “when my fingers and arms fall off my body, I’ll quit the kitchen!”
After a month in Trujillo, I’m really looking forward to being in the office with a little bit more experience under my belt. I’m so excited to go find the bank members and find out about their lives, their families, and their business plans. Mirtha, Winston’s wife tells me that the women of la selva (the jungle) are dangerously beautiful and fiercely hard-working. After this first meeting, I see it and believe.
Sudan: Recovering from the Atrocities of War
What originally started as a college senior’s feeble attempt to plan his future has finally become a reality: I am now in Sudan. After a 21-hour flight from Los Angeles to Uganda, three days of waiting in Uganda to get a Sudanese visa, and a one hour (scary) flight from Entebbe to Juba, I finally made it into the country that I will be calling “home” for the next several months.
My home does not have running water or electricity; a candle has now become my new best friend. I do have a shower, an amazing shower that slowly drips the Nile’s water from a tank on the roof to the top of my head. Although my new home isn’t as comfortable as my home in California, it is definitely habitable. At first, I was constantly plagued with the idea that there was no way I could ever live in such conditions. But as I continue to remind myself that nearly half of the world’s population, over three billion people, lives on less than $2.50 a day, I realize that life in Sudan won’t be too difficult.
Throughout the course of my fieldwork, I will be interviewing various people who are pertinent to my experiences here in Sudan. In order for you to fully understand the context in which the stories are provided, I have created a small video outlining a fraction of Sudan’s lengthy history. Having some knowledge about Sudan’s past will allow for a better understanding and appreciation for the situations the Sudanese people are currently facing.
ankush.dhupar@fellows.kiva.org
Thoughts on the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia
In 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal ruled unanimously that the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia in 1995 was genocide.
I visited Srebrenica last week. I put together a video with a little history, photographs, and an interview with a Kiva Borrower whose husband was killed in the war and whose life has never fully recovered. I hate to sound cliche, but the entire experience broke my heart.
Getting Started in Peru
I have been in Peru for two weeks now, but I have been struggling to blog about my experience so far. I’ve been waiting for a remarkable moving microfinance success story to share, or some powerful insight into the people of Peru or an individual that I have met that I can write about. Unfortunately after two weeks, neither of these have come to me as clearly (or as quickly) as I would have liked, and I have had to remind myself that that’s O.K. and the experience is still worth sharing. I am now in a small town called Huancayo and slowly but surely things are picking up speed. Over the past four days, I have met about 10 individual clients and seen the formation of a Solidarity Group (I will explain more in detail later). I know this is going to be a great experience – but as I have had to remind myself, sometimes things in the underdeveloped world simply don’t always move as quickly as you might like and sometimes you just cant control it!
Thursday was the first time that I went out and met with clients. It was very exciting to finally get started. I went to an area known as Justicia, Paz y Vida, located on the outskirts Huancayo. While I don’t know an exact population there, I am fairly confident it can be no more than 100, 150 at the most. As we arrived to Justicia Paz y Vida, I was immediately shocked by what I saw. Having come from Lima, earlier in the week, it was a stark contrast to say the least. No buildings, no hotels, no restaurants, well no roads even. We walked further and further away from the main road and it did not take long to feel the difference. There are no street names, no addresses. You find people only by asking the people who you come across. “Conoces la Senora Maria Contreras Sanchez? Tiene una restaurant por aqui?” (Do you know Mrs. Maria Contreras Sanchez? Apparently she has a restaurant around here). If the person knows her, you’re one step closer. If the person you ask doesn’t know here, you’re right back where you started.
We arrived to the home of a lady named Cecila. Her business is selling beer and soda. I have been so excited to start meeting with clients and suddenly, once I am there, I feel quite nervous. I let Roxana, the Kiva coordinator who I am working with, take the lead to begin. I almost feel like I’m in a dream world. All the questions that I had intended to ask suddenly float out of my head. I find myself at a loss of words – this doesn’t happen often – and since I don’t have the words to say, I step back and listen to what is being said around me.
We head onto our next client, a lady named Rosa. Her business also is selling beer and soda. I think to myself, is it practical to have two of the same businesses, fairly close to each other, in an area this underpopulated? Im not here to judge though, so again, I give Roxana the lead and listen. Roxana asks similar questions as before: What is your business? How is business going? How have you used your loan? What motivates you to keep working so hard? A second similarity arises between these woman. In response to the final question, both have answered, “Para Mis Hijos” (For my children).
We head out to find our next client. As we walk, I start seeing a theme. We pass at least two more beer and soda shops. We see at least three internet shops. And I see at least 5 other stands that sell beer and soda and (insert other product here – be it tools, cigarettes, candy, chips). In a town this small, which certainly doesn’t attract tourists and the only clients a store might have are the towns inhabitants themselves, it just doesn’t seem practical to me to have so many of the same businesses. Surely it must deter customers. As Roxana and I walk, we discuss the women’s responses to her questions. Both women have told us that business is doing well and growing. Both women have told us that they are grateful for the loans they have received and both of them, in one way or another, told us that they are proud of the progress they have been able to make with their businesses. We spend a few more hours walking, trying to find other clients, but we strike out the rest of the afternoon. Everyone has either gone to the market to sell their goods, has traveled to the next town to sell their goods, or simply cannot be found that day.
