Freddy and Joel’s Muy Cupcakery
8 December 2008 at 02:41 whitneytravel 12 comments
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.
Read Joel Stein’s “Cupcake Kings Go Global” here
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I’m Whitney, Kiva Fellow KF6, serving 3 months in Managua, Nicaragua with CEPRODEL.
Entry filed under: KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), Nicaragua. Tags: AFODENIC.
1. Lillian | 15 December 2008 at 22:06
I didn’t particularly like the TIME article either. For me, it was just confusing when Joel was being serious and when he was kidding / trying to be funny.
When I read the $4.00 vs 0$.80 price, it seemed like Joel was poking fun at himself for being unaware of the difference in standard of living. However, I didn’t like that he tried to include himself in the bakery’s name or the remark about the new head chef, as if someone he was now in charge, and running the show.
I agree that this blog post was far better/informative than the TIME article. I think if I had been learning about Kiva for the first time through the TIME article, I would have been very confused and turned off.
2. John Briggs | 15 December 2008 at 21:52
Oy! This is such fine work, Whitney. Juggling the phone, CEPRODEL-Kiva client Freddy, Giovanna and Fiona, and professional funnyman Stein is a feat.
Kiva, the website, is good at transmitting information about borrowers to lenders, but was not designed to be a means of getting communication from lenders to borrowers. This is one of those rare cases where a Kiva-funded borrower actually got an earful from a borrower, though carefully staged.
As for those who are down on Joel: lighten up. In person, he’s a meek, shy and withdrawn man with a bad case of agoraphobia. His conceit is a part of his humor — it’s just a device he uses when writing.
3. SAVORING KENTUCKY » Cupcakes and Lemon Posset Redux | 15 December 2008 at 18:36
[...] “Speaking of cupcakes, here is a blog post by a Kiva.org volunteer in Managua, Nicaragua, Whitney, who recently wrote about her experience translating an interview between Freddy Castillo Luna, an entreprenuer and owner of a cupcake store, and a lender, journalist Joel Stein of Time Magazine. http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/12/08/freddy-and-joels-muy-cupcakery/ [...]
4. Gabriella | 11 December 2008 at 17:49
I am a Time Magazine subscriber and I always read Joel Stein’s articles, I find him funny, interesting and very insightful. I must say that even though I already knew of microlending prior to reading this article, it was this article that got me interested in microlending and particularly kiva.org. I have now made my first 3 loans and hope to make many more in the future. It is unbelievable to me that people would be offended by this article and/or Joel Stein, going as far as saying that he is a “rich US comedian making fun and money out of a poor entrepreneur” and calling the article “extremely patronizing”. I find that people that get high and mighty are the ones that are patronizing, simple because they think they are on a higher moral ground, because they are helping these “poor entrepreneur” in these poor countries. I’m sure some of you may even think Daniel Ortega (the president of Nicaragua) is a saint and a godsend to the poor of Nicaragua when in realty he is destroying the country for the second time around. I was born and raised in Nicaragua, I know what is like, the houses with dirt floors, the road full of potholes, the children in street corners cleaning your windshield with dirty rags, the crime, and corruption. All this things are part of Nicaragua, but there is also a lot of good, including its wonderful people who are trying to make the best with what they got, who deserve this loans and yes a $750.00 donation is a lot of money in a country were a good salary is about $150.00 per month. So I hope Joel Stein article inspires others they way it did me, as I will be lending beyond Nicaragua and to other parts of the world, in the end that is what this article was about.
5. Amanda | 11 December 2008 at 15:45
Like people have already mentioned, your post is a heck of a lot better than Joel’s article – more culturally sensitive and quite frankly, just more interesting. Kiva is a great organization and deserves lots of press attention but hopefully in the future, stories will be more thoughtful than what Joel delivered.
6. Marlene | 11 December 2008 at 11:38
Great story, Whitney! I’ve been on three mission trips to Nicaragua in two years and love the gracious, beautiful people there. We can learn much from them. You handled everything perfectly! I am relatively new to KIVA and was excited to see so many Nica businessmen and women applying for loans and receiving support. There is much hope in that country and KIVA is connecting folks who want to see good things happen there. And however one interprets Joel’s article, perhaps it will alert a few more willing lenders to the great work KIVA is doing. Thank you!
7. Stephanie | 11 December 2008 at 08:04
I agree with Elizabeth and Jan & John. Joel’s article was extremely patronizing, which I don’t think is the culture of Kiva at all. I love being a microlender but I don’t try to attach my name to the front of other’s businesses. I thought his arrogance showed most profoundly with the paragraph that opened, “Freddy, who proved to be a far smarter businessman than I had expected…” Hmmm, hasn’t Freddy been running his bakery for 14 years? The comment about Joel worrying about having to bring in a new head chef was also pretty obnoxious. Who is this guy?
8. elizabeth | 9 December 2008 at 21:25
I also found something distasteful about Joel’s uninvited “expert,” American, micromanagement. Hopefully Freddy will find what works best for his business. At the least, Joel is encouraging Freddy to think outside the box. I hope this doesn’t lead to overerly excited medling by other Kiva lenders. Also, I am concerned about encouraging people to start importing non-native foods instead of a more sustainable development using native foods (in Freddy’s case). It will benefit the local economy more if he uses foods produced locally. The American model of importing everything is not what we want to teach the rest of the world. Sustainable, locally and responsibly produced goods and services is the goal, not the American version of economic developement.
9. James MacKenzie | 7 December 2008 at 23:38
Great blog. And I particularly liked the comparison of the donations vs loans as one can very easily imagine how they differ.
10. Sierra Visher | 8 December 2008 at 04:23
Whitney, I think you did something really amazing here. I totally understand the logistical and technical difficulties that presented themselves here, and think that you handled them expertly.
It must have been exciting for Freddy, interesting for Joel, and tense all around.
Buen hecho!
11. Jan & John | 8 December 2008 at 03:08
Thanks, Whitney. I appreciate your posting a lot.
When I read Joel’s column, I read only disrespect. I read a rich US comedian making fun and money out of a poor entrepreneur. I do hope Freddy has not been led down any garden path with false promises or given reason to think he has won some kind of lottery. I am glad he got something out of the deal (a big $750, I am sure will go further in his country than it would here in Canada).
I am happy to hear you were sensitive to Freddy’s emotions because I still feel he was used shamelessly as a PR gimmick. Thank you again for posting, you are doing a difficult job on behalf of Kiva and all the borrowers and lenders. Jan
12. Kieran Ball (KF6) | 8 December 2008 at 03:07
Hey Whitney, I read the article and thought it was hilarious, and it was great to hear how it was put together. I thought the introduction of cupcakes to Nicaragua was just a joke but apparently not! Good luck to Freddy and Joel. I think a dash of Flor de Caña rum would help keep the cup cakes moist.
Did Freddy get a copy of the article/magazine/web page? I would love to know what he thought of it. I imagine it would be a bit like that the bit in Zoolander where Derek says “yeah well, fortunately for you, not too many people I know read your little ‘Time Magazine’ or whatever it’s called”.