It is the last day at HKL today and I’m heading back to my country-Japan. So I am reviewing what I did in Cambodia. Maybe my contribution is a little different from other fellows due to different background-I’m from Asia.
The reason I became Kiva fellow is to learn Kiva and micro finance and then try to localize Kiva since language barrier is very high for Japanese people unfortunately. Many of my friends don’t loan even if they are interested in Kiva.
Let me note how I reached Kiva. I had a experience to stay in Cambodia 10 years ago. one day, I and my friends went to the Mekong River to see the sunset. But I had some trouble with them at that day and I sat down river side alone.
When I lonely watched the sunset, some local children came near me and found me crying. And then one firl without one arm wiped my tear. At that time there were some children whose parents made them disabled on purpuse in order them to beg money as well as many land mine victims, I heard.
I decided to do something for Cambodian in some ways since she comported my spirit. But I found many of Cambodians got used to receive something by developed countries at the same time. Therefore, I thought they needed something helpful to their independent efforts. That’s why I have been interested in micro finance but unfortunately there was no chance to learn it in Japan.
I didn’t tell my interest to others for long time due to some critical trend for charity and volunteer as hypocrisy. Through I change little by little through charity activities for an orphanage in Philippine with my friends. When I started to tell my friends my interest to micro finance, one of them told me she watched some TV program about a unique NPO in USA. That’s Kiva. I couldn’t reach Kiva if I yet hesitated to talk about my interest, and if I didn’t keep the charity activities. I soon started to think to sell Kiva to Japanese as I have some kinds of confidence I can do it due to my charity experience and network.
So far, I keep a Kiva fellow blog in Japanese as well as in English to introduce Kiva fellow’s activities. Moreover, I have joined a Kiva fan’s community in Japanese SNS. And then, fortunately I have found some camps who are willing to start up ‘Kiva Japan Project’ – a small group to aim at starting up Japanese version of Kiva. We sometimes have meetings by Skype and one day some of them showed me a demo site of Japanese version. I, by myself, am so surprised at this movement! I have never imagined my idea would be real in such a short time. I know we have a lot of issue to try from now. But it’s important keep taking action even though we don’t have enough resource and knowledge. And then we eventually find good chance or somebody’s help. I’m excited to forge ahead the project now.
I have learned never-give-up spirit through fellowship. Actually my life here was not so easy as well. I often felt sick and got cheated. Some experience made me very depressed and unhappy as I post last fellow journal. But I knew even terrible experience is necessary to test myself. Good and bad experience made me think what is my real goal and how much passion I have.
In order to achieve something, I need to overcome some conflict between the ideal and the real. But I believe every experience in Cambodia will open up my future.
I’d like to say special thanks to Kiva and Hatta Kaksekar Limited(HKL). I’m so happy to work as Kiva fellow at the wonderful MFI! I extended my fellowship for 1 week because I found the most favorite time in Cambodia is not visiting some famous places but talking, joking and laughing with HKL staffs.I cannot explain how much I love HKL! There is a full of joy, warmness and happiness.
I hope the more and more Japanese become a part of Kiva and become Kiva fellow in the future.
In the field, I always asked borrowers ‘What’s your dream?’
So, this time, I answer the same question, ‘It’s to connect more friends in the world and help each other.’
This is my last Kiva fellow blog. Thank you very much for reading!
Abozu with Abby and I of "Why I can't give Abozu my Camera" blog fame
I spent the weekend in Lomé, Togo with Abby Gray, another Kiva fellow at WAGES. Wages is basically like Alide in a few years: larger, and with a deeper relationship with Kiva. To get to Togo, I had to cross the border from Benin to Togo alone, which was just a little bit more harrowing and stressful than was necessary between two small, relatively stable countries. I decided to go to Togo on the spur of the moment. Spontaneity: definitely a new quality for me. At 2 pm on Friday I left the office. I should have left at 12:30. In Africa, one should absolutely get to their destination before dark. It is not just convenience, but safety. Abby once crossed the border into Togo from Ghana at night. Chaos ensued at the border after a man was hit by a truck. They put him in the car to drive him to the hospital, then returned almost immediately as he was already dead. There are no traffic laws or lanes: huge trucks, smaller cars and taxis, motos, darting sellers plying their wares, and border crossers all vie for command of the center of the road. The result is anarchical.
There were a few options for crossing the border from Benin to Togo: a bus, a bush taxi, or a private car. Ideally I would know someone with a private car going to Togo that weekend, but as I did not, this left the bus or bush taxi. A taxi seemed safer because there are less people, and buses are known for a high rate of theft.
I found the bush taxis waiting by the Jericho Post office. Right away they tried to charge me over twice the usual price, but I bargained it down. I sat in the car while the brother of the driver stuck his head through the permanently open window and harassed me. None of the men, including the driver, paid any attention. He wouldn’t leave me alone, so I finally got out of the vehicle and contemplated going home completely. Not exactly an auspicious start, but I decided to stick it out. I was sitting in the front seat and the driver asked me if I wanted to “pris 2 places” or pay for two seats. I didn’t want to, until I found out that full capacity in a bush taxi is not 4 passengers, but 7 passengers: 5 in back and 2 in front. I paid for 2 seats (about $8).
There weren’t any other women, and I felt very nervous. The drive was slow and I could feel every bone in my body vibrating with apprehension and a little bit of fear. Was this smart? Getting into a car with five men alone? Near the edge of Cotonou, we picked up another passenger: a woman. I was relieved. There were now 5 in the back, and I could feel the guy behind me stick his elbow into the back of my seat to try to get some traction as we were thrown around on the potholed roads. The heat and dust were intense. I was soaked in sweat from the ride and my face was covered with a thin layer of red dust.
About two hours later we bumped into the actual border. Everyone else got out, and the driver kicked me out of the car because none of the other passengers were going on to Togo. He found me another taxi driver headed to Togo. I appeared to be the only passenger, but he didn’t want me to get out until we got up to the actual border. I suppose he thought I had no idea where I was going (which was true) and also didn’t want to lose a passenger. He kept asking me if I was married (I lied and said yes) and whether or not I would go out with him. Then, he tried to drive through the actual border when he should have let me walk and get passport checked. As soon as he drove through, the patrol became very angry and opened my car door and pulled me out of the car, not roughly, but just forcefully enough that my Beninois cell phone fell out of my hand and I lost it.
The driver accompanied me to passport control. I realized I didn’t know the exact address, just the neighborhood, of the place I was living at in Cotonou, or the area I was going to in Lome. Addresses in Africa are much more fluid. Finally the driver supplied, “Grand Marche?” or big market, which is the main market of Lome. The customs officer wrote it down on the form.
The driver left and I went to see the visa officer. The visa officer did what almost every Beninois man, married or single, does to a foreign girl: relentlessly hits on them. As he asked me pertinent questions, he kept up a constant commentary of impertinent questions – “You don’t know where you’re staying? At my place?” and “I will marry you even if you have two sisters to take care of.” I couldn’t believe the border officer was hitting on me now, wasn’t he supposed to be a law officer? I was so tired and having trouble understanding him. I felt like crying, but realizing it wouldn’t help, I instead looked gamely at him and said, “I have two sisters, and they’re very expensive.”
I walked across the no man’s land, searching for the driver, but couldn’t find him for a good 10 minutes. When I finally found him, he led me to a dirt road behind a few houses. Were we actually going to a car? I was starting to feel a little irrational. Several men followed us, all pointing at me and saying “yavo.” By this time I had just realized my phone was gone, but it was on the other side of the border. Everyone was staring at me. The “flee” instincts in my brain were already engaged, but where to? Not to the visa officer. I told the driver I would pay for two seats.
“But every place is already taken!” he announced, sounding scandalized.
Five men got in the back. The driver, myself, and a younger guy climbed into the front. The car was dead silent, and I could feel the tension radiating up my legs. The guy next to me and I were ignoring each other although we were ear to ear. As the driver downshifted into my left thigh, I wondered if the stupidest thing I had ever done, or the most interesting.
Then the driver put a tape in. The music played in tinny spurts. I could make out English, French, and what was probably Mina. Everyone began to sing along to the reggae tunes, some of it Nigerian English. The music segued into love songs. The men sang along softly in Mina, and a nice breeze came through the window as we sped through southeastern Togo. I began to notice the graceful coconut trees on either side of the road, the actual cleanliness of the environment, a pretty lake. It sort of looked like the Caribbean, and as everyone continued to sing, I began to relax, or as much as I could in my current cramped position. I smiled goofily to myself, laughing at my previous fears. Definitely the most interesting thing I have ever done.
The best moment during my weekend involved another round of music. Abby’s homestay brothers decided to teach Abby and I how to dance Togolese-style. They took Abby’s computer outside. One of the young men began to swirl his arms and jump around like a duck. “The Chinese duck dance!” he trumpeted. They put on Togolese music: hip hop, tribal tunes, reggae. We tried to move like they did. I recognized a song from the taxi ride. We hopped around on one foot, and we taught them the slap-hands game and shadowboxed. We sweated a lot, and finally formed a four-person dance train and jumped up and down the hallway of the outdoor courtyard, singing and panting as we tried to keep up with the beat. The rest of the family stared at us from below as they washed the house and we danced up and down the stairs like a bunch of hooligans. There it was again: the power of music.
Sarah Lawson is a KF6 Kiva Fellow in Cotonou, Benin with the NGO Alide.
It’s 5am and the electricity has just come back on here in my Khujand apartment.I know because the sheet metal of the‘70’s era space heater plugged into the wall has started to creak and crack as it warms.I’m not typically up at this hour but it’s D-day – my departure – and I’m anxious to get started on the 3 day, 5 country journey back home.Today Tajikistan to Uzbekistan, tomorrow Uzbekistan to Moscow to Amsterdam, and finally Amsterdam to… America.
I’ve grown accustomed now to calling my homeland, ‘America.’Early on here I didn’t know what to make of the blank stares when I told someone I come from the US or the United States.I later learned that the term ‘United States’ connotes the former Soviet Union and its dozens of republics.Even before I arrived, I contemplated the reactions I would get considering Tajikistan is the northern neighbor and close cultural cousin of Afghanistan.“What do they think of Americans?” my aunt asked me before I left.I was stumped by the question but I knew I would soon find out.
I still remember from a decade ago the hordes of students in Europe with Canadian flags stitched into their packs.More than half were Americans in partial disguise, otherwise given away by the ballcaps and Tevas.You could always out them by trying to start a conversation about the Stanley Cup finals that year.I also remember resolving myself to avoid hiding who I was and where I was from and instead act as an informal ambassador to those I meet on my travels.Here in Tajikistan I was true to my pledge.Mostly.
The reaction I received as an American was absolutely 100% unwaveringly positive.In fact, it was so positive I had to wonder why.We hadn’t provided them any aid, hadn’t liberated them from an occupying power, hadn’t established close diplomatic ties, and they didn’t even have Coca Cola.Sure, they knew Chuck Norris and Michael Jackson but was that enough?After enough time here I finally figured it out.
Tajikistan is living proof of communism as a failed experiment.That conclusion isn’t based on any economic analysis or survey.It’s based on the overwhelmingly wasted talent of the population.The country has a 99% literacy rate but you don’t need to read to drive a cab.Doctors make the equivalent of $100 a month.Mothers of five sell gum and cigarettes on the street corner.It’s a long story, but the Soviet plan designated Tajikistan to produce cotton and the country was bred for just that purpose.The government here halfheartedly clings to the notion that there is such a thing as a cotton superpower, but deep down it realizes it has no viable industry or economy.Mostly what people want is the freedom to earn a living and pursue their talent.
Consider the fact that we ask our children, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’(Some of us are still pondering that question well into adulthood.)We ask because it taps into what every child in America has; possibilities.When I talk with teenagers and young adults here about their future plans, inevitably they tell me it’s their dream to go to America.It’s not based on some infatuation with Levi’s and McDonald’s.It’s because in America they have possibilities.
As much as my ego would enjoy it, I realize it’s not me they love when their eyes light up upon hearing of my nationality.It’s that, in their mind, they instantly associate the word with every spark of ambition they’ve ever had in their short lives.Growing up I wanted to be a truck driver, a veterinarian, a metallurgist and a filmmaker.Instead I ended up a Kiva Fellow, but every one of those options was a real possibility for me.Some probably weren’t the most prudent career paths, but they were mine if I wanted them.Everyone else wants to be able to dream the impractical dream if they choose – and therein lies the appeal of America.
With sincere thanks to the good people at MicroInvest and all the friends I’ve made in Tajikistan, I’m signing off from Central Asia… for now. After the holidays I will be working with CEVI in the Philippines.
After finishing my Kiva fellowship with EDAPROSPO last week, I moved out of Lima and into the province of Junín in the sierras of Peru. My time with Microfinanzas PRISMA is quite short and so I’ve engaged in a whirlwind tour of meeting entrepreneurs, collecting their stories, and posting journal updates. As the PRISMA office in Tarma services the entire northern half of Junín province, the clients are very spread out and thus long hours are a given. The following video is a snapshot of my day on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008. I had to split it into two parts because the upload process is long and with the internet out here, there’s not much worse than waiting 40 minutes to upload a video only to have the internet cut out with 20 seconds left (happened three times). If you go to the YouTube site, you can watch the videos in higher-quality.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the insight into what a typical day of a Kiva Fellow entails (at least in Tarma, Peru for Microfinanzas PRISMA).
A Day in the Life of a Kiva Fellow… Part 1
A Day in the Life of a Kiva Fellow… Part 2
Josh Bull, Kiva Fellow to Microfinanzas PRISMA Peru.
To view their currently fundraising clients on Kiva’s website, please click here.
Christmas in Honduras sunny and delicious. Christmas parties are everywhere, and come with very royally dressed women and scantily dressed girls. Office beauty pageants. The days are a warm 80 degrees, toasty not humid. I’m eating Tres Leches cake like my heart is made of iron, not soft, susceptible tissue.
I can’t get enough of the Christmas trees. Like everything here, color is supreme.
Christmas Tree in Prisma's Office
Don’t forget that they don’t grow pine trees here, and that these are all fake.
Always Popular Ribbon
The center of town is grungy as ever, but filled with bustling shoppers wiping sweat, not snow from their brow. The main Christmas tree of Honduras is clearly adored.
Downtown Tegucigalpa
I have seen one living tree- in the home of a Kiva borrower. It is my personal favorite.
Iris and her Children
Christmas to me smells like sharp pine mixed with musty paper as we unwrap the ornaments. I love to decorate the tree. Each ornament bought in a different year. Many older than me. In Honduras, trees are new every year. New ornaments. New beginnings. I helped build the tree in my home here.
Sierra Lends a Hand
Giant metallic globes compete with gold garlands and plastic bunches of grapes. Each sparkling piece is attached to the wire branch and polyester needles. I adore it.