As we prepare to call it quits for the day, I cannot help but compare what I have seen to what I know. In a time of economic uncertainty in my own country, where corporations are desperately demanding relief and lamenting over the “dried up consumer market,” its ironic to see towns where the only clients an entrepreneur has is his or her “vecino” (neighbor) and yet both of the individuals who we have met are clearly very pleased with how their businesses are doing. Even though each of them might only make one or two sales a day, and sometimes none at all, they still report back to Roxana and I that business is booming. They celebrate that this year they have made a profit, although be it minimal and for the first time in their lives they have something called, “savings.” They have never experienced this before. It leaves me wondering; are things back home really that bad and should the entrepreneurs I have met today take a lesson from us in what defines a successful business? Or on the other hand, is the economic reality back home not quite as bad as we allow ourselves to believe and should my country be taking a lesson from the entrepreneurs I have met on gratitude instead? My instinct is the second.
Despite a slow and sometimes frustrating first couple of weeks, the day’s experience reminds me of what I came here to explore.
A Ghost Called Specioza
They seem to always be where you are, which is to say everywhere, as repellant and inescapable as a maelstrom of gnats. Step around one and you bump into another. You politely wave them off and mumble “no, thanks” with a disingenuous smile. Making eye contact might suggest interest or intent; or worse, invite confrontation. So you learn to ignore them. Faceless, nameless, spiritless ghosts you look right through and beyond. They don’t appear in travel magazine teaser shots or in the imaginations those publications sell. Their sole purpose, it seems clear, is to detract and annoy and chip away at an otherwise fine day. You wish they would just go away and leave you alone.
In actuality, their purpose is survival and the well being of their children. I don’t imagine anyone aspires to be a street vendor, or enjoys the profession once it becomes them. Hawking is the exclusive domain of peasants. It is not a particularly dignified or satisfying means to an end, but one mandated by necessity. Hawking requires no training and little skill, except perhaps pushy persistence and physical endurance – this is a 14- hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week job. Hawkers own nary a thing of value – no shop, no land – just the bag of goods on their back which, in itself, is practically worthless. I can imagine few jobs more miserable.
In fairness, Uganda’s street vendors are not a nuisance; to the contrary, they are the most passive and unobtrusive hawkers I’ve experienced anywhere. They truly are ghosts – they are present and ubiquitous, but one hardly notices them, except for the sidewalk congestion they create. They are certainly not assaulting. Like all Ugandans, Kampala’s hawkers are respectful and courteous. Their presence adds color and energy to the city.
Kiva Fellows witness difficult things every day and we could easily fall prey to indifference. My job would indeed be easier if I could be purely analytical. But I can’t be. Instead, I’ve developed some tools for coping. One is bedside manner, which enables me to connect more personally and deeply with clients as they walk me through circumstances which are inevitably more wrenching than mine. Another is shifting my notion of ordinary, which of course is a relative state of being. What is ordinary half-way through my Fellowship would have seemed sensational six weeks ago. It’s easier to deal in ordinary. And finally, balance. Empathy is fundamental, but emoting pity is condescending and counterproductive. It’s almost always a delicate trade-off.
Still, interacting with borrowers in a dignified manner without falling apart is sometimes challenging and often depleting. Take Florence, a Pearl Microfinance borrower I interviewed last week. Florence is a 45 year old widowed mother of seven children who recently lost her small grocery shop, her only asset and sole source of income, to a senseless and random act of arson. As I prompted her to describe how she’s depending on Pearl to re-build her life, tears streamed down her cheeks and at times she was too choked up to speak. I found it difficult to push through the interview, but my task had a noble purpose and I came with my toolbox.
Some stories are even more difficult.
Specioza is an attractive and demure woman, not five feet tall. Her face is gentle and soft, almost youthful, and it does not reveal decades of hardship. She is soft-spoken and shy; yet she’s inexplicably inviting. She is pleasant and polite and gracious. The members of her BRAC borrowing group admire her – Specioza is one of its elected officers. She is dignified and commands an understated respect, not through her words but how she carries herself. Her strength, I sense, emanates from a lifetime riddled with loss. There’s a depth in her eyes not found in innocence and her smile signals anguish more than peace. Specioza is the kind of person you would want as your friend. I wanted to know more about her and felt cheated that time would not allow for such pleasantries.
Specioza is also a ghost.
Like most women in Uganda, she married young and began having children immediately. At the time, she and her husband were farmers in Mbarara, a town in rural southwestern Uganda, not far from the Rwanda border. There must be something fertile in the water in those parts – Specioza delivered an astonishing four sets of twins! One boy and one girl in each set, none of them identical. That same fertile water, however, must also be toxic – she lost half of her twins at birth and nearly perished herself during one particularly difficult delivery.
Uganda’s civil war was in its fragmented twilight shortly before Specioza’s youngest surviving twin was born. The family farm was doing well and Specioza and her husband wanted a way to help refugees in their country’s war-ravaged northern regions. They joined a program administered by the UN where they sold crops to the World Food Program for distribution to IDP camps in Gulu and surrounding districts. Occasionally, her husband would accompany the WFP on the 9-hour drive to Gulu and help distribute the supplies. On one such trip, he never returned.
