The View From Here
9 January 2010 at 23:41 kellykmckinnon 11 comments
By Kelly McKinnon, KF9 Leon, Nicaragua
In my time as a Kiva Fellow I’ve written more than 100 borrower profiles and 40 or so journal updates. When writing profiles one tends to fall into a rhythm, there are words that come up repeatedly, expressions that are almost invariably used, translations that don’t quite work. Often my days are spent trying to deciphering the handwriting of a loan officer with little knowledge of the borrower beyond what is scrawled. Most of the time I look at the back of a computer. It wasn’t exactly the vision I had when I dreamed of joining the ranks of Kiva Fellows.
The less romantic side of being a Kiva Fellow
Today, as I sit here, I am a bit stunned by the stories of two men. Each has a small business, a trade that they learned from family members who are either dead or who continue to help with the business. One makes and sells sweets and soft drinks, the other sells sorbets on a bicycle.
I just wrote a borrower profile for (now fundraising) Pedro Emilio Ochoa Zuniga , a single father, who started a business with the help of his mother and daughters, ages 12 and 14. They sell sweets. The items are made at home, I don’t know exactly what they sell. I don’t have Pedro’s photo in front of me as I write this. I imagine that they make biscuit like cookies, called roquillas, some covered in molasses or filled with jelly, or they make cups of flan-like pudding, or popsicles frozen in plastic bags. The soft drinks they sell aren’t Coke or Pepsi or Sprite but juices made from seasonal fruits served with a straw in a plastic bag. The drinks come in fantastic colors, bubble gum pink (Chicha) or fuschia (Jamaica) and often with little chunks of fruit mixed in.
This is Pedro’s second job. He hopes to expand the business into a small store so that he is able to afford to educate his daughters through the sales of sweets.
Pedro's loan is now fundraising
Yesterday I met the gentleman who sells sorbets. I was with Yader, a Fundación León loan officer. We were headed to the house of Don Acención to do an interview for a journal update. We encountered Don Acención on the road as he was heading out to sell sorbet. We asked for a few moments of his time and when he consented we both parked in the shade.
He told me that he still says that he is married to honor his dead wife. She started the business with him. He told me that he was tired, his body was tired. The work of riding a bicycle all day is hard on his back and he is getting old. He plans to create a small store in the front of his house so that he can sell his sorbets from home. He tells me that business is bad because the weather is cool and people don’t have money to spend, because it is just after the holidays and just before the start of a new school year. Before he peddles off, Don Acención opens the lid of the sorbet container and scoops out double cones for us. He adorns the orange and raspberry flavors with a dark honey, to attract the attention of new customers he tells me.
Don Acencion & sorbet cart
Click here to read the journal update about Don Acención and here to see the video of my taste of sorbet.
I wanted to make this post more about process, about what it’s like to be a Kiva Fellow, about this side of the borrower story: collecting these stories and just filling up on all this information that sometimes becomes routine and sometimes fills me up so that my eyes start welling over and I stare at the back of the computer trying not to cry thinking of mere details of the interview let alone the complexity of the story that goes untold, or is not my place to tell, or is more than I can really hope to understand.
So here I sit, remembering the details of all sorts of compelling and not-quite compelling borrower stories, touched by the sweetness of these two gentlemen’s stories. Each is its own testament and a part of a larger narrative of Nicaragua, of microfinance, of development, of endurance.
To join the narrative consider becoming a Kiva Fellow.
Kelly is coming to the end of her fellowship in Leon and would like to invite you to lend to the Kiva borrowers at Fundación León, their stories have touched her greatly.
Entry filed under: All, Americas, blogsherpa, Fundacíon LEON 2000, KF9 (Kiva Fellows 9th Class), Nicaragua. Tags: .
1. ALEX | 17 January 2010 at 18:03
Hi all,
A recent blog entry of mine extends Kelly’s thought and response regarding “the qualitative elements that are perhaps beyond collection abilities of hard evidence.” Please find the link below.
http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/01/16/consider-microfinance-ancillary-effects/
The post provides broad, parallel examples that can hopefully connect with a larger reader base.
Best,
ALEX, KF9
2. Questionable Answers: Reviewing Borrower Stories « Kiva Stories from the Field | 17 January 2010 at 11:59
[...] exchange that follows is from my mom’s review of my latest blog “The View From Here” in which I talked about two borrower stories. My responses to her questions are far from [...]