I had been planning for today’s lasagna lunch since the second week of my fellowship when one my colleagues asked if I could make his favorite dish from the U.S. How could I say no? This man had picked me up at the border, arranged my housing, and even helped me secure a SIM card and cell phone, among countless of other tasks. Lasagna was the least I could do, right? Right? In the end the lasagna required more than 10 trips to various stores and the efforts of approximately 12 people, in three countries.
When I made the commitment, I did not understand how difficult it would be to find the necessary ingredients. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find fresh mozzarella or ricotta cheese – I couldn’t find cheese, period. After many rounds through the market and trips to supposedly ‘Western-style’ stores, I came to the harsh realization that this dish was going to require some serious effort.
Luckily, I managed to secure some guests during my fellowship: I asked my boyfriend to bring a box of lasagna noodles and Jenny, who was visiting from Kiva, to bring along a bottle of Kraft parmesan – the kind that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. While in Uzbekistan, I scored a can of tomato paste and a packet of dried tomato sauce, which would replace the non-existent basil and oregano – all they have here is cilantro. I had planned to make my own ricotta, arguably lasagna’s key ingredient, but without a thermometer or buttermilk I was forced to give up on that plan as well.
So, as you can imagine, I was feeling pretty pessimistic about my opportunities for success. I stopped trying to find ingredients and started planning excuses to weasel out of the obligation. Feeling guilty, I decided to give it one last shot and wandered into a market not far from my office. I could almost hear the heavenly choir pouring down as my eyes rested upon a pile of ground beef (ground beef!) and two blocks of cheese: gouda and edam! It wasn’t exactly mozzarella and ricotta, but it wasn’t the Tajik salty soft cheese either.
Unfortunately, Western conveniences do not come cheaply and I only had enough money in my wallet to purchase the cheese. I also figured that, if I had been forced to eat meat for 10 weeks, it wouldn’t hurt them to eat vegetarian food for once. Proud and excited, I headed home to prepare the sauce and fixins…..that’s when it really got interesting.
1. I have one electric burner and no stove, which makes it pretty tricky to bake lasagna. It took a few tries, but I finally found someone to bring their stove, as well as a pan, into the office today (it’s not too big, don’t worry).
2. I don’t have a can opener, so I had to borrow one from my neighbor. After several minutes trying to figure out how to use it, I had to walk back across the hall, with my tail between my legs and ask for help. It’s never very empowering to ask for help in using a can opener. She clearly felt bad for me because, five minutes later, she sent her daughter over with a bowl of soup and some chocolates.
3. When I got to work this morning, my coworker asked what kind of meat would be in the lasagna. I explained that I had run out of money while shopping and had been unable to purchase the ground beef . Before I knew it, all of the men in my office had plopped down 5 somoni each (enough to cover the cost of the meat), saying “we want meat”. So, I ran back out to the store.
4. A coworker then arranged for the driver to take me home so that I could pick up the rest of the ingredients and cook the beef on my stove top. When I got there, the electricity was off – of course.
5. I headed back to the office to set up the stove and start baking the ground beef. Thank God that I made an obnoxious quantity of sauce the night before and thank God they made me go buy meat because the pan that my colleague had lent me was huge!
6. I got the lasagna into the oven at 11:20, which gave it just enough time to bake before the electricity went off at noon.
Well, somehow my ‘thank-you’ present for one of my colleagues turned into a celebration for the whole office. Everyone came – I ended up making lunch for over 30 people. Sadly, I didn’t get to take a picture of the final product because I got shoved out of the way so that someone else could serve it. But it was absolutely beautiful….and yummy! It didn’t taste exactly like lasagna, more like fancy cheeseburger lasagna, but it was wonderful! Everyone, including myself, had such a good time sitting around, eating, and chatting. Sitting there, looking out at my coworkers who I would soon say goodbye to, I started to fight back tears. Tomorrow is my going away party – but it couldn’t possibly be better than today’s event!
Thank you everyone for your support during this fellowship. Thank you for letting me share some of the amazing experiences and stories – I hope that I have inspired some of you to keep learning about this region.
Signing out……Carrie Ferrence with IMON International in Khujand, Tajikistan
Today is my last day in Bosnia, the first of my Kiva placements.
I have committed a year to volunteering with Kiva, and I initially hoped to write a book about the experience. Last August, I imagined myself sitting on a street corner in Kenya, smoking cheap cigarettes. Poor children would laugh in the distance and I would sigh, reflectively, finally understanding the meaning of it all. I would walk down the street with a child on my back, high-fiving locals and getting a thumbs-up sign from the local nurse. My eyes would turn that perspicacious blue, seen only in the eyes of worldly travelers. I would return home and talk about my experiences in smoky cafes, always to a captivated audience. “You can’t understand what it’s like until you get out there,” I would say, wisely. “The experience changed my life.”
But since coming to Bosnia, I have barely written anything at all. My notebook is filled only with doodles. Even blog entries are a struggle. I don’t know what message to take from all this, only that it has made me deeply happy. My eyes may still be an unworldly grey, and I may not have learned the deeper meaning of life, but hot damn do I have memories.
I’ll remember the distinguished placement of teddy bears on living room couches.
I’ll remember listening to stories about love and romance in the time of war. I’ll remember the women who made love in tanks and fields of wildflowers, amid bombings and gunfire.
I’ll remember meeting Kiva borrowers, who offered me tea and smiles. I’ll remember their pristinely clean houses; their cows and pigs and chickens and vegetable gardens. I’ll remember the realization that they live on less than $200/month, and that despite their polished tea cups, they cannot afford visits to the doctor.
I’ll remember fried cheese pastries, with pools of oil that I eventually slurped with a spoon, like the sweetened milk at the bottom of a cereal bowl.
I’ll remember dancing in the discotheque, celebrating the cheapness of alcohol and the immediacy of the music. I’ll remember my soul being touched by the accordion.
I’ll remember meeting Nermina. During the war, a bomb went off in the market while she was holding her 4-year-old son. He was decapitated in her arms.
I’ll remember The Apple Guy, who would smile and slip an extra apple into my fruit bag. That extra apple was always the one that tasted best.
I’ll remember feeling stupid. Stupid in my interactions with people. Stupid in my expectation of self-enlightenment. Stupid that I thought I could contribute anything to microfinance, a field I know nothing about. Stupid for even writing this blog.
I will not be writing a book about my experience. In “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” Michael Chabon refers to “sentient apes.” And that’s how I feel. I am a sentient ape. But Bosnia has been fabulous. I’m off for a few weeks of travel, but will arrive at K-Met in Kisumu, Kenya in January. Perhaps my high-fiving, thumbs-up fantasy will still occur. Happy holidays!
Storm clouds are gathering in Eastern Europe. Ukraine, Hungary, and Iceland share the news headlines as the wold’s foremost victims of the global financial crisis. Political infighting and tensions with Russia, along with a severely declining steel industry have deepened the effects across Ukraine. There is a silver lining, but more on that later.
In the western world, “political tensions” essentially mean that 24-hour cable networks switch to all politics, all the time. In Ukraine, due to “political tensions” between local officials, last week many districts of the capital city of Kiev lost heat and hot water. These are government-controlled commodities – the local goverment can literally shut off your apartment building’s gas heating at a whim. In sub-zero temperatures and bitter continental winter conditions, losing heat for a week is a hardship to pale at. People couldn’t even wash dishes, because the water was literally freezing out of the tap. Even now, three days after the heat was turned back on by these same officials, radiators are merely lukewarm, homes are still freezing, and people are sick with colds and flu.
In addition, the value of the UAH (or “grivna”) has fallen from 5.05gr to $1 on October 1 to 9.45 to $1 on December 17 – a loss of nearly 50% of its value in two and a half months. This has a direct impact on many citizens, since half of all bank loans and most rents are denominated in either dollars or euro, but most people get paid in grivnas. Imagine that your rent was 2,525 grivnas ($500) per month on October 1. At current exchange rates, your rent due on January 1 is now 4,725 grivnas.
Banks are feeling the crunch most keenly, since most of their own debts are denominated in foreign currency as well. Informal reports from Kiev state that it is nearly impossible for individuals or businesses to get dollars out of ATMs or money changers – banks are holding on to all foreign currency reserves and refusing to sell them. One source attempted to find USD from over 20 different ATMs and exchange kiosks, with no luck.
Add to the mix the near-collapse of Prominvest Bank, one of the largest in Ukraine, earlier this fall. To prevent a bank run, they froze all depositor accounts until at least January. People and companies can see their money sitting in their account, but cannot withdraw it, and cannot use the bank to transfer funds or make payments. As of December 16 a Russian bank has been in negotiations to buy the troubled bank. Many Ukrainians view this nervously as Russian attempt at economic, rather than military, takeover of their country. Ukraine is in a vulnerable position, as its GDP is expected to decline by up to 10% in 2009. Consider that the predicted 3.4% decline in the US is considered a deep recession, while a generally accepted definition of a “depression” is a GDP decline of more than 10%.
This is particularly hard on financial institutions – like Kiva’s field partners.
Kiva’s business model is more complex than it appears at first glance. When a lender sends $25 through Kiva to an entrepreneur, that money is received and disbursed by our field partner in that country – in this case, HOPE Ukraine. The field partner is a microfinance bank which is authorized as a financial institution in that country. They do the leg-work of finding clients, performing due diligence to ensure the borrower is solvent, writing profiles, and handling the transactions between Kiva’s lending community and the local entrepreneur. Critically, they also handle foreign exchange risk.
When Kiva sends $300 to an entrepreneur, it’s exactly that: $300. So we’re expecting that same $300 back, regardless of the value of the local currency. Imagine that HOPE Ukraine had raised $300 on Kiva on October 17 for an entrepreneur named Tanya. They would have converted it into grivnas at 5.05, and given Tanya 1,515 grivnas on a 10-month term. Her principle payments are 152 grivnas, which is what she gives to HOPE Ukraine each month, and HOPE Ukraine promises to convert it and send it back as $30. However, when HOPE Ukraine converted Tanya’s monthly payment back into dollars on December 17, that 152 grivnas is no longer worth $30 – now it’s worth only $16. HOPE Ukraine must then pay $14 out of its own pocket in order to send Kiva lenders a $30 repayment.
That sounds pretty grim for HOPE Ukraine, doesn’t it? But we promised you a silver lining, and here it is:
Due to the crisis, none of the big traditional banks will give out loans anymore, so everyone is coming to HOPE Ukraine. They have as much business as they can handle, and more. And because the grivna is worth less, they can lend out in higher amounts. Since Kiva has a $1200 per entrepreneur loan cap, back in October no Kiva clients could borrow more than 6,060 grivnas. Today that $1200 loan cap is worth 11,340 grivnas – so they can service clients who have a greater range of financial need. And they can use the extra income they’re generating on all these new loans to pay that $14 on Tanya’s loan.
Microfinance institutions in these circumstances begin to seem, if not recession-proof, at least recession resistant. Even as the value of their loan portfolio declines on international markets, the volume of loans they service can increase, because traditional banks tighten their lending habits. This is particularly true for loan-only microfinance banks like HOPE Ukraine. Because they don’t take deposits, only give out loans, they did not have money sitting idly in their coffers to be used for foreign investments. They stayed out of the mortgage-backed securities and the short selling, and were thus insulated from many of the shocks that traditional financial institutions suffered.
Conditions on the ground, particularly for the poor, are still harsh and uncertain. Unemployment is skyrocketing, inflation is at 25% and rising, and the government is deadlocked in political infighting. Tanya, and everyone else in Ukraine, may or may not have hot water, or a job, or a savings account tomorrow. But despite the gloom and instability, and in some cases because of it, Kiva’s field partners are standing strong.
In Cambodia there is a popular song called Tov Dondung Kon Key by Khemarak Sereymon. The song is VERY catchy and we hear it EVERYWHERE. The best part of the song is the story. It’s about a guy who has this crush on a girl who he meets at the market. When he goes with his mother to meet the girl’s parents so that he can ask them to marry her, the girl’s family asks for $5000 as a dowry. Unfortunately, even if he sold his rice field and cows he would not have enough money, so he sings about his agony.
Here’s a question for you Kiva lenders, if he asked for a loan would you support him?
I used the song to make a video of our recent visit to Takeo Province:
This was my first overnight trip and it was amazing. We went into areas that were much more remote than I had ever been. On our second day, we had to walk a kilometer just to reach the Village Bank meeting. It’s also harvest time so we saw many farmers and farm workers harvesting the rice.
The best moment of the trip was when Kieran asked one of the borrowers what they would do if they couldn’t get a loan from AMK. We then asked the same question to the other clients we met. Many of them said they would turn to private lenders who charged 10-20% interest a month (compared to the 3% a month AMK charges). Cambodia has 18 microfinance institutions, but AMK goes into the most remote areas where other MFIs don’t go because of the costs involved to service these borrowers. For many borrowers, if AMK didn’t go out there they would either turn to loan sharks or they would not borrow the money necessary to improve their lives. AMK chooses to serve these clients because of their mission:
“To help large numbers of poor in Cambodia to improve their livelihood options through the sustainable delivery of appropriate and viable microfinance services”
Yesterday I met Mr. and Mrs. Phung, their two children and their granddaughter.The Phungs run a bicycle repair shop.It is a small shop on a partially paved, pot-holed street on the outskirts of Thanh Hoa City, Vietnam (150 kilometers south of the capital, Hanoi). Had it been a few houses further down the street, Mr. and Mrs. Phung would have enjoyed views over the rice paddies.
Bicycles are repaired on what would be the pavement, if one existed.As with many homes, the front room not only acts as a sort of living room but also as a place of business; in this case a store room for bicycle parts. Bicycle tires and tubes hang from the ceiling and brakes, brake cables, pedals, baskets, etc. are stored in cubby holes on the wall.Even with the entryway wide open, one’s eyes take a moment to adjust to the dark inside.
Mr. and Mrs. Phung had been warned in advance of this foreigner’s arrival and welcomed me into their home.We were there with one of the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women’s loan officers to distribute a group loan.
While each borrower was lent almost 3.1 million VND (~ US$181), they all said they wanted to borrow much more but couldn’t. I’ve heard this complaint many times as I usually ask borrowers what they like most about the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (“FPW”) and where they’d like to see improvements. As I knew, FPW restricts the amount that individuals can borrow by reference to their credit history, and 6 million VND (~US$353) was the absolute maximum loan amount.So I wondered why borrowers wanting more money didn’t borrow from the bank.After all, it is not uncommon to hear FPW’s borrowers such as Mr. & Mrs. Phung say they expect to make a profit of 2 million VND (~ US$118) per month on a 12-month 3.1 million VND loan.