When his convoy of WFP trucks arrived at Gulu, it was ambushed by LRA rebels in a well-orchestrated and bloody attack. The LRA was intent on preventing aid from reaching the people it was determined to eradicate, and it wanted the provisions to fortify its own forces. Like the parents of the orphans he was trying to keep alive, Specioza’s husband died a brutal and unceremonious death on the side of a road in an act of unthinkable savagery (the LRA’s use of inhumane and gratuitous torture is legendary).
When a wife loses her husband in Uganda’s rural villages, the late husband’s family – by a mystifying and disturbing tradition – excommunicates the widow from the family (and often community) and seizes the family assets. Women have no value unless attached to a man. So that she wouldn’t also lose her children to this twisted fate, Specioza fled Mbarara and left behind the only life she had ever known. She migrated to Kampala where the best prospects for work and her children’s education existed. She arrived with just the clothes on her back and her 4 children – scared, broken hearted and broke. She had never been to the city before. She was disoriented and terrified.
Specioza’s farming skills were useless to her in the city. In desperation, she took up hawking as her only viable and immediate source of income. The entry barriers are nil, requiring no land, machinery or skill and very little capital. She bought her first bail of used clothing at the Owino market near the public bus station the day she arrived, using borrowed funds from a money lender. Money lenders are legal loan sharks. They require full repayment within a few days and they charge exorbitant interest rates. Specioza sold that first bail in time to repay the money lender, but had barely enough left to feed her family. She didn’t like hawking, but figured it was only temporary and the most practical means to an end under the circumstances. She had no sales experience. Promoting her wares and competing against armies of peddlers made her uncomfortable.
In time, she learned where to find the most buyers and how to optimize her selection of used clothing items. As her sales climbed, it became easier to repay the money lenders and more was left over for family expenses. Eventually she could afford school fees, although it was always a struggle and frequently caused her to forego eating so that her children could. Not once did she accept charity.
Her first break came sometime later when a BRAC Uganda credit officer came to her village conducting a survey to identify new recipients for its poverty alleviation programs. Specioza fits BRAC’s profile: she is very poor but she’s economically active with a stable track record and she comes recommended from her community borrowing group. The latter is not insignificant. Since each borrower in a group is responsible for the total repayment of the group’s obligations, a recommendation is a vote of confidence by one’s peers and a testimony to their character and abilities. With the help of small loans from BRAC (300,000 Ush or $170), Specioza can now avoid money lenders. This improves her profits, which enables her to keep her children in school without sacrificing meals. It also gives her a buffer for bad sales days. Perhaps most importantly, she has the support of her group and the world’s largest microfinance NGO has her back. For the first time in many hard years, Specioza has hope.
I don’t want Specioza to go away. She is not a parasite. She’s just a very hard-working mother trying to raise her kids and help them thrive under profoundly difficult circumstances. She has a face – a beautiful face, and a name and a soul. She, like all co-called ghosts, is a living, breathing human being who’s doing her level best with the bad cards she’s been dealt. She has purpose, hopes, dreams, thoughts and feelings and a voice, just like you and me. Perhaps she’s selling something I want to buy; if not, she would certainly offer a smile. But if I treated her like a transparency, I would never know and I would forfeit a unique opportunity to connect with a wonderful human being.
Specioza is not trying to annoy anyone; she’s only trying to eat. Ultimately, we’re all selling something, whether trying to convince others of our ideas or get people across the room to notice us. Trade connects people across continents and cultures. Supply would not meet demand efficiently without promotion of goods and services and, thus, markets would not work. It makes no difference to me if sellers are pedigreed “suits” sitting behind desks in San Francisco skyscrapers or uneducated peasants like Specioza trying to survive on the bustling streets of Kampala. Hawking may not be the most dignified profession, but successfully raising a family in the context of Specioza’s life is the most honorable thing I can think of.
I’m thankful to BRAC for recognizing Specioza’s needs and supporting her determination. And giving me the opportunity to meet her.
HKL promotion
It has passed 1 month since I started work with Hattha Kaksekar Limited(HKL) in Cambodia.
I’d like to post how HKL works, how the staffs are etc because I hope many people know more and feel something familiar with the MFI.
Firstly let me describe one day in HKL. The office hour is 7:30 a.m. To 4:30.p.m. It’s 1 hour lunch time from 12:00. I was so surprised that they start to work so early! HKL has about 60 staffs and most of them are under 30 years old except management team.
Their uniform is something unique. They wear white shirts and blue one by rotation. If they wear wrong color shirts, they should pay penalty $1! When I visited the royal palace, a guide said Khmer lady servant at the royal palace used to wear 7 different color of traditional cloths for a week in past day. They still keep traditional habit in public place now. I realized people here is well disciplined.
Most of the staffs come to office by motorcycle. Motorcycle is the most popular transportation here. Arriving the office, firstly they clock in. When they go to lunch, coming back from lunch and leave the office, they record the time as well.
Although they do extra work, their salary don’t change unfortunately. They normally leave the office around 5:00-6:00 p.m. Some of the staffs study to get their MBA after working hour. HKL staffs are well time-managed and aspiring for their future.
Furthermore, HKL’s staffs are very active and full of young power.