3. Van | 16 January 2010 at 17:12
I tried posting a response on Thursday to MommaBear with links to studies, articles and video resources. It never went live.
Are we filtering this discussion?
4. kellykmckinnon | 17 January 2010 at 11:56
There are spam filters on the blog, your comment may have gotten snared among the 45,000 spam comments. Please try again!
Great discussion.
5. MommaBear | 14 January 2010 at 20:30
responding to Van and doubts about microfinance: Americans have tried many approaches to address poverty, and we find the downsides years later when the evidence is undeniable. We keep on trying. Managing debt is perhaps one of the necessary skills for anyone in business, so not in itself damning. That Kiva and the lending organizations help/teach the management of debt is encouraging. Your suggestion that Kiva loans are used for other purposes? Do you have evidence or have you have been reading reports about the use of TARP loans?
6. coambse | 12 January 2010 at 00:49
Hey Kelly,
Great post, thank you for sharing so openly. It is so important that while the stories start to blur together each of the people do represent a unique story that is only partly told through their profile.
We are all human, we are all complex and to capture our life is so hard.
Best Wishes,
Ed
7. Lauren de Remer | 11 January 2010 at 03:28
Was sipping on juego de Jamaica all last week, muy delicioso! Not to mention, I’d buy some sorbet from Don every day if he patrolled my street. Excellent blog post!
8. Van | 10 January 2010 at 18:50
Just curious — do you have any hard evidence that high interest Kiva loans really lift people out of poverty?
There are a couple just-release studies by major think tanks showing that microlending does not really help the very poor move out of poverty, and can in fact make their situation worse because they take on debt the skills to manage a growing business.
The studies show that many microloans end up purchasing household goods, paying off other debt, or covering medical bills…not growing the business.
I know Kiva stories make people in the US feel good, but does Kiva have studies that show the overwhelming majority of their borrowers are better off financially after taking on these high interest loans?
9. Kelly | 12 January 2010 at 06:55
Hi Van,
Thank you for your comments, there is a lot of discussion around any one of your points, likely a rousing discussion. I would like to briefly address your statement of “high interest Kiva loans.” Kiva does not charge interest on the loans that are financed through Kiva.org, interest rates are charged at the discretion of Kiva’s partner institutions. These posts from the fellows blog address the issue at greater length “Bad Roads, Interest Rates, and MFI Sustainability”, “How much does it cost to reach the poorest?”, “The Savings behind the Interest”
As for hard evidence, I don’t know which think tanks have released reports on microfinance recently. If the reports are speaking to the efficacy of microfinance in raising poverty levels of an entire country, I wouldn’t consider Kiva an entity that addresses change on a state level.
If the reports are speaking to the effectiveness of microfinance to effect change on an individual basis, I think that this post from the fellows blog, “What a Loan Smells Like:” well describes what I see as central to Kiva’s purpose: putting stories to the statistics and studies. In my experience the evidence that I have collected tells me that microfinance serves as a resource to individuals who have very few resources. If these stories sound overly sunny, I think it is for lack of context on the part of the reader and perhaps a biased hopefulness on the part of we who write the posts. A determined optimism is a common characteristic among Kiva Fellows, I don’t know that Development is to be approached by those who cannot find silver linings.
With this post I was interested in taking a (somewhat literary) look at the element of narrative within Kiva. With this post I wanted to acknowledge the qualitative elements that are perhaps beyond collection abilities of hard evidence. With this post I was interested in the elements of the stories that are collected within Kiva which perhaps speak to a different kind of evidence.
Again, thank you for your interest and your comments.
All my best,
Kelly
10. sidetrips | 16 January 2010 at 10:18
Micro-loans can help keep a society stable, enabling it to improve itself. Consider a hospital patient: he must be stabilized before he can walk again. If he can walk again, he might help his family and even contribute to society again, even thrive. A healthy society can demand justice, provide public health services, improved infrastucture, and so forth.
If Kiva borrowers use loan funds to cover medical needs, buy household supplies, and educate their kids, then families can keep their heads above water and even get ahead though it may be achieved in the next generation. Society can advance in this way, if it is stable and has hope in the meantime. Didn’t immigrants do the same to build the U.S.?
11. She Wolf | 10 January 2010 at 11:42
Well done Special K. Well done indeed.
Nicaragua and surly Nicaraguans will miss you almost as much as the all-encompassing “WE” will enjoy having you back!