Now many poor borrowers the world-over can’t borrow from a bank because they have nothing to offer as collateral.But this appears not to be the case in rural Vietnam where most people own their houses and the land on which their houses are built. Which raises another very interesting question: how poor are these borrowers?
I know the answer to the first question is much more complicated than I’ll ever learn but from my few short weeks in Vietnam, here are two pertinent discoveries: many borrowers don’t have title deeds to their properties and some who do aren’t willing to risk losing their homes on a business loan.Being told the latter by Mr. Phung (while Mrs. Phung tended to her granddaughter’s needs) was particularly revealing.Here was a borrower who was willing to borrow money from a loan shark at an <a href=”http://www.mftransparency.org/”>APR</a> of 188% but they wouldn’t mortgage their house to obtain a more favorable interest rate (fortunately for Mrs. Phung, FPW loans carry an APR of only 24%).On the other hand, maybe the Phungs were more clued-in than I give them credit for as I’m sure many small business owners in the US will rue the day they gave their bank a personal guarantee on their small business loans.
I also wonder, in light of the aforementioned discovery, how poor FPW’s borrowers really are. Now I really am tip-toeing into a mindfield.So let me skirt around the edges.<a href=”http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/aboutus/“>CGAP</a> (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), the leading independent resource for objective information, expert opinion, and innovative solutions for microfinance, defines the <a href=”http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/530/”>poor</a> as those living on less than $2 dollar per day per capita. I haven’t yet investigated how this definition takes into consideration real estate ownership.The fact that FPW’s borrowers benefit enormously from such small loans (particularly given the alternatives) is good enough reason to lend to them.But are they really that poor? It is a question that many Kiva Fellows I’ve spoken to ponder.And it is a question I will continue to research and think about.
Postscript: Today, at the opening ceremony for FPW’s fifth branch, the local People’s Committee member welcomed FPW into his district saying, among other things, that he hoped the provision of loans to women in his district would prevent them having to leave their homes to search for work elsewhere.He went on to say that some who did were “stolen into China” – which my interpreter translated to mean sold as wives to Chinese men.Indeed, my translator told me that one of her parents’ neighbors had been sold to China, only to return 10 years after her disappearance.A sobering thought which puts theoretical questions related to “poverty” into perspective.
It was very first time in my life I confused so much what is common sense.
I went to Immigration Office in Phnom Penh to get my passport with newly extended visa a few weeks ago. But an Immigration Officer said there wasn’t my passport. I couldn’t believe what she said. She said an officer whom I submitted my passport to the day before that day, wasn’t the officer in charge of visa extension, and she had no idea with my passport. What?! The guy was not officer in charge of visa extension? Why could that horrible situation happen? It was too hard to believe.
One day before that day, I couldn’t find where Visa Extension Department in Immigration Office and asked one guy I met there. He said’ OK. Come here, please.’ And then he asked me ‘Which country is your passport?’, ‘Japanese’, ‘It costs $55 and you would receive new visa after 2 o’clock tomorrow.’, ‘ It should be $45.’, ‘ No, $55.’
I had no choice at that time since my visa was almost over. I had too little time to give up to apply that day. The guy somewhat dubious but I thought the price maybe changed. It often happens in Cambodia. Finally I paid $55.
When I was at a loss to hear no my passport at the Visa Extension Department, one other Officer in charge of Visa Extension, said to me the guy I submitted my passport to had my passport. But he didn’t know where he was at that time. Why was it possible that he went out of Immigration Office with my passport? The officers knew the guy had my passport, it means they knew the guy cheated me. Why didn’t they accuse the guy and try to get my passport back to them? I was almost dead of anger to everybody in Immigration Office. It’s really unbelievable. What should I do without passport here? I started to feel insecure.
Fortunately I had the guy’s phone number just in case, called him and got his answer. He said ‘ Why you didn’t come to the office at 2 o’clock?’
That was true he had said my visa would be ready at 2 o’clock the next day. But I didn’t think it was a appointment with him. Did it mean after 2 o’clock visa is ready as I should have gone there at 2 o’clock? Why was I blamed by him? His word made me really unhappy. Anyway, he said he had my passport and would come back to Immigration Office. The only one thing I could do was to wait for him back. I didn’t know he would really come back or not. My worry became bigger and bigger.
While I was waiting for the guy, the officer in Visa Extension Department told me this was my fault since I didn’t go to Visa Extension Department. I got mad to hear that again. Is it my fault to ask an officer in Immigration the way in Cambodia? Was it a common sense here? But I couldn’t show my almost bombing indignation because I needed his help to ask the guy giving me back $10. Yes, the guy cheated price as well. Actually it cost only $45. He cheated $10.
Unfortunately the officer said ‘It is out my business. If I say so, my colleague would get angry with me.’ His words made me really mad. ‘Don’t you have any pride of your job, terrible man?’ I refrained the words in my mind. They don’t care for non-Cambodians, but their folks.
Actually I found some Cambodians never care of such kind of moral. They seem to think non Cambodians should pay money for them in any ways. They always charge expensive price to non Cambodians. Of course I truly understand this country is so poor that people need help. But I feel annoyed with their attitude of getting used to just get receiving something by foreigners. When they see foreigners, just ask us money. In this country, we have no choice but to obey this culture heavily tainted by corruption.
Even though I asked help many times to the officer in charge of Visa Extension, he went back home leaving me alone finally.
I didn’t know whether the guy would bring my passport or not and whether I could get my money back. I was so nervous and uneasy. I wondered whether to get my passport stolen?
I really needed someone beside me to make me easy.
Although I asked a HKL staff who took me to Immigration Office by motorcycle to wait for more 5 minutes, he also left me alone. I couldn’t explain how sad I was seeing of his motorcycle going. But I knew he wanted to go back home. I just needed to accept it.
The waiting time alone made me become so anxious and uncomfortable. I felt quite alone. No energy with my body. Eventually, I couldn’t keep standing.
I’m sure my face at that time was so terrible and ugly. ‘I came here for Cambodian people. Why did they treat me like this? I would never come back to this terrible country, never, NEVER!!!’ refrained negative words in my brain.
The waiting time seemed forever. I tried not to think negatively and to do something. I checked the time quite often with mobile and then tried to call somebody, but didn’t finally since I felt nobody could help me.
Nothing to do in front of Immigration. Just watching cars and motorcycle were coming and going with empty feeling and disappointing at Cambodian society.
After my million-times calls, the guy miraculously came back to Immigration Office with my passport. The visa was completed the procedure fortunately. He didn’t show any guiltiness and didn’t give me back $10.
‘ Why did you cheat me. Give me back $10.’
‘ I don’t have $10′ now’,
‘ Liar! You should have.’
‘ You can check my body!’
Childish talk. But I was so serious.
Actually, $10 wasn’t so big money for me, but I didn’t want to obey this terrible society with bribe.
I suddenly remembered some Cambodian friend had told me when I get cheated, I should think to have made donation or paid lesson bill to learn Cambodia. In the case of my $10, should I think so? No, I’d love to help Cambodian people, but not in these ways!
Never ended talk with the terrible guy, finally I started to cry getting frustrated by him and myself.
‘I work here to help Cambodian. Why do you cheat even such people doing their best for your country?!’
He looked around others looking at us and said, ‘I’ll pay it tomorrow. Don’t cry.’
Of course I didn’t believe his word. But I had no choice. There is no help and it was getting dark. I could not check his body and check how much he had. Finally I got back to the office without money back.
After 2weeks from this horrible day, I was cheated again and lost my money. Although I truly know not everybody cheat me, the horrible experiences impacted my motivation very negatively. To work for developing countries is much harder than I expected in my country. And then I found I need to complete my mental preparation and never give up to achieve my goal no matter how horrible experience I would have.
To keep working in Cambodia, I need to overcome my experiences and never lose my motivation for this beautiful country.
(with apologies to Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King)
1. Cats are great city animals.
Cat on car.
At one time, Baku was rat country, so I’ve been told. Someone decided to fix the problem by either introducing cats to the streets or firing all the cat-catchers. You don’t see many rats around nowadays.
Cats are everywhere. They stand guard outside the markets, scurry beneath the tables inside the posh furniture stores, sleep atop parked BMWs, pick through garbage, and mew in the hallway of my apartment building. A friend here started adopting street cats and now has seven in her flat.
Coming from New York, I’ve always held up pigeons (and to a lesser extent, squirrels) as the best city animals. And I’ve always taken rats for granted. But cats, quiet and clean, are, to me, the new gold standard.
2. Traffic laws are outstanding.
So THAT'S what a seatbelt is for...
As a car owner, I have some ambivalence about traffic laws. I hate parking tickets. Sometimes I find a 65 mph speed limit to be — idealistic. And I’ve sent the occasional text message at a red light.
So I write this fully aware that I am a hypocrite: traffic laws are outstanding.
I’ve been in countries with bad drivers before. The drivers of India and Pakistan and Bangladesh don’t deserve any medals. But there, because it’s generally poorer and warmer, the streets are jammed with every sort of vehicle: hand-pulled, bicycle and motorized rickshaws, scooters, buses, trucks and cars, not to mention a variety of livestock.
So bad driving is mitigated by 1) self-preservation (as you can get thrown from a rickshaw pretty easily) and 2) weak engines. It’s hectic, lawless traffic, but it’s not that fast.
Azerbaijan, in contrast, has hectic, lawless, fast traffic. People are generally driving cars, buses or trucks, and good cars, too, not Tata Nanos, but Benzes.
And because cars are the only thing on the road and cars are expensive, if you’re driving at all here, you’re a big deal. That, in turn, means you shouldn’t have to break for any commoner on foot. Nor should you approach a blind turn through a narrow, residential alley at less than 50 mph.
It’s not that right-of-way is ambiguous here: the cars have it. I guess I’ve been spoiled living in places where cars break for pedestrians, but I find the traffic here beyond aggravating. Everyone uses their car horns constantly to express anger, and tricked-out horn upgrades (the “air horn” and the “Godfather theme” being ubiquitous) are mandatory.
What’s optional? Seatbelts. Headlights at night. Child safety seats. Staying within the solid double-lines on a highway. Most people with kids have them ride on their laps in the front passenger seat, their little faces pressed to the windshield.
On a recent road trip, we passed a roadkill horse (!), two dead dogs, and a brick truck that had lost its bricks on the way out of Baku. On the way back, we saw a dead person in the road (!!). No wonder everyone stops at the mosque just outside of town to make an offering to Allah thanking Him for a safe ride!
3. Russian is hard.
Three genders? Six cases? I’ve been studying for two months and still don’t know what a case is.
4. All politics is local.
So said Tip O’Neill, long-serving Speaker of the House.
Case in point. In America, we fought a “cold” war with Russia from the mid-1940s to 1991. There is still hatred and fear of Russia in some parts of our political sphere (ask Sen. John McCain how he likes the Russians).
We also have as our enemies the “Axis of Evil”: Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Iraq, of course, is now are ward. North Korea is flirting with giving up the bomb. But Iran appears to be carrying on as a threat, with worried talk in the news magazines and Sunday morning talk shows over when it will get nukes and what it will do with them.
So here I am in Azerbaijan, sandwiched between Putin and Ahmadinejad. Azeris don’t care. There’s nothing too frightening about either. They may not always have nice things to say about their neighbors to the north and south, but Americans aren’t always that charitable with Canada and Mexico, either. Anyway, Azeris have reserved 100 percent of their negative energy for their neighbor to the west: Armenia.
The cause is a dispute over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which took the form of a war in the late ’80s and ’90s and now is the source of much saber-rattling, but little fighting. Some 800,000 Azeris were displaced by the loss of the territory, and bettering their lives is a major part of microfinance here.
It’s less of an axis and more of a singularity of evil. And, sadly, it’s no exaggeration to say that dislike of the Armenians is nearly universal and is strong. I don’t know, there’s some axiom here that fits, one man’s jelly is another man’s jam or something…
5. Bribes suck.
I finally paid one, last week. Sixty manat (about $75). It wasn’t, like, spiritually degrading or anything, but it was 60 AZN that I’m not going to be spending on candy and DVDs.
On December 4th, I had the wonderful opportunity to accompany Prisma employees to the Premio Impulso Microempresarial 2008.
This was an event put on by a Honduran Magazine called Micro Empresas & Finanzas that seeks to unify and inform the microfinance sector here in Honduras. Prisma was a recipient of the Premio Impuslo Microempresarial, which recognizes their contributions to the microfinance sector.
Orbelina Valeriano, Prisma Director, Holds Award
There were a variety of speakers that addressed changes in the country, and gave inspirational words to those in the audience, encouraging them to continue to have faith despite worsening global economics and recent flooding which hit some communities in Honduras.
By the time we got to the last speaker, I was struggling to keep my head up, and look as though the concept, “We want to thank you and thank God for the successes micro-enterprises has had this year”, was exceedingly interesting the 6th or 12th time around. However listening to the final speaker, Emilio Santamaria, the conference magistrate, re-ignited some of the idealistic vigor I brought with me when I came here. He gave a long powerpoint presentation that began with a story:
“There was a man that walked to the local pulperia to get some mantequilla and there was a dog sitting out front crying. Not barking, not whining, but truly crying. The man went into the store, saw a friend and ended up chit-chatting for a while. Nearly half an hour later, he left to store to find the dog still crying and crying away.
The man asked the dog’s apparent owner, ‘why is the dog crying?’ and the owner said, ‘he’s crying because he’s sitting on a nail’. ‘I don’t understand’, said the man. To which the owner replied ‘the nail hurts him but still, he does not move.”
This story caused murmurs throughout the crowd. Magistrate Santamaria then went on the eloquently explain that Honduras shouldn’t be like the dog, crying over its pain, but should instead move itself. And move itself forward. “Technology is the wave of the future! And we Honduras must take hold of it! Harness it! It used to be a crime not to teach your children to read, and now it is a crime not to teach them to use a computer!”
“YES YES YES!!” I wanted to stand up exclaim.
By the time we left the event, everyone from various microfinance organizations were comparing how they use their computers. Everyone seemed to have a pretty good system for data management and bookkeeping, but I was surprised by how few viewed the Internet as a crucial resource. Not even all of Prisma’s field offices have Internet, which creates an added challenge for them as they implement Kiva.
Nevertheless, I think Prisma feels proud to be ahead of the curve, and I’m proud to work with them. Its wonderful to work in an environment and in a country that isn’t crying, but is moving itself.
Prisma Staff
I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6, serving three months in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and three more in La Paz, Boliva. Please check out my current MFI, PRISMA, and see all of their fundraising loans here!
By now, the living room with blue velvet couches really does feel like home.My Togolese family members who welcome me when I walk in the house are happy to see me.They call me ta-ta, then we slap hands with a finger-snap at the end (the Togolese really love that snap – I wonder who did it first, us or them?). The adorable 1-year old, Leona, runs up with her nose crinkled in a big smile, no longer wide-eyed in fear as she was when she first saw this bizarre-looking stranger.Then I drop off my bag in my room and they either come and visit me or I go hang out with them in the kitchen.
Meheza, my homestay sister, in the kitchen with a crab
By now, I’m used to the food, I’m used to the heat, I’m used to the dusty streets and the backs of motorcycles, to cars breaking down, and police with white gloves directing masses of lawless traffic.I’m used to children staring and waving, I’m used to the loud R Kelly music blasted all over the place, to beautiful sunsets, endless summer, and the sound of palm trees blowing outside my window.I’m also used to people asking me to buy things at stoplights; I’m used to asking people to repeat every single thing they say, I’m used to the smell of urine and rotting something-or-other.Life in Togo is no longer a huge chaotic spectacle for me – it has become the quotidian reality, it has become what is normal.
(Well, relatively normal.The other day a huge crowd was gathered around a lake because someone had been murdered and thrown in the water to give the murderers good fortune in the New Year.No matter how long I live in Africa, that will not be normal.)
One of the hardest things for me to get used to was having white friends here.For the first two weeks, I was “alone.”I saw only Togolese people, ate only Togolese food, spoke only French.Then, one Sunday, I met up with some friends that the last Kiva Fellow put me in touch with.My driver dropped me off at their house, and suddenly I was with three white people, speaking English.One good thing is that you make fast friends when you’re in a place like Togo, because there are an extremely limited number of white people.We’re all essentially automatic friends (whether we like it or not…it’s a very small little world here).
So, off we went in a junky jeep to the beach.We walked into a resort kind of place – nothing fancy by normal standards, but just to see more than 2 white people in one place was literally shocking to me.We got a little cabana with lounge chairs and sat down with some beers.I was very conflicted.I was so relieved to be comfortable in that way again, but I also felt like a traitor to the reality of Togo, pampering myself in this elite beach spot full of people who probably each have more money than like fifty average Togolese people combined.We ate lobster and swam, and it felt wonderful, but also like cheating.
I’ve had many days and nights like that since then – house parties, poolside wine afternoons, nights dancing and drinking like we’re in New York.It’s hard to explain how it makes me feel, but I’ll try. I think humans can cope with a lot of things that are very difficult – being in wars, climbing mountains, raising children as a single parent, whatever the challenge may be.I do think it’s important to take breaks when doing these things, but sometimes taking a break makes the challenge more difficult.You’re climbing up the mountain, eyes on the goal, in the zone, coping with what comes, and all of a sudden someone offers you an ice cream cone and a nap in the shade.After your treat, you wake up and remember where you are – in the middle of climbing a mountain.Crap.Gotta finish climbing this mountain.
Beers and spaghetti with coworkers
Make sense?That was what it was like every single time I came back from hanging out with white people and was plunged back into the French-speaking, yam-paste-eating Togolese world.And it was equally difficult to adjust when I was plunged into the white person world.For example, one night I went out with four Togolese coworkers to a bar after work.We had a hilarious time – sat outside and drank big beers, ate big plates of spaghetti, told big jokes in French and had big laughs.They went home, dropping me off at a wine and cheese bar with white friends.As I walked inside the quiet, expensive wine and cheese bar, I thought, with a little spike of anger, “Why the hell are we pretending we aren’t in Togo?Why are we pretending this wine and cheese and soft music crap is real life??”My friends started making fun of the stupid things that uneducated Togolese people believe.These friends love Togolese people, but they’ve been here long enough to get jaded.So anyway, I was annoyed, but kept my mouth shut and drank wine, and gradually slipped into white-people-mentality, and then I was completely fine.
Leona, the Cutest Child in Togo
Thankfully, I think I’ve found my rhythm here, and come to love both the white people and the Togolese people that I am so lucky to have around me.When I leave the house to see my ex-pat friends, I’m excited to see them.When I get home, I am proud to live with such a wonderful Togolese family and to feel so comfortable with them.It is incredible how much this house and the people in it feel like home.
I got to bring some of my Togolese friends to a party at an American friend’s house last weekend.They had an awesome time, and as we danced and drank and laughed, the black and white merged to form a big, happy, multi-colored, multi-cultural party, and I felt like a wall within me had been painlessly dissolved.
Both sides of my life here in Togo – the black side and the white side – bring out different aspects of me, present different challenges and different opportunities to learn and grow.I think there is at least one time every single day here that I am struck by how incredibly blessed I am – to be here, to be this happy, to have food, clothing, comfort, and to be surrounded by so many wonderful people, both white and black.When this feeling comes, I often look to the clear, blue, palm tree-lined sky and think about the big earth that it surrounds, the places I’ve been and the people I love, and the miracle of everything.
What a wonderful world!
***
I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6, serving three months in Lome, Togo, and three more in Dakar, Senegal.Please check out my current MFI, WAGES, and see all of their fundraising loans here!
In May 2008, Salone Microfinance Trust (SMT) launched an agricultural loan product to clients in the remote farming villages surrounding the city of Kabala, Sierra Leone. The agricultural loan product is designed to stimulate the agribusiness sector. The loan provides subsistence farmers with a capital infusion into their farms for the purpose of increasing their production. Most commonly, the capital is used to purchase seeds, fertilizer and labor. These are the inputs, so to speak. With more inputs, subsequently, there are greater outputs or yields. Increased yields lead to a source of income for a group of people who ordinarily have no little or no income generation.
I recently had the pleasure of visiting 15 of the first SMT agricultural clients in their home villages. The villages have names like Senekedugu, Gbawuria, Heremakono and Karmosalai. All of the farmers I met had similar aspirations in May at the time of their loan disbursement – more inputs to yield more outputs. They have the land to cultivate, but they did not, until May, have the capital. Agricultural grant programs have come and gone over time. SMT’s agricultural loan program was the first of its kind to reach these remote villages. It could not have come at a better time.
Previously, these farmers could only harvest enough food to feed their families. The harvests were not big enough to generate any income. The loans have enabled many of them to generate income and create jobs for laborers looking to work. The program, however, has not come without its challenges.
While their land was ready to produce a bountiful harvest after planting seeds and laying the fertilizer, Mother Nature has not been as accommodating this harvest season. The rain season begins around May and typically lasts throughout October or early November. This year, however, the rains ceased earlier than ever before. The rains were weak and short-lasting. While most of us would prefer to say ‘good riddance’ to rain, these people’s livelihoods depend on rain. They need rain to survive.
Full crops were ruined by the climate change. Cabbage and carrots are the prominent vegetables grown in the villages. I heard case after case of carrots whose growth was stunted or cabbage patches that were ruined. The farmers rely on historical climate patterns to determine their planting and harvest season. They were completely caught off-guard by this phenomenon. The sudden and dramatic change in the normal climate pattern has caused problems amongst many of our agricultural clients. There’s a temptation amongst the farmers to blame it on global warming (yes, this controversial theory has made its way to West Africa), but it’s much too early to tell.
In addition to the climatic issues, Sierra Leone farmers are working with bad seeds. Again, case after case, farmers complained about the quality of the seeds they receive from the capital city of Freetown. The problem is they don’t have any other choice than what they get from Freetown. The seeds are imported from other West African countries, like The Gambia or Senegal. By the time they arrive to the villages, the seeds are no longer viable. The seeds are not germinating properly and can therefore produce no edible food. Bad inputs lead to bad outputs.
While there are many seed programs in Sierra Leone and in other developing countries, the feeling is that they are not affective particularly in the remote villages. Many of them don’t have the financial backing to sustain themselves and reach these far-out destinations. Are there any solutions to bad seeds? How could we possibly control the amount of rain or this global warming trend? There are solutions to these issues and I think they can all be offered on a micro scale by microfinance institutions around the world.
Let’s first consider the importance of agricultural education and training. In response to his client’s problems with managing the harvest calendar during a particularly finicky rain season, SMT’s agricultural loan officer, Mr. Bombeh Conteh, will lead an effort to train his clients on the importance of crop rotation and diversification. For example, starting this coming January, Bombeh will educate his clients on the planting and harvesting of the Irish potato. The Irish potato is a crop that does not require rain, now that we’re in the dry season, and it can be a valuable food item during a period of time when food and commodity trade is usually slow. They’ll have a product that will generate income during a time when income is generally non-existent. He’ll teach them how to take advantage of a specific season and weather pattern. This education will extend into the next rain season, when he will ensure his farmers get out there early to plant their carrots and cabbage.
SMT could also create a seed program tailored to its clients. As a proven, well-managed organization, SMT can obtain higher quality goods than any individual could in Sierra Leone, especially a poor farmer from a remote village. Theoretically, SMT improves the probability that the farmers yield a crop (and thus are able to repay their loans) by selling them the good seeds at the time of their loan disbursement. You are decreasing the risk of crop failure by providing the farmer with better inputs. They’re going to be able to produce more with good seeds! SMT would stand to gain a little from the sale of the seeds, too. If SMT can establish a partnership with a high quality seed provider from anywhere in the world that’s willing to export to Sierra Leone (*hint hint*), then I think we can get this program up-and-running.
SMT also has the ability to create a stable marketplace for the produce grown on their client’s farms. Today, the farmers face dramatic price fluctuations for the foods they harvest. We spoke to several clients who said one week the price they get for a bushel of rice from a buyer in Freetown is 30,000 Leones or $10 USD. Three weeks later the same buyer is buying the bushel of rice for 120,000 Leones or $40 USD. It’s impossible to time this market. The farmers simply hope for the best when they’re at the point when they must sell their goods or their families go hungry and their laborers go without pay. At the same time, holding on to the rice is contributing to the price fluctuations! By restricting the flow of supply to meet the demand, they are inflating or deflating the going-rate for the commodity. It’s a bad cycle.
SMT, or any other microfinance institution with clients in the agricultural sector, can step in as a business enterprise with strong distribution power and provide the farmers with a reliable, steady market for their produce. The client harvests their foods, they bring them to the SMT office, SMT sells them at a fair price from a central location, and SMT gives the money directly to the client. Retail sales would prove to be a lot more reliable and steady than the risks and fluctuations associated with selling their goods wholesale. SMT is considering this marketplace concept today for possible implementation in the future.
Finally, related to the sudden and dramatic decrease in rainfall this past season. There is a new product opportunity that could serve as a partial solution to this problem. Rainfall insurance is a new idea being floated around in international development circles. Think of rainfall insurance as you would any other type of insurance product.
As an example, let’s say SMT is both the agricultural loan provider and the rainfall insurance agent. SMT can collect a small premium out of the agricultural client’s monthly loan repayment, maybe ½ of 1 percent during the dry season. If there is a drought the following rain season and crops fail because of the lack of water, SMT will pay out on the insurance policies to the farmers. The farmers will use the insurance proceeds to pay back their loans in-full, feed their families, pay their laborers and prepare themselves for the next harvest season. Rainfall insurance is protection against the uncontrollable elements handed to us by Mother Nature.
Farmers in third-world countries are the poorest of the poor. The fruits of their labor sustain life and yet they have nothing themselves to show for it. We cannot neglect the farmers. We need to be creative with the products and services offered to the farming poor in the developing countries. The products and services must be tailored to meet their needs. Microfinance institutions are in a unique position where they can offer many of the solutions to their problems. Their ability to offer these solutions underscores the importance of the financial sector in reducing extreme poverty.
Maurice, Alidé’s loan officer, and I ventured into neighborhoods even dirtier and more fly stricken to visit Alide’s clients. On Monday we visited the most intense location ever – the lake country. It reminded me a little of New Orleans. The houses were built on mud and some directly over the lake, the log slats spaced almost wide enough for a foot to fall through. The area was muddy with lots of flies and very poor. We interviewed one of the few male borrowers, Moise Dossa. He was a happy, attractive man wearing robes of flowing colors. In his bare feet, he led us into the church. M translated my French into Fon; and Moise talked about how he had been forced to quit fishing due to a stomach or lung problem(cancer?) and had sold nets and logs with the help of an Alidé loan. He offered me a beer. It looked a little dirty at the edges,but it was impossible to decline. I could feel my stomach bubble suspiciously as I started to drink it. When we went outside, I tried to ditch it, but Moise admonished me in Fon, Maurice in French as if it was a cardinal sin. We took his photo in a pirogue, a small distinctly shaped boat.
Moise Dossa, a Kiva borrower
Time to leave.Most of the village had assembled, and I met the priest. But before we could go, I had to finish my beer. I tried to farm it out, but everyone simply watched me. I finally finished it, and tipsily mounted M’s motorcycle, and we zoomed down the road filled with muddy sad pits and kids yelling YAVO (foreigner) furiously at me as I went by.
Maurice and I entered a house not far from the lake, and were soon blinded by the smoke, which came from fish being grilled over huge black pots. The fish had to be imported due to the lake’s pollution, and the women were cooking hundreds of fish along with the help of at least 15 children who were surrounding the pots helping and staring at me. Flies were pervasive, and the host pulled up three chairs for the borrower, Maurice, and I. At the conclusion of the interview, we needed to show Daniel, one of the borrowers, in the lake at his place of business as opposed to at home. (He had finished fishing early in the morning). The three of us trooped down to the lake, Daniel with his basket, net, and oar, to get on a pirogue. The lakeshore was littered with mountains of trash. Pigs, chickens, goats, and birds scavenged through it. Daniel offered to buy me some bananas by the lakeshore, but I declined as politely as I could. When we went to a café to do his interview, I asked him if he had a problem with fish yields due to pollution, which he seemed to deny. However, a lot of the smoked fish were imported according to M, so either Daniel was in denial or I couldn’t understand his French well enough.
Ayoyoa ADANMITONDE, a Kiva borrower
M and I stopped by a client’s hair salon business where he had an identification verification to follow up. The lady’s husband sat in a chair, she was attaching light blond hair extensions to the hair of a woman sitting in the chair, who was nursing. As M talked, she turned on him all of a sudden, yelling in Fon. I had no idea what was happening, but abruptly M stopped, grabbed my arm, and said, “We’re leaving!”
“Wouldn’t tell me the date of her birthday!” He exclaimed as we got on his moto. “I don’t make the rules, the Microfinance Minister does!”
“Why was she so mad?” I asked.
“Forgot to call to say I was coming,” he said.
“Maurice!!” Her husband was running after us.
“Stop,” I said. Her husband ran up to us, handed over the identity papers.
“I don’t make the rules. . .” stammered Maurice, obviously upset, her husband was agreeing, saying he was sorry.
As we zoomed off on Maurice’s Roughrider moto, I eschewed the American shoulder pat in favor of a crisp French, “ça va?”
We stopped by another hair extension store. “Kiva?” I asked.
“Cherie,” (my darling) he answered happily.
A woman in bright yellow African pagnes (flowing outfit) stepped to the door. Unlike the normal pagne, this one plunged drastically low, and she wore purple lipstick and blue eyeshadow. She gave M beer, but I asked for a Coke, dehydrated as always.
“Do you have one my color?” I said, joking; indicating the hair extensions on the walls, some light but none as light as mine.
“Is she serious?” She asked M. “Does she want to look?”
I shook my head, sipping my Coke.
On Mange (We eat)
Maurice and I sat in the restaurant near his house where he knew everyone. In Benin, lunch breaks last from 12:30 to 3pm. To try to do something during this lunch break is a mistake. The first hour people usually eat, afterwards they sleep. Lights go off in offices, people bust out their sleeping cloths, and Alidé locks their doors.Before being seated, Maurice and I greeted people by shaking hands with a snap at the end. I got some fried igname (like French fries, but harder) and a light doughy pastry with spicy pepper dip. It tasted really good and was 100 CFA; cheap, I thought, and converted it to about 40 US cents. The other day I bought a loaf of bread that I have been eating for dinner and breakfast everyday for the grand total of 1 dollar, so at least I haven’t been spending money on food. Maurice got slippery-looking pate (ground igname flour) and a fish head with spicy pepper sauce.
At the field office
I am sitting in V’s office, Christmas music blasting in French and German. Like the Head Alidé office, this one is furnished with monk-like simplicity – not an extra decoration in sight. It is painted blue, with cardboard boxes holding Alidé’s records, a bulletin board, 2 computers, one fan, a faded yellow and blue shade over the window to keep out the tropical heat. The soaring music of “Ave Maria” makes me feel like I am in a Cathedral instead of this small room. Every morning mostly female borrowers wait in a covered area just outside where trainings are held. There is also a direct entrance to the counter where loans are dispensed at certain times.
I also got to meet some of the groups of borrowers who came to Alidé for consultations.
In the United States, my home country, our motto as of late has been change. I have been working at the Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN) in Ghana for almost two months now, and I am just in time to witness some monumental policy changes of its own that will redefine the way CRAN does business and may even give President-elect Obama a run for his money.
Currently, CRAN has seven different branches in three regions of Ghana. Four of its branches are located near the main office around Cape Coast and Elmina, Ghana, two fishing towns that aren’t rural but aren’t urban either. On top of loaning to people in town, CRAN also lends to many rural communities around Cape Coast. About an hour away, CRAN has two more units running in rural fishing communities. Until June of last year, one of these units didn’t have electricity or computers. The other one still doesn’t. CRAN’s last unit can be found about a six-hour drive away in the Volta Region. Due to this branch’s distance from the head unit where a Kiva Coordinator uploads all the Kiva borrower profiles, none of the clients from that unit can be found on Kiva. This is something that CRAN would like to change sometime in the near future.
At each of the units, there is a manager along with loan officers, each of which has a portfolio of clients that he or she is in charge of. The loan officer is in charge of overseeing the loan and filling out all the paperwork. Since CRAN works only with groups, the loan officer talks everything over with the group’s president, secretary, and treasurer to make sure they know what is going on. The loan officer also visits all of the people at their workplaces to take photos in order to put the borrowers on Kiva. Other employees include the cashier and field officers in charge of collecting both loans and susu savings (a small daily savings).
As CRAN moves forward and attempts to make itself a sustainable financial institution, the employees are changing the way things are currently done to a new and exciting framework. Current groups have ten members or more, but from this month forward CRAN groups will consist of five members. This change is being made because right now many groups are scattered, hard to reach for loan collection, and hard to gather together. The loan officers often only know the president, secretary, and treasurer in a group and must rely on them to find the other members. Some of these groups have multiple family members or an employer and his or her employees comprising the group as well, so from now on group members must have their businesses located in the same area, and must not have any other family members in their group. Sometimes this is the case just because people find it hard to develop a group with at least ten people in order to receive a loan. A group loan is designed so that each of the members guarantees the other members—it is a lot more to take on with ten people.
The other caveat of any group’s membership is that every member must have health insurance. A National Health Insurance Bill that was designed by the governing New Patriotic Party and passed into law in 2003 by the parliament is an insurance plan designed to ensure that Ghanaian residents would have access to basic health care services without paying money at the point of delivery of the service. It has had some criticism, mainly by the opposing party that had implemented a cash-and-carry system. This cash-and-carry system, which was used since 1985 in Ghana, was replaced for various reasons, including a fall in clinic attendance. It required every Ghanaian to pay before receiving clinical care. Since implementing the new scheme in 2004, health care is free for children, pregnant women, and Ghanaians over the age of 70. There are also various plans for everyone else, costing as little as a few dollars and lasting for one-year increments. Because health care makes such a big difference in people’s ability to work, CRAN has decided that insurance is a must. Many Ghanaians get sick with illnesses such as malaria—a disease that can keep them from the workplace for a few days if treated but can even be deadly if untreated. This is, to make it economical, bad for business. A Ghanaian who can’t work can’t make money and needs to rely on help from others to sustain a business and a family. Health insurance will ensure that all Ghanaians who work with CRAN have access to the health care they need to be healthy.
Now, taking out a loan from CRAN is more than just taking out a loan. It is a commitment on the part of the borrowers that they will attend a pre-loan training that involves an introduction to CRAN and the loan disbursement. After receiving the loan, the borrowers attend a monthly training. It is not just one group of borrowers that meet, but many—totaling around 75 people, making it less of a time burden on loan officers to meet with their groups. During these trainings, they will make their monthly loan payments and also receive various lectures on topics such as health, fire safety, and money management. Near the end of the loan period, one of the trainings is dedicated to Kiva journals—ensuring that almost all of CRAN’s Kiva participants from this point on will have a journal. This will not only be a wonderful thing for Kiva lenders, it will also be great in terms of social performance. CRAN will have an opportunity to keep track of the people it loans to and the social progress that the loans make in their lives, which may also help CRAN to modify loans to make them better for the borrowers.
One of the biggest problems currently facing CRAN is high loan deferment rates—incidences where borrowers don’t pay back on time or at all. This new format will attempt to address this problem and will hopefully ensure that field officers aren’t constantly chasing down the people who need to pay—a waste of time, energy, fuel, and money for the organization. This new format—where attendance is close to mandatory in order to get a second loan later on—gathers the group on a monthly basis and gives the loan officer a perfect opportunity to collect the loan repayment.
One of the greatest strengths to this new system is budgetary. CRAN believes it will help the organization cut costs, which is imperative in CRAN’s long-term plan because it is a non-profit organization that runs off of loans. Any money loaned out to borrowers that isn’t from Kiva comes from loans from larger banks. Thus CRAN has interest of its own to pay, and when the borrowers don’t pay back, it negatively affects CRAN and how many other borrowers it can help.
My one big question as I have been introduced to this new system, which has been implemented at one of the units this month, is what will it do for the borrowers? I agree that it is best for the organization as it will hopefully lead to financial stability. However, in terms of borrowers, the recipients will be poor but probably not the poorest businesses in the area. The poorest people won’t be able to pay for health insurance and a susu savings (a small daily savings that is another new requirement of CRAN’s borrowers—so if borrowers don’t pay back CRAN will already have some money to take the repayment from).Thus, poor people will be helped, but some of the poorest won’t have the opportunity to develop their businesses through CRAN.
I do believe that this new system, especially the training, gives CRAN the opportunity to make an expanded social impact in the lives of its borrowers. And then once it is financially secure, it will be able to offer services designed for even poorer borrowers to help them develop their businesses.
This new system will involve a lot of change—from the organizational structure to what is expected of the borrowers, change in policy is revolutionizing almost every aspect of CRAN. These changes are being made in order to address and combat all of CRAN’s weaknesses as an organization and to put CRAN in a position to meet all of its future goals. While I am sure new challenges will arise with the new system, CRAN is working hard and intelligently to become a stronger organization.
ELECTION UPDATE: Ghana just had its presidential elections, which were very peaceful and well-run. Every other commercial on television the day of the elections (December 7) was about peace in Ghana. The country was praised by its African neighbors for doing so well. However, there will be a run-off taking place between the top two candidates on December 28. I will post an update following that in regards to the elections and whether Ghana is able to maintain peace.
Mrs. Rosario Roca runs a bodega in the front of her house on a quiet street in Comas, a northern suburb of Lima, Peru.After giving an EDAPROSPO loan officer and I Inka Colas (a yellow soda with the taste of bubble-gum, widely considered the national drink of Peru [nonalcoholic, the alcoholic distinction belongs to the Pisco Sour]), Mrs. Roca gave us a snapshot of what it meant to be a small business owner and resident of her neighborhood in Comas.The hospitality gave it away.
She has spent four years receiving loans from EDAPROSPO and this was her first loan financed by Kiva lenders.To receive loans from EDAPROSPO, a person normally forms a group of neighbors and entrepreneurs who become a ‘banquito’ (little bank).From this position, EDAPROSPO lends a large amount to the group, split among the members according to their requests (which is the amount you lent), and the group members then cross-guarantee each other’s loans.This approach to microfinance, stemming back to Muhammed Yunus’ approach in Bangladesh in the 1970s with his Grameen Bank, has the effect of building or, at the minimum, reinforcing trust among a small community of neighbors.Mrs. Roca thrives in this atmosphere of trust and is known as a prompt (and sometimes early!) payer of her debts.While most communities could stand a little boost of the interpersonal trust that ‘banquitos’ give, in Mrs. Roca’s case, it seems more like a natural extension of what the community already does.
On the lefthand side of the front counter of her bodega, Rosario keeps a handwritten ledger of credits that she extends to her neighbors who frequent her store.She says that she has always let her clients pay her when they could; in theory this means that a person will build a tab of 20 or even 50 soles and then pay her in a lump sum when they get a paycheck or have enough money.More often, however, her system of credit has led to very late repayments or none at all; time accumulates, people move out of the area and she is left with having to eat the debt that she extended in trust.The picture, though, is not as bleak as that anecdote makes it out to be.Next to her ledger of customer debts and credits is another sheet with handwritten names and figures.This sheet is a community chest that helps neighbors when a family member gets ill and racks up a hefty medical bill or is kept from work for an extended period of time due to illness.13 years ago, her husband had a serious injury and her neighbors collected money, each what they were able, and helped them pay for the medical expenses.Now, a neighbor has been bedridden and she is returning the favor; a finely woven web of trust has been spun in terms of medical insurance, without any outside organization acting as an impetus.
Her store, despite the frequent occurrence of ‘eating’ bad debt, continues to make a profit.She uses the profits to re-invest in the store, slowly building her stock of available goods for sale.Her stock of capital has grown to the point that she is considering expanding her store.Rosario’s husband, recently retired, is slowly learning the trade his wife has been perfecting over the past 25 years.He laughs often, still has trouble finding some snacks in the shop, supports his wife in her many endeavors, and seems to enjoy his new role as the helpmate to his wife, the boss.Rosario does not just run a bodega though; she also cooks lunches on request (and there are plenty of requests) and Sundays makes soup.On the weekends and holidays, she cooks hundreds of tamales that her neighbors, passer-bys, and relatives clamor for; she has even been asked to cater for several weddings (which take 200+ tamales).With her husband now available to help run the store, Mrs. Roca is likely to expand in her burgeoning food sales network.For the upcoming Christmas season, Rosario is stocking up on panetones (Peruvian fruitcake), milk, and sugar.She has timed her next loan from EDAPROSPO well so she will get the full dispersal a month before Christmas to temporarily boost her capital for the busy season (she wanted to do this last year, but her group needed experience [in the form of regret] rather than foresight to agree to pay their loans off early to start a new cycle in December rather than February like usual).
The community bond of trust is undoubtedly strengthened in the formal setting of microfinance.However, in Rosario’s case, the bonds existed before the ‘banquito’ even started.Six years ago, an event that could have easily broken the virtuous circle of trust occurred.Rosario had been running low on supplies and needed to go to a discount superstore to stock up on new items.With 1000 soles on hand, she went to a place about thirty minutes away by taxi to buy items for her store.After she had collected all the merchandise she needed in several large bags, she hailed a cab.The cab arrived, she filled it with all of her goods (her store was basically empty so the items she’d bought represented all the capital she had accumulated over many years), and they drove back to her street.The cab driver suggested he back up to her store so she could more easily unload the heavy bags of merchandise.After doing so, she stepped out of the cab and walked around to the trunk to begin unloading her goods.The cab driver then hit the gas and swerved out of the street and neighborhood with a thousand soles worth of merchandise, never to be seen again.When everything is taken, something is returned.Mrs. Roca was financially ruined; the bodega she had been building up for many years- gone – in a blink of an eye.But then something inspiring happened.Her neighbors, not wealthy people themselves, decided to hold an event in the street.With their get-together, they raised enough money to replace everything that had been stolen.
Now I am a believer in the institutional role that microfinance can play in building trust among people; you extended trust to Mrs. Rosario Roca by lending her your money, she built upon your trust by repaying you promptly and in full.The institutional underpinnings of microfinance are rooted in someone taking an initial risk of lending to a person who has no collateral and having that risk met and exceeded (in relation to the rate of their richer brethren) by prompt repayments by the poor.If that trust is not met, then it is very likely that the poor entrepreneur will never get another chance to get access to credit.What I love about Mrs. Rosario Roca’s story is the reminder that trust is not confined to formal relationships.The extension of credit may be taken away but you cannot take away your neighbors.Mrs. Roca’s neighborhood is a cauldron of trust, one where people look out for each other in sickness, in theft, and in poverty.Microfinance offers a path out of poverty by allowing trust to swirl through the field of financial services and into an accumulation of physical capital based on formal relationships.What Mrs. Rosario Roca’s neighborhood offers is a path out of isolation by allowing trust to swirl through individual traumas and tribulations and into an accumulation of social capital based on the necessarily informal relationships of love.
Blue eyeshadow, I love the way you match the shirt and the shoes just so. And I love how you pay no mind to that tired faux pas rule cuz you look damn good and you know it, too!
Gorgeous sunsets, you’re the best. How do you do it? Is that what the afternoon rainstorms are for? To set the stage – everyday without fail – with clouds to hang a gorgeous golden, purple, and rose sunset – a Michaelangelo sky.
“People of the Jungle” – is that what you call yourselves? Well, that I love – it reminds me of Tarzan. And you do love that platano, I’ve noticed. But above all I love your iambs and your dactyls – yes y’all, i had to look up my metric feet (poetry not centimeters) to find those words, but you don’t have to. Just imagine a linguistic lovechild of Italian, Shakespearean iambic pentameter, and maybe also a dramatic telenovela actress. That’s what you sound like: sing-songy delicious. “VA-moose haa-CER una CO-zaa” Le *sigh*, I swoon when you talk to me.
Two hour lunches, you are perfect. You are the exact amount of time needed for a little stroll, a lolly-gagging lunch, and then that sweet, sweet heat-induced nap with the fan set just so it lulls me to sleep. And still – you’re so good to me – you fit in that extra fifteen minutes at the end to get up, shake it off and squeeze in an ice cream cone during the brisk walk back to the office.
And, oooooh Socias of Manuela Ramos- you’re so generous and so affectionate. You make me feel at home and I knew from the first day that I’m the most lucky and most rapidly fattening girl in the world. You guys bestow more honors and food on me than I deserve. The chocolate demonstrations complete with tastings! The juanes – leafy packets stuffed with rice and chicken and olives – that stuff me in turn! When I visit your fruit stand you ask me if I’ve ever tried the juice of the “fill in the blank” (camu camu? cocoma? aguaje? guayabana? maracuya?) and when I say no you’ve produced a brimming glass for me to gulp down. You even help me up and sponge off my backside with a washcloth when I fell today in the mud in front of your house! You even give me a ring with your initials for me to remember you by! I feel sheepish when you applaud my introduction in meetings and when you serve me the first slice of birthday cake before the birthday socia. But I hope you know how much I appreciate and am flattered to meet you. That it’s nothing of consequence to be from America, which you say it is, but I think it’s far more impressive to have three businesses, five kids, and still enough time and courtesy to accompany me to my next stop in the road. Plus you got that blue eyeshadow thing going on, so you know I have a thing for you!
And my darling, scalding hot sun. You want to beat it out of me, but I refuse to keep loving you! I’ve been waiting for you through three constant years of San Francisco “fall”. If I’m going to give up seasons it’s going to be here with you, Sun! You start the sweats right out the shower and you remind me of swampy summers in DC and North Carolina. You’ve browned me out, and thank God because I thought I was fading to a forever yellow beneath the San Francisco fog! I don’t care if the weather channel says it’s “88, but it feels like 97″ for as long as I’m here I’m stepping out in the sunshine! Just don’t judge me when I walk in the shade.
And last but not least, Pucallpa… What is it about you? I swear you remind me of my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. Is it the red mud and the green grass and the quiet streets? And then sometimes I think I’m in West Africa or Thailand, though well, I don’t know what either is like – but it’s the swirling dust and then the sudden crazy storms and then even crazier swarms of mototaxis (which are basically motorized rickshaws) that infest the streets. I want to take a walk next week through your night markets with your random mix of animals: guinea pigs from the sierras, thousands of chickens, and the poor turtle-soup-doomed turtle that they don’t bother to chase when he lumbers away at his useless pace. You’re filled with evangelical missions and Catholic churches. And lunch and dinner are served outside under the sky. There’s just enough of you to have some nice music and bars and you’re just small enough to still retain a star-ful sky…. Just quit with the moths/cockroaches/mosquitos, eh?
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Hi, my name is Jenny Ballen and I am currently completing my ninth week as a Kiva fellow for Manuela Ramos in Peru. Check out my personal blog and experiences from the fellowship and Peru here.
I first went to Belimbingsari Village for a funeral. The father of two of DINARI Foundation’s staff, Gede Mustika and his sister Yulia, had suffered a stroke and died shortly thereafter. A rented van transported the staff from DINARI’s headquarters, and the mood seemed surprisingly cheerful during the three-hour trip to West Bali. I was reminded of school field trips as people passed around puffed-corn snacks and jokingly reclined their seats into their neighbors’ laps.
At the Christian service, Gede Mustika and Yulia wore white shirts, colorful sarongs and kains, sashes tied at the waist. At times, Yulia wept silently, but Gede Mustika remained solemn and composed. DINARI’s staff referred to him as Pak Gede, a title of respect given when he became manager of DINARI’s branch office in Melaya, the town just south of Belimbingsari.
Pak Gede and Yulia grew up in Belimbingsari, as had three quarters of DINARI’s staff. For many, the funeral trip had been a homecoming.
Pak Gede at his father's burial
Belimbingsari is the only exclusively Christian village in Bali. A narrow paved street runs through the community with dirt roads branching off of it. The three hundred inhabitants live in small, well-maintained houses with close-cropped grass lawns in front. The homes are separated by groves of tall coconut trees. People’s dogs roam the street and lie listlessly on the warm asphalt. Seventy years ago, Belimbingsari was a jungle.
In 1939, the Hindu majority in Bali’s capital of Denpasar banished newly converted Christians to the remote wilderness of West Bali. I was told that tigers inhabited the jungle, and it was assumed that the exiles would not survive.
Fifty people settled in Belimbingsari. They cut down trees to make roads and farmland, and they harvested coconuts. They built homes, and the tigers did not attack.
Their children inherited the land and prospered, becoming successful farmers and opening hotels and other businesses around Melaya. This second generation could afford to send their children, including many of DINARI’s staff, to universities in Denpasar and Jakarta. Pak Alit, DINARI’s executive director, told me that his father sent him and all his siblings to university with the income from selling coconuts.
Pak Alit did not return to Belimbingsari after earning his degree as an agricultural engineer. He settled outside of Denpasar where DINARI was founded in 1992. Seven years later, he hired four new employees, including Pak Gede, and opened the Melaya branch to begin offering agricultural loans and technical training to cow and pig breeders.
Before joining DINARI, Pak Gede and many others from Belimbingsari had worked in the tourism industry. Several lost their jobs after the 2002 bombings. Zeruya, now one of the supervisors for DINARI’s loan officers, sold crackers to food stalls from his motorbike before Pak Gede offered him a job in 2005. DINARI’s work in West Bali steadily increased, and the staff grew to twenty as the client base ballooned into the thousands.
Zeruya told me it had been difficult for him when he left his village previously to find work. He was happy to again be close to his parents, and he thought Belimbingsari was a good place to raise his two daughters.
“They can run everywhere,” he said. “Not like in Denpasar.”
But there is no university in Melaya, and he expects his children will obtain their higher education in Bali’s capital.
“There is no choice,” he said.
A portable pig
Nearly two months after the funeral, I returned to West Bali to interview DINARI’s clients. In Belimbingsari, I stayed in the guesthouse at DINARI’s Business Development Services Center, where clients received training about animal husbandry and furniture making.
I ate my dinner in Melaya as there were no food stalls in Belimbingsari, and one night I chatted with the couple who ran a restaurant. The husband had grown up in Belimbingsari and initially opened his establishment in the village, but he moved to Melaya to attract more customers.
“There are only old people living there,” he said. “And dogs.” He laughed. “Watch out for the dogs!”
Many of DINARI’s staff in Melaya asked me if I minded staying alone in the guesthouse. Zeruya teased me that he saw strangers lurking there. To me, Belimbingsari felt a bit like a retirement community, but people spoke about it as if it were a ghost town.
I told everyone, sincerely, that I really liked Belimbingsari. The pace was slower. With no other motorbikes in sight, I found myself singing Walking in Memphis during my morning commute. People smiled and waved to me from their lawns. At the guesthouse, mango trees bore fruit as big as footballs. A convenience store owner delighted when I told her my name was Lander,not landung, the Balinese word for “tall.” She invited me to stay at her house for my (theoretical) honeymoon.
The road in Belimbingsari
I admittedly did get a little spooked driving back at night. The coconut trees loomed over the road and threw big shadows from the street lights, making me feel like I was in tiger territory. My chest tightened as I passed under the imposing gate being built at the village entrance.
The new gate
According to Zeruya, all Balinese villages with sufficient funds erected gates to welcome visitors. But this gate appeared to have been lifted from a medieval fortress.In 2000, when riots on the nearby island of Lombok targeted Chinese-Christians, a mob of Muslims gathered outside Belimbingsari, threatening to attack the community. A rice farmer from the village cut down trees to make a blockade near the location of the gate. He then crouched behind another felled log further back, a hundred Molotov cocktails at the ready.
Although Islam is a minority religion in Bali, half of Melaya’s population practiced it. Most came from the island of Java hoping to find work. They boarded ferries and crossed the narrow Bali Strait to the port of Gilimanuk, fifteen kilometers northwest of Melaya. According to the rice farmer, some Muslims resented Christians for their business successes.
The mob at the gate eventually dispersed after Hindus came to protect the villagers. Despite Belimbingsari’s origin, I was told that Hindi people and Christians were now on good terms.
Many of DINARI’s clients were Muslim. They chatted amicably with Zeruya and the other staff members and did not appear resentful in any way. One store owner did seem bitter, but her animosity was directed at her estranged husband, not DINARI. The man had run off with another woman and Rp. 10 million from a government bank loan.
I asked this store owner and other clients about their dreams for the future. When I had posed the same question to borrowers from Denpasar, many of whom were also Muslim, they told me they hoped to move back to Java where they had family and owned land and homes.
The clients in Melaya hesitated at first to answer, but when Zeruya persisted, they responded that they wanted to improve their living situation. If they rented, they hoped to buy a house. If they were already home owners, they wanted to renovate the kitchen, tile the floor or plaster the walls. They had no intention of leaving Bali.
Recently, DINARI entered a partnership with the Indonesian branch of Habitat for Humanity. The two organizations set the ambitious goal of constructing five thousand homes in West Bali over the next five years.
A mockup of the "Growing Home" project
The project is called Rumah Tumbuh, or “Growing Home.” Habitat for Humanity provides no-interest loans to DINARI, which then offers construction financing to existing clients. Initially, borrowers in a community each receive Rp. three million ($250). Using local materials, the people help each other to build “core homes” approximately thirty square meters in size and new outhouses. If a homeowner saves money in the future and qualifies for additional loans, he or she can build out additional rooms. It is hoped that each home will “grow” to 108 square meters, at which point the house can connect to the bathroom.
A core home
As DINARI helped its clients around Melaya put down roots in their communities, I wondered about the future of Belimbingsari. Zeruya did not seem overly concerned. Many of the staff already owned land in the village and planned to retire there. I was told that the place got hopping during Easter and Christmas, and I was invited to come back for the Christmas Day service.
I plan to tour Bali by motorbike for a few weeks after my Kiva tenure, and hopefully I can plan my route to be in West Bali on Christmas Day. If I arrive the night before and no one is stirring, I plan to gun my Yamahawg under the new gate until the engine growls like a big cat.
Ferdinand, DINARI’s Kiva coordinator and my friend and shepherd in Bali
This is my last post as an active Kiva Fellow. Writing about my experiences has proven one of the most rewarding and enjoyable aspects of my tenure, and I am sincerely grateful to those of you who have read my posts and offered such thoughtful comments. My future is presently unsettled, but I hope that I can continue to have world adventures, find inspiring stories and share them with people like you.I encourage you one more time to watch for new loans from the DINARI Foundation: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=82&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_tpg=fb
I’m floored by the magical connections we can make through technology. Some people say technology is flattening the world, shrinking the space, and homogenizing our cultures. I appreciate the argument, and do see that the internet is a democratic space, which in a sense, flattens our difference. And yes, technology can shrink space. But the idea for me, that technology robs us of our diversity is ludicrous. Rather, technology, and the Internet above all, bring voices to parts of the world that have never had a voice, technology paints our differences in bright, beautiful colors.
On Friday I had the wonderful opportunity to hear some unique voices. I traveled to Prisma’s field offices in Choluteca and San Lorenzo to deliver a presentation about Kiva to new loan officers. I met some Prisma clients who where trying to gather in the Prisma San Lorenzo office to get their picture taken for the profile on the Kiva website.
This is a group of five women who are trying to get a group loan to improve their respective businesses. I had the fortune to meet three. Maria and Carolina, sell shrimp that they buy from local fisherman. They sell each shrimp for 3 Lempira (about 16 cents). Sarah, sells jewelry ranging from 100 Lempira to 140 Lempira ($5.25- $7.50). They take their wares on the road. These women travel to different pueblos in Southern Honduras bringing their items to small communities who can’t bear the cost, or choose not to travel to the fisherman, or to Tegucigalpa where imitation gold earrings are readily available.
“Show her the earings”
These women were AMAZED to hear that people around the world would see the picture they were about to take. Unfortunately, not all five members of the group could show up, so after three hours of waiting, they left. They will try to meet again next week so they have their picture taken, and be eligible for a Kiva funded loan.
As they left, the asked to take a picture of me with their cell phone. They said, “they would send it to the internet people.”
***I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6, serving three months in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and three more in La Paz, Boliva. Please check out my current MFI, Prisma Hoduras, SA , and see all of their fundraising loans here!***
I had been looking forward to going to the southern city of Mbeya even before I arrived in Tanzania.Mbeya is known for it’s cooler climate and lush vegetation.So when it turned out that SELFINA had branches in Mbeya and the surrounding areas and that journaling needed to implemented in those branches I enthusiastically bought my ticket for a 12 hour bus ride that would take me there.
The first few days were great!I was teaching them how to conduct, write and post journals and everything was rolling according to plan.Then, one morning I woke up with a mind splitting headache, severe eye pain, and flashes of fever and chills.I had no idea what was wrong with me.I honestly thought it was from being surrounded by electronic devices too much.I was thinking to myself, I should have listened to my mother and not have sat at so close to the tv screen all those year, should have taken more breaks to rest my eyes at work, etc.The pain was so severe that I broke down in tears just climbing the stairs to my room …
But as I had no idea what was wrong with me, I proceeded to go to work like it was any other day.I had mentioned to a couple of people at the office I had a huge headache but did not make a big deal about it.I proceeded with my day and taught one of the branch managers from a nearby region the process of conducting journal surveys.After completing the training I had to excuse myself, as the pain was too much bear.I had contacted some friends who advised me that it may be malaria, which I thought would be impossible for me to get as I was taking anti-malarial dugs and spraying myself with deet every day.I found myself walking to a nearby dispensary down the road from where I was staying to get tested for malaria, in my mind, to cross that off the list of things I did not have.
In the front was a pharmacy and they escorted me to a room in the back where there was a doctor sitting at a desk in a bare off-white room texting on his phone.I sat down next to him and told him my symptoms, he took my blood pressure, and he advised me it was probably malaria, however, they would need to test my blood to confirm.I thought that was a very good sign and a vote for confidence for this place.He then proceeded to inform me that the blood test would not be performed until later that evening or the next day as there was no electricity to run the test.Mbeya and the surrounding region was in its second week of no electricity due to a transformer room blowing up at the one and only electricity provider in the country (in the SELFINA Mbeya office, we were lucky to have a generator to use during the day).
As I have no medical background, I of course had my concerns.I probably asked this man 50 times in 50 different ways if my blood specimen would last that long without refrigeration.He reassured me several times that it would be okay and just as they were about to draw blood, the Mbeya SELFINA branch manager, Mr. Kibassa, a bear of a man, barges through the door and tells them to stop.
He apparently learned I went home after not feeling well and went to check up on me at the place I was staying where they informed I had come here to be tested.He basically whisked me away and we arrived at this other clinic, one that happens to have a SELFINA client running the pharmacy, but more importantly to me at the time, solar panels which enable them to run my test now.I go into the cluttered office of the doctor, describe my symptoms again, get my blood pressure taken again, and get sent to a lab of sorts where they try to distract me as they draw my blood (I get quite queasy with needles).30 minutes later, malaria positive test results in one hand and malaria fighting medicine in the other hand, I leave the clinic happy to know my illness isn’t from an overdose of staring at screens all of my life but something supposedly curable in 3 days.
I wish I could tell you that it was a painless and speedy recovery in 3 days, but it hasn’t been.I still have pain in my head and eye a week later.But I’m trying to take it as easy as possible and think of the positive side of things such as now I can relate a bit more with people here, most of whom have had malaria at least once in their life.
Note:I later learned that the incubation period is about 14 days, so I must have been bitten when I was back in Dar es Salaam
Rebeca walks into the SELFINA Mbeya branch with an air and a flair that is hard to describe.She is here to make one of her monthly repayments.As this is her third loan, so she knows the routine quite well.
As she settles herself into the chair and rewraps herself in her colorful khangas (traditional Tanzanian cloth with bold and vibrant colors and patterns) we explain that we are would like to spend a few minutes learning how her loans have impacted her life.
At SELFINA there are a total of 20 questions in total in which we ask every client when we journal, ranging from how much was your loan, to what are your future dreams for your family, to what are your recommendations for SELFINA.Each journal we conduct lasts about 30 minutes as we take the time to verify the information with the clients file and try to get to know a bit more about these clients.
When we reached to the question, are you married?She said, “nope, single!”As I too am single I give her a high-five!We exchanged a bunch of laughter and she then informed me that she is actually getting married soon and invited me to wedding.
But it wasn’t her being single that I decided to write about her (although her being 36 and still single is something that is a bit out of the Tanzania norm), it was about her story, her entrepreneurship that touched me.
Rebeca had first heard about SELFINA in the market place a few years back and she had encouraged her friends to go and take out a loan.After 5 of her friends successfully took out loans, she decided it was now her turn.Rebeca used her first loan to pay for classes on how to make cakes.Prior to the loan she knew how to make a standard type of cake, but nothing special.After, she knew how to make a wide variety of cakes, how to decorate them, and how to market them.Her cake business took off!
But was Rebeca satisfied with just making cakes for the rest of her life?Nope.She took the extra profits she earned and sent herself to nursing school.Now her future plan, after her wedding festivities are over, is to open a pharmacy where she can apply her newly gained knowledge yet again to another business.I am sure this business will do at least as equally as well and I’m interested into what she’ll use her pharmacy profits for.The sky is really the limit for Rebeca.
But what about her cake business you may ask?She plans on hiring employees and teaching them how to run that business.Rebeca is someone to keep your eye on.She’s definite a mover and a shaker.
Part of my job as a Kiva Fellow in Managua, Nicaragua is to facilitate connections between Kiva lenders and the borrowers. A couple of weeks ago, I had a unique opportunity to participate in a TIME Magazine interview of an enthusiastic Kiva entrepreneur, Freddy Antonio Castillo Luna.
Freddy in his bakery
Kiva lender and journalist Joel Stein had been in contact with Fiona Ramsey, Public Relations Director at Kiva, in attempts to coordinate an interview between him and a Kiva entrepreneur he had supported. Seemingly inspired by the cupcake mania in the US these days, Joel chose to interview baker Freddy.
Freddy runs Little Mango Bakery out of his home in the Libertad neighborhood on the outskirts of Managua, a business he started 14 years ago. He received his Kiva loan to purchase basic ingredients for his baked goods through Afodenic.
I went to meet Freddy with Lismary Chacón, Managua branch manager, and Yader Videa Lezama, Freddy’s loan officer of Afodenic. The first 20 minutes of the drive is on decent city streets, while the last 20 are quite the opposite – dirt roads with giant potholes that really put the 4×4 capacity to good use. This is quite normal in Nicaragua, as no roads are really just mediocre – they are either smooth going or rough riding.
We arrive at Freddy´s home, which is one of many side-by-side small constructions bordering a narrow, steep, pothole-ridden road. Freddy greets us with a warm smile and introduces us to his wife and three children. I am thrilled to see that Freddy smiles, often, unlike what his original profile picture would lead me to believe.
Freddy gives us the bakery tour, all housed in his backyard, featuring a large oven, a machine to flatten the dough, scales, ingredients, and towers of trays of freshly prepared doughy sweets, ready for baking.
I explain to Freddy that Joel has supported his business through a Kiva loan, and that he is a journalist known for his wry humor. Well, I hope that’s what I said, as conveying the nuances of journalistic prowess is not so easy in a second language.
Lismary and Yader from AFODENIC, waiting with Freddy in his living room
We settle in, and.. we wait. The four-way conference call finally comes, with Giovanna Masci, Microfinance Partnerships Manager for the Americas, and Fiona in San Francisco, Joel in New York, and Freddy, Lismary, Yader and me in Nicaragua. I am careful to tilt my head just so to maintain 2 service bars on my cellphone.
I understood that my function in the interview was not only to serve as a translator between Joel and Freddy, but also to be a cultural filter. I think anyone who speaks two languages would agree that this is the most delicate aspect of translation – one with which I do not have a large amount of experience.
But we jumped right in, with Joel’s first proposition – to change the name of Freddy’s business to Joel and Freddy’s Extreme Cupcakes. Whew, how does one convey the American marketing sense of extreme, not to mention the cupcake craze sweeping the nation – two cultural touchstones that don’t exactly translate in the land where cajetas reign supreme and most small businesses don’t have a name, much less a marketing strategy?
Freddy and me on conference call
The cellular musical chairs went as such – Joel would ask me a question for Freddy, which I would translate while holding the phone to my ear. I would then pass the cellphone to Freddy, which he would hold to his ear while responding to me. He would then pass the cellphone back to me, and I would translate what he had said, and Giovanna would chime in with translation clarifications.
Cupcakes became ‘tiny round cakes’. Oprah became Cristina. Chai tea and red velvet flavors became ‘taste of India’ and ‘cherry chocolate’. Joel proposed a price of $4 per cupcake, while Freddy thought that, yes, a new product to the market should cost more than typical products, but $.80 would be much more reasonable for his customers.
Joel’s approach to the interview was to play the part of an overzealous Kiva lender, eager to involve himself in Freddy’s business as a return on his investment. Considering this was the first contact Freddy had ever had, in any way, with a Kiva lender, it was a real struggle to find the words to translate Joel’s questions correctly, without misleading Freddy as to his intentions, and those of Kiva.
Joel asked for a general estimate of what Freddy needed to improve his business to prepare for cupcake creation, so that he could approach Sprinkles in Los Angeles about a possible investment. Freddy hopped up and led me back to the bakery, where he showed me missing wooden panels and holes in the tin walls, the incomplete roof and dirt floors. As he looked around, I could see Freddy imagining what a partnership with an investor from the US could do for his business. I was sensitive to Freddy’s emotions in this moment, sincerely hoping something might come of Joel’s offer.
With a hearty round of thanks and a sampling of the yummy pico tostado, we finished. I felt my shoulders finally ease, realizing I had been tense with nerves and excitement throughout the two hour visit. I can only imagine how Freddy must have felt, becoming Kiva’s star in Time Magazine through a cellphone interview, hot potato style.
Joel did contact Sprinkles, who offered to donate $750 towards the repair of Freddy’s roof, along with their strawberry cupcake recipe. The reality of putting this generous offer to use involves many changes to the Little Mango Bakery – purchasing a refrigerator and dairy products, selling only to stores who have refrigeration, toying with the open-flame wood stove to successfully produce a moist cupcake, not to mention finding a cupcake tin itself!
Freddy’s story has served as an example of what I believe about loans versus donations. Loans allow entrepreneurs to identify what they need to succeed, and attain it in small, well-planned steps, while donations can arrive on your doorstep without a real path towards utilizing them. Microfinance is sustainable because it allows the entrepreneur to achieve their goals in the way they see fit in a timely manner.
Having already enjoyed Freddy’s sumptuous baked goods, I look forward to giving his version of a cupcake a try – though, the only strawberries I’ve seen in Nicaragua are imported. I bet Oprah and Cristina would both give a passion fruit cupcake a try.
On November 27-29 ANK held a training seminar for approximately 25 of its borrowers in the Kayole section of Nairobi. Kayole is on the outskirts, about 30 minutes from the city center.
The borrowers were mostly women, and they showed up a little apprehensive as to what they would be doing at the training. None of them have gone through any kind of formal training before and most have them never went to college; some had finished high school.
I was very happy to see that ANK was doing this kind of training. I have long wondered about this gap in microfinance: what good is it to loan people money who have little experience handling it? Most clients just seem to fall into a business and they learn as they go – wouldn’t a little training help them avoid costly mistakes?
I think, I hope, that this training helped the borrowers think through some issues that they had not considered before.
For example, almost no one kept any financial records. Everyone had an idea of what they earn, what they spend, etc… but no one could say for sure, and any kind of monthly or weekly analysis was out of the question.
For this reason, ANK brought in a CPA/business consultant to walk the borrowers through record-keeping processes, strategic planning, marketing ideas and other problems/issues that they may face. This was incredibly helpful for the borrowers, as they have never heard this information before, and without formal training, most of the ideas really never crossed their minds. Many of them told me that they live and plan day-to-day; this is a function of their environment, but also hurts their businesses, as they are frequently out of one product or another, and clients must look elsewhere.
After the training, clients seemed like they would prepare themselves; they would plan ahead, check on prices earlier, keep better track of their inventory and try to save a higher percentage of their profits.
I found one expense particularly interesting: cell phone use. In Kenya, cell phone credit is bought as needed. Phones are cheap and thus penetrate fairly well down-market, reaching even the working poor. Credit can then be bought for as little as 60 cents at a time (a call costs about 5 cents/minute).
I asked the borrowers if they kept track of their cell phone costs on a day to day basis. No one did. Most of them estimated that they spend about $2 every day on calls. I then asked them how much this adds up to per month, per year and then asked them what they could save over 5 years. They were shocked. I have a feeling that most of them have never planned that far ahead and never considered how a small cost like that could add up.
Kenyans are a chatty bunch. Friendly, convivial, and easygoing, cell phones seem like a natural fit for them. Many people even have 2 phones or 2 SIM cards, in order to talk to their friends who may be with a different subscriber, thus making it cheaper per call, per minute. Young Kenyans are as attached to their phones as any young American.
There have been many studies written about cell phone use in developing countries coinciding with a rise in GDP, or studies about how the working poor can use cell phones to find better markets for their products, or how consumers can find better prices through cell phone use. (A famous example of these studies is from the London School of Economics, examining cell phone use by the fishermen of the southwest Indian state of Kerela).
While these studies and their statistics may be true, cell phones, in the case of these particular borrowers, seemed more like a drain that the borrowers were underestimating or simply not acknowledging. After I posed my questions to the group we had a tea break and many of the borrowers pledged to me that they will from now on keep track of their cell phone costs and that they couldn’t believe how much it was really costing them.
Other than that, ANK brought in the KRA (the Kenyan IRS) to talk to the borrowers about taxes and other fees they must pay for their business. Stories abounded of borrowers having their businesses shut down because they were not registered, or they were not paying their taxes correctly and even of conmen posing as tax collectors coming to the business owners, flashing a fake credential and intimidating them into handing over some cash (and then walking off with it, obviously).
After the three days, the borrowers were excited about their prospects. They felt that they would now earn more simply by being more efficient and keeping better records. Some were excited, as they thought of new ways to expand their business without incurring too much more overhead.
Most of all, there was a feeling of optimism after the training. The borrowers felt that they could look ahead to better days. The post-election violence is becoming more of a memory every day, and by taking charge of their own business and running it more efficiently, the need for a loan might, one day, disappear altogether.
As many of you Kiva lenders have noticed, Kiva recently upgraded the administration system that Field Partners use to post businesses and report repayments. The partner administration system, aka PA2, is where Field Partners post businesses onto Kiva and report on the status of each loan. This was a major redesign of the site and it has brought a bunch of great new features that benefit both lenders and Field Partners. For those of you who haven’t been reading all of my posts (shame on you!) I am a fellow at AMK and HKL, and I’ve also been working closely with the other two Cambodian MFIs, CREDIT and Maxima, to help them with the transition to PA2. Having been a fellow in a PA1 world and now getting to see PA2 for awhile firsthand, I wanted to give you lenders some perspective of PA2 from the field!
Now, Field Partners, aka Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), report the exact repayment schedule for each Kiva loan – Previously it was just assumed that loans were on a monthly schedule. In the new system, MFIs can report the exact dates of when a loan payment is expected. This lets MFIs post loans on all types of schedules such as end-of-term, weekly, bi-weekly, etc. If the MFI wanted to set a schedule in which the borrower pays back the loan only on the days when Saturn and Uranus are in alignment, this can now be done on Kiva! Unfortunately, none of the members of the Astrological Microfinance Association have joined Kiva yet…
MFIs now report the exact status of each loan every month – Every month each MFI uploads a list of the total principal paid for each Kiva loan. This is great for Kiva and Kiva lenders because it can help them get a better sense of what exactly is happening on the ground and identify any loans and/or MFIs that are having a hard time paying back loans. Even though you’re thousands of miles away, you’ll actually know how the borrower is handling the repayment process. If a borrower makes on time payments or an early payment, then you know everything is okay. If a borrower misses a payment, then you know that they might be having problems. The change has been great for MFIs as well. For example, at AMK we do a mix of monthly loans and end-of-term loans. We use to report the status our end-of-term loans manually, but that was a lot of work which took a lot of time. I made a Microsoft Access application for AMK called the Kiva Loan Tracker which can report the exact status of all the Kiva loans onto a CSV file. In PA2 we can just upload that CSV file and our work is all done in just a few minutes! Sweet.
MFIs Repay Kiva Lenders When the Borrower Makes a Repayment -The MFI repays Kiva when the borrower makes a payment. This helps MFIs because now they do not have to repay Kiva lenders on a different schedule than the loan terms. This is important because it prevents creating liquidity/cash flow issues for MFIs, which is a serious problem for many of the smaller MFIs. This is also great for Kiva lenders because if a loan receives an early payment then the Kiva lender gets repaid early also. This happens quite often at AMK, especially with many of the end-of-term loans. I’ve noticed many AMK loans being repaid months early.
The Actual Disbursement Date is Posted – In PA1, the MFI would post a disbursement date on Kiva, which was more of an acknowledgment that the loan has been disbursed and that its status will be reported to Kiva. In PA2 the actual date that the loan was disbursed is reported to Kiva. Many MFIs post loans on Kiva that have already been disbursed. They do this because for them it is the only way to incorporate Kiva into their operations. Many MFIs front the money for these loans, hoping that they will get funded on Kiva. At AMK a loan description is written by the client officer when a client applies for a loan and then the picture is taken at the loan disbursement by the Area Manager. This information is then sent to the head office in Phnom Penh by taxi. This prevents AMK staff from having do to an extra visit to the client, which would be a waste of resources. The last thing Kiva wants to do is to be a burden on the MFI, which could inadvertently increase interest rates.
Google Gears – The Kiva engineers incorporated google gears into PA2. This is EXTREMELY helpful for MFIs, because many of them have VERY unreliable internet connections. When I arrived in Cambodia, the internet at my MFI was down for almost a week. This was a very painful experience if I was posting a business, because if the internet went out in the middle of a business posting, we would have to start all over once the internet came back on. In PA2, if the internet goes out, a draft is stored which you can then return to at a later time. As I’m writing this, the internet just went out and Chan Ry, the HKL Kiva coordinator, was in the middle of posting a business. Now he doesn’t have to start that post from scratch! Hurrah! Google Gears also stores part of PA2 on the computer of the MFI which lets the site load quicker. If you guys can remember the days of dial-up modems, then you’ll know how slowly webpages load at some of the MFIs (that’s if they load…)
We Can See Your Comments – PA2 has a page where we can see all the comments from lenders. This is helpful because it makes it easier for Field Partners to respond to your comments.
Separate Server – Occasionally Kiva lenders get really excited and bombard the Kiva website looking for loans that they can lend to. Once in a while, this causes the Kiva webservers to crash. In the past, when this would happen MFIs wouldn’t be able to post new loans. Now PA2 is stored on a separate server, so if Oprah decides to share her love for Kiva on national television again, MFIs can keep on posting.
Increased Transparency – I’ve been helping all four Cambodian MFIs make the switch to PA2 and I’ve realized that PA2 has created a much greater sense of transparency. The four Cambodian MFIs are not committing any fraud. I can state this for a fact because each MFI gave me access to their data. The more real information Field Partners send Kiva, the easier it will become for Kiva to spot any signs of trouble or fraud. In PA2, Field Partners also report the exact account number for each loan, so when Kiva does an audit of a Field Partner it will be easier to spot any signs of trouble. My Loan Tracker makes sure that information is accurate by taking the exact data from their Management Information System, so when a business is posted the names and account numbers are exactly the same on Kiva as they are in the MIS of the MFI. In the past we had hard times finding information on some Kiva loans, because the names were translated slightly differently.
Some Kiva lenders have been asking Kiva why MFIs cannot send repayments on a weekly basis, so that they could get their repayments quicker. One lender even compared the new system to sports announcers from the 1930s who called away games on the radio using tickertape. The truth is microfinance, at least in Cambodia, works at a pace similar to tickertape. Here at AMK, the central office receives data from the branches at the end of the month. At HKL, the branches send data to the main office every two months. The reason is that these MFIs do not currently have the necessary infrastructure to receive real time data. At HKL the data is put on a CD and sent to the main office by taxi. Real-time Kiva updates would be great but it is not feasible (at least not yet). Kiva and the MFIs are the doing the best they can given the circumstances. Until the network infrastructures of these MFIs is improved (which will hopefully happen in the coming years) there will always be a lag between the date of transaction and when it is reported to the lender. But as the infrastructures of the countries that Field Partners operate in improves, Kiva can start asking for more information quicker.
Because this new system is requiring MFIs to report information quicker than they normally do for Kiva and for their own operations, PA2 could become a burden for some MFIs. The last thing Kiva wants to do is hurt the efficiency of the operations of any of its Field Partners. This is why Kiva gives MFIs a 15-day grace period for when they upload the status of each loan at the end of each month. I’m currently working at two Field Partners, AMK and HKL (I just started at HKL). AMK has a network that allows me to connect to the servers at each of the branches and download the data for each loan. My Loan Tracker works very well there. At HKL they don’t have a network like that. We’re working around that by getting branches and sub-branches to send their data through Windows Messenger. Getting the data from the sub-branches with unstable internet connections has proved rather difficult and for those we may have to rely on receiving the data by CD, which can take weeks. This must be even harder for MFIs where the internet is worse.
PA2 has come a long way in the last few months. I’ve been testing it out since August and PA2 is much more stable now that it was a few months ago. The Kiva engineers should really be commended for their hard work in getting this up and running. Though there are still a few bugs, I’m sure the Kiva exterminators engineers will get rid of them in no time. Also, once MFIs get use to the new posting process many of the errors in the payment schedules will disappear.
If you still need some more info on PA2 you can read all about it here, here, and here.
The microfinance institution I have been working with, through Kiva, is called BRAC, Building Resources Across Communities. Since 1972, BRAC has been tackling the various dimensions of poverty through its holistic approach to poverty alleviation. BRAC has programs in economic and social development, health, education, and human rights and legal services. Operating in several countries all over the globe, BRAC is one of the world’s largest NGOs.
Here in Sudan, BRAC has been instrumental in providing the country with the assistance it needs. BRAC has opened 25 primary schools, lent approximately 1.5 million US dollars to nearly 14,000 borrowers, and has educated countless people on how to maintain healthy lifestyles. BRAC Southern Sudan’s microfinance program is targeted towards returning war refugees, many of whom come back to Sudan with very close to nothing.
BRAC Southern Sudan has been able to include nearly 150 Sudanese locals within its staff. The following interview is of Ohsio John, one of BRAC’s IT Specialists, who is linked to the world through Kiva.
After a few days, I felt mostly adjusted. I liked what was I doing and I had gotten used to fans only at night. I was sitting at Alide at 3pm at Friday when the electricity went out. The A/C stopped its whir, the computers had to be turned off to save battery. The water had already been off for 2 days.
We wandered outside. For the rest of the day, the young people of Alide talked in Fon, French, and faltering English. I showed them my photos, they made fun of me, they switched back to Fon to gossip to each other. When the electricity had not come back 3 hours later, Alain drove me home.
Using the light from our cell phones, Alain helped me light candles in the empty house, as Vivien was not home yet. When we had put on two candles, Alain turned to me to say good-bye. As I walked him out, I resisted the urge to ask if I could stay at his house. In the shadows, I could see the homeless people in the sandy alley, the women selling their wares with candles, unaffected by the outage. I locked the gate behind Alain, contemplating the slimness of the veil separating me from the street.
I double, triple locked the door to the house. I was shaking. Inside it was completely dark. I thought, this calls for some chocolate cookies and Audacity of Hope.The only problem was the candle did not yield enough light to see the book’s pages. I lay back, frustrated, trying to sleep, soaked in sweat. Something bumped the window. I pulled out my cell phone. No signal as usual. I would have cried, but it was much too hot. I mastered myself.
I would read outside! I threw open the doors, placed my candle on the stoop, opened Barack’s book. The tiniest wind blew, threatening to snuff it out. Not enough light to see; not enough wind to provide relief. Desperation forced me to my neighbor’s door, where I could see a light.
¨Bonsor,¨I said. “ Can I read on your stoop?”
“You can read inside,” she answered.
“Sarah,” I introduced myself.
“Honorine,” she said in return.
They must have their own generator, I thought, as she gestured me towards the couch and flicked the channel from Béninois to French without my requesting it. (As I write this later, the lights flick on and off for the second time tonight). Her three children stared at me. I think adults are too composed to stare, but if they had no inhibitions they would stare at me with the same intensity as their children.
“Salut,” (Hey) I said to them, trying to be casual.
“Bonsoir,” (Good evening) they answered, taught to be formal with strangers.
I sat on the couch for the next two hours pretending to read but smiling at the kids as the kids pretended to do their homework and stared at me. I was so happy to be there, out of the darkness. The second oldest girl was old enough not to be shy of me, too young to pretend that she was unsurprised by my presence. She brought the baby over, and I cooed at it and she played with it and I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t really understand me.
Presently Vivien (my homestay) came home. I made to go, but first walked to the back where Honorine was speaking with her sister.
“Merci,” (Thanks) I said. I really meant it. Maybe she understood how grateful I was, maybe she was just being polite, but I think we both knew how much of a stranger I was to the neighborhood.
“Come, come,” called Vivien. There was light in our apartment, and I wondered how long it had been there.
Most people reading this blog already agree that microfinance is a promising way to help people work their way out of poverty in a dignified manner. I agree, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here in Togo. It is heartwarming, and we should be inspired by it. But we should also be critical of it, to keep ourselves honest and to make sure it’s really having the effect we hope it is. In this post I will outline one of the biggest challenges facing the world of microfinance – becoming sustainable despite high administrative costs – and how Kiva and the Kiva Fellows contribute to a solution.
It is very difficult for Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to target the poorest of the poor while maintaining some level of sustainability, or cost-effectiveness. There are many variables that affect the sustainability equation and make lending to the poor particularly difficult – increased risk, access to lending capital, regulatory environments, and administrative costs, to name a few.Administrative costs are arguably the biggest obstacle to the microfinance movement.The poorer a client is, the smaller their loan will be, and the smaller the potential interest revenue will be for the MFI.However, no matter what the size of the loan is, an MFI employee needs to spend a certain amount of time meeting the borrower, visiting their business, checking their legitimacy, and processing paperwork – and, as we all know, time is money.So, the smaller the loan, the smaller the profit margin for the MFI.Kind of obvious, but crucial to understanding the workings of an MFI (and crucial to understanding why microfinance interest rates often range from 15%-80%).
So, where does Kiva fit in?Through the generous contributions of its lenders, Kiva provides interest-free capital to partner MFIs, thus increasing their ability to target poor clients.In my opinion, and the opinion of many experts in the field, the eventual goal of MFIs should be to end any dependence on this type of subsidized funding by covering all costs with interest income, because only sustainable, independent MFIs can provide the poor with permanent access to financial services.However, as Kiva’s partners work toward this goal, the interest-free capital provided by Kiva lenders serves as a vital stepping-stone toward financial self-sufficiency.
Unfortunately, there is an additional administrative expense associated with the Kiva relationship.As you might imagine, it takes a good deal of time to gather all the necessary information for new business posts and journal updates, then to send the information to the Kiva site and report repayments.This process needs to be as streamlined as possible to maximize the MFI’s returns on their – and your – investment.
Enter the Kiva Fellow.
A Kiva Fellow, entering. This could be any of us, in our natural habitat (on the back of a loan officer's moto).
When a Fellow arrives on the job, there are a few specific things he is supposed to accomplish during his 1 to 3 month stint at a partner MFI.These things are:
Verify borrower data.The most basic and essential function of a Kiva Fellow is to ensure that an MFI and its borrowers exist, and that the loans posted on the Kiva site are accurate in every way.
Write journal updates and new business descriptions.Kiva Fellows help with the general workload of managing the Kiva relationship.
Blog and spread the word.Kiva Fellows are meeting lenders and getting their hands dirty, and are able to share a more visceral experience of what it means to be Kiva.
Help with process improvements and templates.Though this step is often less visible, it is the only “sustainable” mark a Kiva Fellow can leave on an MFI, and ties directly into the cost-effectiveness equation.
At our week-long training at the Kiva headquarters in San Francisco, we become experts on the Kiva/partner process.Upon arrival in-country, we learn how our MFI carries out this process, and we look for opportunities to make things more efficient.Sometimes we might train loan officers on how to take better photos of their borrowers, thus improving the quality of new business posts and hopefully getting their loans funded faster.Or, we might see that the work is being split between 10 different field offices in an inefficient way, and help our MFI centralize the process.I’m currently trying to convince my MFI to implement a sort of mini-commission plan for journal updates per loan officer, since they’re having trouble meeting their deadlines right now (in my previous life, I was a compensation consultant). These are just examples of the types of changes a Fellow might try to implement at their MFI.It can be a frustrating process, and one that takes a lot of initiative, but in my opinion it represents a Kiva Fellow’s greatest opportunity to truly instigate progress.
Microfinance is more than just promising – it already has changed the lives of many poor people. But, there is still a great need for innovation to improve the efficiency of the sector and its ability to empower the poor, and I am humbled by the opportunity to contribute to that goal.
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I apologize that this post has been quite dry – no heartwarming stories or funny anecdotes – but I think understanding this subject is crucial to understanding how Kiva, the MFIs, the Kiva Fellows, and YOU, the Kiva lenders, contribute to the success of small business owners in a sustainable way.
I’m going to get that word tattooed on my forehead.
In case anyone made it all the way through, here’s a funny anecdote and a picture to boot.
I went into the kitchen the other day and opened the freezer to look for a bottle of water.Instead, I found a wild animal, jumping out at my face!Well, it didn’t really jump, because it was frozen (since it was in the freezer).But it was a wild animal, and it was gross.I ran and got Abozu (see my previous post – Why I Can’t Give Abozu My Camera) to ask him what it was.“Un renard.”He said.I ran to my French-English dictionary (I was doing a lot of running – it’s not every day you get attacked by a mysterious frozen animal) and found that “renard” means “fox.” If you take a look at this picture, you’ll understand why I was a bit skeptical:
"Fox"
Hm…that doesn’t look like a fox.
The next night, as my homestay sisters were roasting the ENTIRE ANIMAL over the fire, I asked again what it was, and they explained that it was an “agouti.”I ran (again) for my dictionary, but “agouti” is apparently not important enough to be included in the 300,000 words in my dictionary.Thanks to Wikipedia, I found out the next day that an agouti (same word in English!) is a relative of the guinea pig, and sometimes called a “bush rat.”How delicious-sounding!
I ate it that night, and it wasn’t bad – kind of like a weird mix between beef and chicken, if you can imagine that. (But it wasn’t that good, either.)
At least I’ve managed to avoid trying dog meat so far.(Yes, I’ve been offered.)
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I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6, serving three months in Lome, Togo, and three more in Dakar, Senegal.Please check out my current MFI, WAGES, and see all of their fundraising loans here!
In my first week at Kiva’s rising-star field partner, AMK Cambodia, I was lucky enough to go on a two-day trip to the Kampong Cham province with the aim of meeting some Kiva clients and taking some photos for the AMK marketing department.
Over the 36 hours I took around 1500 photos – partly because Cambodians are super photogenic, and partly because 95% of my photos look as though Sambo the Phnom Penh elephant took them (he lacks opposable thumbs). With his eyes shut.
I made this short video of a loan being disbursed to the Sreymom Suong Group. They were pleased to become Kiva clients for the first time, even if it did mean having to pose for a photo or two. It’s not quite Tarantino, but it’s certainly in a similar ballpark.
Below are some of my favourite photos from the trip, if you like them you can go to this flickr slideshow to see the rest.
To see more AMK loans that are currently fundraising on Kiva, go here