Especially, a kiva coordinator, ChanRy is earnest guy and often works overtime even though only he should do it in his section. He has worked for HKL for 1 year and half and has been in charge of kiva for 8 month. HKL. I made a video interview with him. But I couldn’t update on the web unfortunately. I’d like to try it another time. You can see him in the picture below with a HKL borrower.
He visit borrowers with Kiva Fellow and translate from Khmer to English, post profiles, communicate with Kiva as window person etc. He is very busy all the time. Therefore HKL now has plan to have another kiva coordinator in some branch next year.
Addition to him, there are many friendly staffs in HKL. They go to lunch together every day and talk openly. 7-8 staffs sit on round table and share dishes. Boss and junior staffs all together. Often joking, asking advise for projects, and giving advise.
We
After lunch, they go back to office directly and enjoy chatting, joking and reading newspaper. They love talking and joking. They teach me Khmer and try to learn Japanese. When I learn Khmer number, they always laugh at my poor pronunciation. When they learn Japanese, they always laugh at each other as well. Very small things become very funny here. Around 3-4 p.m. Some young staff often start humming or listen music. They need some break time before a day.
One more story about them, one day afternoon, we heard very big sound suddenly. I wondered what happened there and found a desk of one staff tumbled down due to a heavy desk top computer. But we exactly didn’t know why it happened. So everyone laughed very much. It’s so funny for us the desk suddenly got broken! And then they were joking ‘God says we don’t have to work today’. Any accident become funny story here. People here are really cheerful and jolly. Therefore I enjoy my life here very much even though I don’t understand Khmer very well.
In terms of building, there are few office building in Phnom Penh. Therefore HKL rents a big house and renovate it into office.you can see the picture below.
It means it’s hard to find a room you want to go due to complicated room layout; especially rest room! Female should knock the door and enter into accounting room to go to lady’s rest room due to big rooms with rest room for each in this house. So I feel embarrassed to use rest room every time feeling other staffs’ eyes. In addition, we go pass through a balcony to go to a operational manager’s room. In the beginning, it seemed a little strange for me. But this style is quite normal in Cambodia. There is a kitchen and a dining hall as well. Sometimes a staff makes a Khmer dessert for other staffs. This is the time we have a break for a while and enjoy chatting with sweets. In entrance hall, there is a small mausoleum for wishing success and prosperity. It shows Cambodian culture is affected by Chinese culture very much.
A few weeks ago, HKL announced new staff recruiting on a board near the entrance gate. You can see many people checking the conditions of employment in the picture.
And then HKL has received more than 3,000 applications for 120 positions so far!! Many people still bring application forms and CVs every day. HKL’s achieved to grow rapidly in recent years. It has nine branch offices and 29 sub branch offices now and has plan to set up 2-3 branches in southwest areas in Cambodia next year. HKL is aggressively expanding and strongly eager to become a bank in Cambodia. It is required to increase capital to apply bank license and it will need some years, they estimate. To achieve their goal, HKL is eager to have more lender and to increase kiva loan.
I hope lenders, MFIs and borrowers more deeply understand and communicate each other. So let me keep posting HKL news. On the other hand, I tell lenders information on Kiva to borrowers when I have interview. Borrowers are interested in lender’s job and message. And they says ‘ Thank you so much for every lenders and we wish lenders happiness and success as well!’ ‘The more understandings, the more interests each other. It will bring lenders, MFI, and the borrowers’ growth and happiness in the long term, I believe.
Navigating Monsoon Season by Moto
I’ve been working with CREDIT-MFI as a Kiva Fellow for about a month and a half, and I still feel like I’m getting my feet wet. CREDIT is fairly large with about 360 employees working throughout Cambodia in their 7 branches. I work closely with CREDIT’s two Kiva Coordinators, Sopheap and Vichet, at the head office in Phnom Penh. We work behind the scenes managing Kiva CREDIT clients in CREDIT’s Management Information System (MIS), and on the Kiva website. We translate business questionnaire forms and often journal questionnaire forms (when we do not interview the clients directly) from Khmer to English in order to post on the Kiva website. The other day though, Sopheap and I decided to head out and interview some Kiva CREDIT borrowers ourselves. We decided to head out to the city of S’Ang located about 30 kilometers south of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
The following day I show up at work about 7:30am, we hop into the CREDIT truck and we are on our way. Our goal is to interview 5 clients and be back at CREDIT’s head office by noon for lunch. It takes us about an hour to get to the S’Ang branch office as we drive through the outskirts of the city and into the country side. It is currently monsoon season (June-November), and everywhere is flooded. Rice is growing as far as the eye can see in all shades of green. It rains almost every day, usually in the afternoon, but lately it has been unpredictable since it’s the end of the rainy season when the skies open-up whenever they wants. It is lovely though since it cools everything down, but unfortunately it does bring out all the mosquitoes. Yikes Dengue Fever and Japanese Encephalitis (wish I had convinced the vaccination clinic back in the states to give me the $500 vaccination)!
rice fields of green
We arrive at the S’Ang branch office, drop off the truck and hop onto motorbikes with the branch’s loan officer who works with the clients we will be meeting today. The borrowers we are meeting are reachable only by motorbike since they live down long narrow, dirt (or mud depending on the season) roads surrounded by rice fields on both sides. We break off from the main road onto a dirt road, and weave in and out between an occasional moto, but mainly bicyclists, walkers, and vendors. We drive through the open air market where people are hustling, and I cover my eyes afraid that we might run someone over since the market is quite busy. After about 15 minutes, we arrive at the first borrower’s house, and she invites us to sit down on her front porch. It is made of slatted wood with a thatched roof. It is raised about a foot off the ground in front enabling access to the road. The back is about 5 feet off the ground. The roads are maintained dirt mounds between houses and rice fields. The slatted floors and walls keep the house a lot cooler than the western style cement. The house is airy and relaxing with woven mats to sit on.
CREDIT-MFI Branch Office
First Kiva Borrower interviewed that day.
The interview takes about 30 minutes. We try to ask the best questions getting the information we need to write a proper informative journal in the smallest amount of time. And often, it kills me to finish-up an interview session since with each question, I could ask a million more questions. There is just so much to learn from each borrower about life in Cambodia, their business, their loan, how inflation is affecting them, their dreams for the future, etc. My goal is to bring back as much information as possible to the Kiva lender in a sensitive, but informative manner.
We finish our first interview and hop back on our motos to visit the next client. Sopheap and I are on one moto and the loan officer is on the other in front of us. We follow him since he is the only one who knows where the clients live. We travel further down the dirt/muddy road, and make a left, and then another left, and a few more turns. As we drive, I get off the moto intermittently due to flooded road areas, and at that point it is just easier and safer to walk. With each dry patch, I hop back on the moto with Sopheap struggling to keep up with the loan officer in front of us in fear of getting lost. We dodge smaller mud patches, grazing cows and water buffalo, heaps of dung, the occasional child riding their bike to market or school, all while waving to locals we pass as they smile and wave to us.
S
Finally, after about 45 minutes and many un-navigateble road sections, we lose the loan officer. He is nowhere in sight, but realize at the same time that there is only one path in and out so we press on. After about another 20 minutes, we reach a fork in the path and see the light green uniform shirt of the CREDIT loan officer to the left. We wave and head down an even smaller un-navigatable path to an eventual stare-down with two cows. Hoping they don’t kick us, Sopheap and I move slowly past them so as not to startle them. After about an hour total, we reach the borrower.
The only thing between us and the Kiva borrower are some mean looking cows.
Everyone greets one another with the traditional respectful greeting, “Jem reap suor,” with a slight bow and hands pressed together in prayer-like fashion under your chin. We sit down, and proceed with the interview, asking questions regarding their loan and business. After about a half hour, we finish the interview, and get back on our motos for the dreaded ride back. Sopheap and I check the time and are shocked to find that it is nearly noon. We really need to hurry back to the S’Ang branch office to pick up the truck in order to head back to Phnom Penh.
We finally reach our 2nd Kiva borrower.
We start our moto journey back down the muddy path doing the same dance as before, weaving between muddy potholes, dung, cows, water buffalo and the occasional bicyclist. We do not want to get lost this time. Highly impressed with Sopheap’s moto skills I simply hold-on and hope for the best. My goal was to get off as little as possible since it slows us down too much and we need to get back.
We drive, and finally we come upon an impassible section in the road. As we head towards it,
I tell Sopheap, “I’ll get off.”
“No, no. Stay on.”
“No, I’ll get off.”
“No, no. Stay on. I’m a good driver.”
I say, “No. I’ll get off,” as we head into the mud.
We lean right, then left, and then right again trying to maintain balance, and then our wheels lose traction. The next thing I know I am in a mix of mud, dung, and foliage. The cows are staring at me, and the locals are peering over at us from their lunchtime meals grinning as I try to get up. I look up at Sopheap, and notice that somehow he managed to jump off the moto before it went down, and he is nearly spotless. He asks, “Are you OK? I am so sorry, Teresa.” I say, “I am fine as I look at the mud all over my hands and left side.” We then both start laughing as we stare at the moto lying in the mud.
Sopheap, spotless as can be.
Me, after washing off my hands and arms, but always with my trusty helmet
A woman living in a house nearby comes over, and we borrow a plastic container from her. We get some water from the rice fields beside us, and start rinsing off the moto. We hop back on laughing, hoping not to lose the loan officer again, and knowing that it is just another day in the field during monsoon season.
Why I Can’t Give Abozu My Camera
This is my first post from the field, and, unfortunately, I’m not writing to share an inspiring microfinance success story or even a heartwarming cross-cultural anecdote, as I was hoping I would be. I am writing to tell about a conversation that threw an uncomfortably bright spotlight directly on the basis of my being here in Africa, and the basis of Kiva’s mission itself.
I am stationed in Togo, a tiny West African country that ranks the 13th poorest in the world, with a GDP per capita in 2007 of $167. I am living with a Togolese family, and there is a 26-year old guy named Abozu who works in the house, cleaning, bringing me my breakfast, and doing lots of other things. He works very hard and we’ve gotten to know each other over the week that I’ve been here.
We were sitting on a bench outside the house this afternoon, and I had my camera with me. Here’s a picture of the two of us:
So, after showing him how to use the camera, he asked me if I was going to buy him one when I got back to the United States. I said no, it’s too expensive. What followed was a long discussion about the difference between charity and microfinance, and why I am not willing to give him things that could help his life even though I say I want to help people in poor countries. He said, “Isn’t Togo a poor country?”
I said yes, then tried to explain why I don’t think charity is the real solution to poverty. I said, “First of all, if I give someone money, he will spend it, and nothing in his life will really change.” (Keep in mind, this entire conversation is in French, which I am nowhere near fluent in.)
He replied, “But if you give me this camera, I can take pictures of people and sell them their pictures, and make money.”
He had a point – this was, after all, one of the first microfinance projects – Muhammed Yunus gave some Bangladeshi villagers a cell phone, and they charged their neighbors money to use it. So I said, “Yes, that would work. But you would have to repay me for the camera once you earned enough money.”
He asked me how much the camera cost, and I told him $200. He said, “What if I paid you $100?”
Aggh. At this point I was a bit frustrated by the bluntness of his questions, but we were getting to the core of the debate that has been raging in my heart and mind for years. I said, “No, $100 wouldn’t be enough, because it has to be based on capitalism, not charity.” I tried other arguments, too – that I want to help create change on a grander scale, not just for him; that I want poor people to be independent, not reliant on people who have more money; that I could give away all my money and the world wouldn’t really be much different; that if I give him my computer, I’ll have nothing to give to the Senegalese people during my next Kiva Fellowship; but, mostly, that capitalism is the world, and the only foundation on which one can erect any type of change that won’t blow away in the wind. (All in French…not easy.)
I suppose it’s not surprising that he persisted. He pointed out that the Togolese family I’m living with has given me lots of things – housing, food, a cell phone, transportation. It’s true. I tried to respond that they gave me those things because I’m here trying to help their country. But it made me think – even though I’m not giving money to people directly, I’ve spent a ton of money to come here, and I’ve also given up a lot in my life: my very well-paying job in New York, my apartment, my comfort, my family and friends. All of that is charity…how is it different from me giving Abozu my camera?
To be honest, I’m not totally sure. I feel deep down that it is different – I’m trying to plant the seeds of something that I hope will grow to be bigger than anything I could accomplish by giving away my money. It all comes back to our favorite word, sustainability. But try explaining that to a 26-year old Togolese man who makes $700 a year and just wants to be able to provide for the family that he doesn’t have yet – and in French.
So, he kept pressing, asking what I was going to give him as a souvenir when I left – a motorbike? A computer? A bicycle? “Why can’t you give me a loan?” he asked.
“You don’t have a business,” I said.
“What if I put a little table out and start selling things, like them?” he asked, pointing at two women across the street.
“I’m not a microfinance organization,” I tried to explain. “I don’t have everything that’s necessary to give a loan – but that’s why I’m working with an organization that does.”
I started to get kind of upset, but he didn’t notice. If only he understood that the question he kept asking me, face-to-face, over and over, was a question that has made me cry many times, that keeps me up at night, and that I am hoping to God that microfinance can at least attempt to answer:
“How can you help me?”
***
Post-note: I left the conversation kind of abruptly, because I thought I might start to cry. While I was writing this in my room, Abozu came and found me and apologized, said that it was just curiosity that made him ask all those questions. Then I really did start crying, and I asked him if he understood the difference between charity and microfinance. He said that he understands now…but, then again, guys will say anything to make a girl stop crying.
Then he promised to make me an omelet for breakfast tomorrow.
Is that charity?
I guess, according to my philosophy, I owe him an omelet. Plus interest.
Tajikistan’s Shadow Economy
Having researched Tajikistan’s economy prior to arriving here, I had a difficult time reconciling the numbers. It has a literacy rate of 95% and fairly high costs of goods like a developed country yet exceptionally low per capita incomes of some $340 similar to those of the poorest in the world. How does an educated population earn so little yet pay for goods clearly beyond its reach?
It is the Soviet legacy which has left most of the population over the age of 30 with a reasonably good education. Mothers and fathers subsisted on moderate civil servant salaries at the ubiquitous bureaucracies and public facilities spawned by the Soviet Union. Children were free to attend school and ultimately graduate to a sterile yet subsistence wage job in the government. Since independence, the cost of supporting the Soviet infrastructure has overwhelmed the tiny economy here which now consists mostly of agriculture such as cotton and fruit. Roadsides outside the city are littered with crumbling factories and the opportunities and incomes for civil servant jobs have dwindled considerably. As a result, the population scrambles to work multiple jobs, open side businesses and often puts children to work in an effort to subsist.
I happened to arrive in Tajikistan in the middle of the cotton harvest when the government conscripts thousands of school-age children across the country into picking in the fields. From September through
Picking cotton in the fields
October, classes are suspended and so are the teachers who work in the schools. I spoke recently with a temporarily unemployed teacher who explained that, when they are working, teachers here earn about $100/month or about 11 Somoni a day. To put that in perspective, a modest lunch here at a restaurant will generally cost about 7 to 10 Somoni. Not exactly a sustainable lifestyle. As a result, many teachers have left the profession in pursuit of better incomes. President Rahmon has made a big show of his “President’s schools” project where gleaming new buildings stand in stark contrast to the shabby apartments nearby, yet they sit dark and unused amid the dearth of teaching talent. Why not pay teachers more money instead of building new schools you ask? This is where the shadow economy kicks in…
Despite the $100/month wage, some teachers aren’t faring that poorly. It’s commonly discussed that some teachers will be mysteriously flush with cash around the time grades are awarded. And during cotton picking season, students can avoid the dismal conditions by securing a doctor’s excuse for around $100. I was told that, at the university level, the going rate for a PhD is around $2,000. What would one do with a PhD in Tajikistan which is worth the cost of $2,000? Teach at a university. As for construction, this process involves permits, bids, procurement of materials – in short, a lot of activities which provide more opportunities for government officials to skim dollars. Simply increasing teacher salaries doesn’t enrich anyone but teachers and they’re already getting theirs.
Seller of candies in the bazaar
For those teachers who refuse to supplement their incomes in such a way – and there are many – they’re resigned to working additional jobs or starting businesses. By far the biggest business here is simply called ‘trade’ and it consists of sitting out in the bazaar or by the roadside to sell food and merchandise. Many who come to MicroInvest seeking working capital for trade inventory are teachers or even doctors and nurses who suffer similarly low government wages. Because of its geography, poor infrastructure and the bureaucratic red tape of entering or exiting the country, goods are incredibly hard to supply here. Vehicles with Uzbek plates are not allowed into the country so product from Tashkent needs to transfer at the border. While there is a newly constructed bridge to Afghanistan – courtesy of US funds – there is little in the way of (legal) export coming from south of the border. The one bright spot is the newly constructed road from China which was constructed by the Chinese as a means to access the market here. But this former major waystation on the Silk Road is now at the far end of a lengthy supply chain and goods are marked up accordingly.
But, back to the teacher shortage. With fewer teachers available the quality of education here has been declining. A starvation wage doesn’t provide much motivation for teachers and parents living on the edge of poverty increasingly see education as a luxury they can’t afford. Why pay for grades to graduate into an economy with no jobs rather than start working today to supplement the family income? For now the solution has been to start a business instead of rely on meager government wages. The hard reality of life here is that, in some cases, the few dollars a son or daughter brings home is the difference between eating or not. This is not a Monday-Friday, 9 to 5 economy.
Another aspect of the shadow economy supporting Tajikistan’s current state is the estimated 1 million Tajiks living or working abroad and sending money back to support families. On a daily basis I speak with women who have husbands or sons working in Russia where they may be able to earn multiples of the income they’d earn here in Tajikistan. Of course the cost of living in Russia is higher as well, but on balance they come out ahead with what they’re able to send home to the family. According to the government, remittances from workers abroad make up more than 25% of Tajikistan’s economy but some independent estimates put it at well over half.
In this kind of environment, microcredit makes a huge difference. Being able to purchase a few hundred dollars of goods at time makes the costly travel to Uzbekistan or Kyrgyszstan worthwhile. It allows the honest and hard-working to avoid stooping to corruption as a means of supplementing substandard salaries. And owning a side business allows those few teachers, doctors, nurses and other essential workers the ability to serve the community while withstanding the unsustainable wages.
Rob is a Kiva Fellow working in Khujand, Tajikistan with MLF MicroInvest. To learn more about MLF MicroInvest click here and if you would like to show your support for Tajikistan, please join the Kiva lending team, Supporters of Tajikistan
Voting for Peace
What does an African country do in the aftermath of election violence in its neighbors, including Kenya and Zimbabwe? In the case of Ghana, about to hold its presidential elections in December, it takes the mere thought of election violence very seriously and starts a country-wide campaign against it.
Africa is a very big place, but in some ways despite its vast landscapes, cultures, and governments, there is a sense in Ghana that it is all connected. African wear and television channels like TV Africa connect them together and create a sense of African pride—but after the violence following elections in the past year, it has also created a sense of panic that Ghana could be next.
Last week, the morning after president-elect Obama had just heard of his victory (midnight of election day in the United States EST), everyone at the head office of Christian Rural Aid Network gathered in our conference room for a 30-minute morning devotion, just as we do every day. This morning the executive director was in charge of leading prayers, and one of the main subjects of prayer this day was thanking God for a peaceful election in the United States and praying that Ghana will have a peaceful election of its own.
But Ghanaians aren’t relying on God to ensure this—the government has started a nation-wide campaign concerning peaceful elections. This campaign includes frequently played commercials on all the television channels, articles in all of the newspapers, and even a Ghana peace concert with all of the most popular Ghanaian singers and bands that is traveling to all ten regions in Ghana to perform free concerts for the people. Various popular singers have made videos that have been turned into peace commercials and play throughout the day on television, especially during primetime. Many companies and media entities have taken on the campaign as their own and are holding their own events—all based on keeping the peace.
Even all the candidates are getting into the action. Seven of the eight presidential candidates and their running mates attended a symposium called “Towards a Peaceful Election 2008: My Party’s Contribution; The way forward.” It was an opportunity for the candidates to tell the public how they intended to keep the peace before, during, and after the elections.
One candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), said, “We acknowledge that the call for peace is underlined by events in Kenya and Zimbabwe and we are committed to ensuring that Ghana becomes an example for Kenya and Zimbabwe instead of repeating what happened in those countries. “
He ended saying that Kenya and Zimbabwe should be a lesson and not a model for Ghana.
This campaign for peace isn’t only based on what has happened in other African countries, it is also due to some small skirmishes that have already taken place in Ghana this year. In Northern Ghana, shots were fired during a campaign tour for the NPP, which led to a rampage across the town the following day. In all, three people died and nineteen houses were burnt down.
Political struggles in the capital of Accra that left eight people seriously injured were caused by supporters of two different political parties fighting, and a few other incidents of similar measure have happened mostly in September in at least three of the ten regions of the country.
In the midst of these sporadic acts of violence throughout the country, people are scared. They enjoy the freedom and the peace that they have now, and they enjoy the economic prosperity that goes along with it. Ghanaians know that they are considered a very peaceful country that is good for doing business with—and it doesn’t want to lose its current or potential business partners due to political violence and instability. Some people think the peace campaign is unwarranted and that Ghana’s peaceful state is not something to worry about, but others are afraid.
The election is now 24 days away, and what will happen only time will tell. In the meantime, a group of Christian Rural Aid Network employees, including myself, gather every day for morning devotion. And every day they pray to God for an election where peace will prevail in their beloved Ghana.
Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg_LK9mllQQ to watch one of the videos from the Ghana peace concert series.
Celebrating the Election and a Wedding
I wanted to share two really beautiful events from the past week: celebrating the election and attending my first Tajik wedding.
The U.S. Election
Contrary to the excitement that most were feeling on election day, I was feeling lousy. Here we were, on the edge of something truly great, and I was not able to participate. Of all the elections in all of the world, why did I have to miss this one?
Tajikistan is 10 hours ahead of the East Coast, so it was fairly obvious that Obama was winning by the time I got into work on November 5th. Judging from e-mails and Facebook postings, I could tell that all of my friends and family were caught up in the excitement back home, regardless of their political leanings. But all I could do was sit at my desk and watch the little states on the CNN map turn red or blue. I felt so helpless and, worse, so far away.
Then it happened: McCain conceded and Obama accepted. I read the transcripts of the speeches, browsed through the pictures of the celebrations, and cursed the very very slow Tajiki internet connection for not letting me watch any videos. And, being the cheeseball that I am, I started crying – not a lot, just a few tears ran down my cheeks.
After a couple hours of throwing myself a pity party, I decided to take matters into my own hands and throw a real party. I grabbed one of my co-workers and headed out in search of the biggest, most chocolatey cake I could find. My co-worker even chipped in for a bottle of RC and Orange RC (another food tradition I don’t quite appreciate here: washing down sugar with more sugar).
We set up the conference room and then went around to each office and invited all of the staff to help celebrate. At first, they didn’t realize what was happening and assumed that it was my birthday. But once I explained that I was throwing an election party, they got even more excited.
In good Tajik tradition, I had planned a lovely little speech in order to explain the reason for the celebration (mostly to explain that this was in no way an endorsement of Obama by myself or by Kiva). But my speech would have to wait: everyone wanted to express their hopes and prayers for my country first: “I hope that your country finds peace and happiness” “I hope that the people in your country will move out of the economic crisis and be able to make more money” “I hope that he will be the best president ever” and on and on and on. I was just blown away – I’m here to help support economic development in Tajikistan and they’re praying that people in the U.S. find wealth.
I felt really blessed and surprised that everyone cared so much. I don’t think they cared too much that Obama won, they seemed to care more about what the election would mean to the people in the U.S. And, not for the first time since arriving here, I felt really privileged. I felt the weight of what it means to be from the U.S. and the responsibility that that can bring. But, most importantly, I no longer felt pity for myself for being here instead of back at home.
A Wedding
I should start this section off with a disclaimer: I’m not a big fan of weddings. I’m not against the concept of weddings, I just don’t like how much stress and money goes into preparing what should be one of the happier moments of your life. And, unfortunately, the extravagance that accompanies most weddings in the U.S. is not a foreign concept here in Tajikistan. Up until last summer, the happy couple would be expected to throw an exuberant, multi-day affair with 500-1000 of their closest friends.
I know what you’re thinking: you don’t even know 500-1000 people, right? Well, that’s because you’re not thinking hard enough….you’re forgetting that you need to invite your brother’s coworkers and your neighbor’s aunt. In addition to feeding all of them, you would be expected to provide housing and cover travel expenses for those who were visiting from out of town. Families have gone into debt, or sent their men off to work in Russia, just to pay for their children’s weddings.
I will admit, 500-1000 people is over the top, no matter what country you’re from, but what are you going to do, make it illegal? Well, that’s what the President of Tajikistan decided to do last summer. He set a cap of 150 people for all wedding celebrations (and funerals….because, yes, they can be equally as debt-inspiring). Considering these recent constraints, I was feeling pretty flattered to be invited to my first Tajik wedding.
Overall, it was a pretty amazing event. The bride and groom were welcomed by loud horns and drums; the guests were fed approximately 8-10 plates of food each (notice how the plates are stacked on top of one another in the pic); the families danced for several hours straight; and the bride spent the entire evening bowing in gratitude to the guests. As always, everyone was a gracious host to me: I was invited to sit at the head table, was welcomed by many of the families’ elders; and learned how to dance. Despite my general disdain for weddings, I had a great time.
Although, in the event that you one day find yourself at a Tajik wedding, I will offer you some sage advice…..if someone asks if you would like to congratulate the bride, kindly decline. Otherwise, you will find yourself standing on a podium, with a microphone in hand, making a speech for the new couple, whose names you do not know.
Here’s a short video of the horns, dancers, and bowing bride:
