Author Archive
10 Fellowship Gems
By Cynthia McMurry, KF8 Ecuador
Over the past year, I have learned valuable lessons about life, gotten to know myself better, greatly enriched my understanding of microfinance, observed the workings of the informal economy in Latin America, been touched by many clients’ stories and experiences, and been proud to represent Kiva at four different MFIs in three South American countries.
Some of my favorite moments, though, have absolutely nothing to do with microfinance. They’re little cultural quirks, lifestyle adaptations, or just silly everyday things that make me smile, remember that I am not from here, and cherish the experience that much more.
Some of my favorites:
Best heckle: Anyone who’s as white as me and who has tried to run in public in Latin America knows what it’s like to be heckled. You usually get whistles, catcalls, and hear things like, “Faster!” “Run!” and “ONE two three ONE two three.” After a while you learn not to pay too much attention and to instead focus your energy on watching out for dogs and traffic.
Out running in Trujillo at 7am one morning, a driver stuck his head out the window and yelled “Yuquitas peladas!” (“Little peeled yuccas!”), a metaphorical reference to the whiteness of my legs. By far the most creative heckle ever, plus I’m impressed that he was able to think of it so quickly (especially that early in the morning) and stick his head out of the car window while driving and avoiding traffic mishaps. Kudos. (more…)
“Please, take me home in your backpack…”
By Cynthia McMurry, KF8, Ecuador
Everyday conversations with people in Cuenca provide countless anecdotes of people whose families have been separated by emigration. Everyone seems to have family in the US or Spain, if not a spouse then a brother, sister, cousin or child. At a group meeting last week, a borrower joked that she’d like me to sneak her into the US in my backpack. I asked her and the rest of the group if they had family members in the States, and all ten women nodded their heads in unison. Recently, I was chatting with a friend whose father is living in New York—she’s my age, and hasn’t seen her father in more than a decade. One of Espoir’s first Kiva clients, Nancy, has a four-year-old daughter who has never met her father, since Nancy’s husband left for Brooklyn when she was still pregnant. Another Espoir client I spoke with has been raising her four young children alone since her husband left for New York two years ago. Now, thanks to the economic crisis, he has lost both of his jobs and remains heavily in debt to a coyote. With no hope of financial support from her husband coming anytime soon, this client has been left to provide for her four children on her own.
Somewhere between 10% and 15% of Ecuadorians live abroad, most in the New York metro area, where they are one of the largest immigrant groups, and in Spain, where they are the second largest immigrant group. As of 2006, nearly 8% of Ecuador’s GDP was comprised of remittances, compared with about 3% for Mexico (International Fund for Agricultural Development).
The high rate of migration has troubling implications for Ecuadorian families. On top of the obvious consequences of emigration, like separated couples and absent fathers, many of the men who leave start new families in the US or Europe and eventually stop sending remittances to their families in Ecuador, leaving their wives to fend for themselves as single mothers. In other cases, men emigrate with their wives or send for their wives later, and children are left with their grandparents or with neighbors. Because many Ecuadorians in the US are there illegally, they have no possibilities to return to visit, and sending for their families would mean paying more exorbitant coyote fees for the dangerous 2500-mile trip. Coyotes typically charge between $12,000 and $14,000 per person. This is about three times the average annual income in Ecuador, the equivalent of $135,000 for a US citizen. And paying this fee doesn’t guarantee that you’ll actually make it into the country: somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 Ecuadorians are apprehended each year trying to enter the US illegally (Migration Information Source). Many of these people have already sold off their houses, livestock, and any other valuables they may have in their hometowns, just to be sent back home with a new mountain of debt and even fewer possibilities than before.
Pedro, one of Espoir's loan officers, playing with his son
I haven’t asked borrowers whether it’s worth it, but I’m curious. Do the economic opportunities available abroad justify the separation of their families? How are their children affected? If they could go back in time, would they make the same choices?
I’m interested in hearing other fellows’ experiences with emigration and its effects on borrowers’ lives, both positive and negative. Where does microfinance fit into the picture? Are clients using remittances to pay off their loan installments? Or are their small businesses the only means of support they have for their families ever since the remittance payments stopped? For those of you working in the US, have you met any Ecuadorian immigrants looking to take out Kiva loans? If so, is their ultimate goal to save money and return home, or have they established themselves in the US?
To search for currently fundraising Espoir loans on Kiva, click here. No currently fundraising clients? Please check back soon! In the meantime, you can join Espoir’s Kiva Lending Team here.
Cynthia McMurry is a fourth-time Kiva fellow working with brand new Kiva field partner Fundación Espoir in Cuenca, Ecuador. Previously she worked with Fundación AgroCapital in Bolivia and FINCA Peru and Asociación Arariwa in Peru.
Micro-Universal Health Care
By Cynthia McMurry, KF8 Ecuador
Time and cost are enormous disincentives for the working poor when it comes to getting medical treatment. Time spent visiting the doctor is time you’re not at work generating income, and money spent on these visits is money that could otherwise be spent on your children’s education or reinvested in your business. These disincentives are strong enough that relatively minor, treatable ailments often go untreated and eventually develop into much more complicated, serious conditions that require more intensive treatments and can even be incapacitating.
To mitigate this problem, medical care must be made cheaper and more convenient, and this is exactly what’s being done at the Cuenca branch office of Fundación Espoir. The office has an on-site doctor’s office. Each client pays $4.50 per 6-month loan cycle, for which she is entitled to unlimited free doctor’s visits for herself, her husband and her children. Women can get Pap tests, pre- and post-natal care and birth control counseling, in addition to a wide variety of treatments for common ailments. The clinic, which is always staffed by one of two doctors, serves 250-280 women and their family members each month. Dr. Maria Eulalia Robles says that most clients, whether women, men or children, come in for three reasons: dermatological problems, respiratory ailments, and diarrhea. Treatment is key, especially for children: left untreated, respiratory ailments and diarrheal diseases are responsible for almost 40% of mortality in Ecuadorian children ages 1-4 (as of 1999).
¡Adios, Arariwa!
In a desperate last-minute attempt to get my name off the top of the “least-blogging fellows” list and fulfill my grandma’s request for more blogs, I’d like to share some of my favorite photos from my 10-week placement at Asociacion Arariwa in Cusco, Peru.
Arariwa is an amazing organization with an extremely dedicated group of loan officers. I was consistently impressed with loan officers’ dedication to their clients—not just putting in long hours for little pay and running risks by carrying cash, but in some cases even relocating to remote villages in order to serve clients without previous access to financial services. For example, Tula Barazorda and Armando Cabrera live and work in Pilcopata, a remote jungle town that’s 8+ hours from Cusco on rough, narrow dirt roads. Pilcopata is a sleepy little town where there’s little to do but shoot the breeze and swat the mosquitoes. One morning – over breakfast, no less – Tula and Armando had a long, nonchalant conversation about all the different kinds of bugs that can burrow under your skin, how to tell the difference, and the pros and cons of each one (never before have I been so grateful to my parents for raising me in Minnesota, where all we have is ticks).
All in all, my time at Arariwa was an incredible experience, and I’m already itching to go back and visit. I’m also looking forward to reading much more frequent blogs from my Arariwa successor, Lee Bruner!
To see all currently fundraising loans from Asociación Arariwa, click here.
Cynthia McMurry is a fourth-time Kiva fellow working with brand new Kiva field partner Fundación Espoir in Quito, Ecuador. Previously she worked with Fundación AgroCapital in Bolivia and FINCA Peru and Asociación Arariwa in Peru.
Thankful.
By Cynthia McMurry, KF5 Peru
When FINCA staff interview clients to write their Kiva profiles, the last question each client is asked is “What are your dreams for the future?” As I looked at the profile of FINCA client after FINCA client, I was struck that almost everyone had some variation of the same three dreams:
1) “For my children to graduate with professional degrees” or “For my children to get a good education.”
2) “To open my own store” (for ambulatory vendors), “To open another store,” “To expand my store,” or “To offer a wider variety of merchandise in my store.”
3) “To build my own home,” “To own my own home,” or “To improve my home.”
Something bothered me about seeing the same dreams repeated over and over, but for a week or so I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that bothered me. In part, I think it challenged a mindset instilled in me from early on, reflecting a PC, middle-class American upbringing laden with positive reinforcement, self-esteem boosters and the notion that everyone is different in a good way. I can see the motivational posters on the walls of my second-grade classroom now: “Reach for the stars!” “I can do anything if I put my mind to it!” “The sky is the limit!” and so on. If you’d asked me then about my dreams, I would have told you that I wanted to be a professional ice cream taster and have my own calf for my backyard (my family lives in the middle of Minneapolis). My dreams today are the same size, though they’ve gotten less fattening and more socially oriented over the years (I don’t want to say what they are for fear of jinxing myself; I never did get that calf).
I think I expected clients to have similarly grandiose responses. To me, offering a wider variety of merchandise is a goal, not a dream. Winning the lottery is a dream, being a world-renowned artist is a dream, traveling to faraway places is a dream. Dreams are limitless and fantastic: if you’re really lucky you get close, but otherwise a dream is something to set your sights on and work towards as you go through life. Goals are concrete and attainable: if you plan ahead and work hard, you should be able to reach and even surpass your goals. I wanted clients to see that their dreams were in fact goals. What happens once you do start selling a wider variety of merchandise? Once your house has a second floor? Once you have two stores? Where do you go from there? It also bothered me that clients’ dreams didn’t involve working less or retiring. Most of the women I talk to work 50 or 60 hours per week and have large families to support; their kids usually work with them while not in school. But no one dreamed of not working. Many older clients told me they dreamed of continuing to work for as long as possible.
A couple of days ago, I came across a woman whose dream was “For my children to grow up to be better than me.” That made me cry, and I realized that this woman’s bluntly-put “dream” is in fact the common theme shared by everyone I’ve talked to. Any given combination of dreams #1, 2, and 3 is just a way of saying “I want a better future for my children.” I think this is probably the common dream shared by most mothers of the world, and I feel silly for not realizing this sooner. It doesn’t really matter if they’re dreams or goals; either way they represent small steps forward, and maybe it’s easier to go step by step than to look to a place miles away that you are trying to reach, since you might get discouraged once you realized how far away you currently are.
Being at FINCA for Thanksgiving has given the holiday a new meaning for me. I’ve always known that I have more material goods than most people in the world and that I’ve been blessed with a good education and a loving family, but I never thought about how much I’ve been empowered by those around me throughout my life. I was given a childhood of leisure time and had the luxury of dreaming about cows and ice cream; I didn’t see any doors closed to me. I never fully realized that my family has already achieved what most families only dream of.
Making the most of Medex
As I wrote in my last blog entry, my weekend’s planned excursions included a climb up the tallest statue of Jesus in the world (disappointing—turns out he’s closed on Sundays) and a hike in nearby Tunari national park. It also included an unplanned visit to the Clinica Belga Boliviana, the fanciest-sounding hospital in my Lonely Planet guidebook. I had learned the hard way that angry dogs really do bite you in the butt, just like countless cartoon mailmen. I told the clinic’s emergency room attendant that I’d been attacked by a wild dog in the woods and wanted a rabies shot. “Sure, take a seat,” he told me. I winced—talk about adding insult to injury.
Feeling his pain
After 30 minutes or so, a doctor called me in. I told her what had happened: I was hiking in a national park, minding my own business and enjoying my Saturday afternoon, when four dogs started barking at me then attacked me out of nowhere, one of them managing to rip out a small chunk of my bum. I expected to be applauded for having the good sense to go get my rabies shot immediately after having been bitten by a strange dog in the woods, but instead the doctor just clucked her tongue.
“You know, the best thing to do in these situations is to control the dog. Could you go find this dog?”
I was confused, not sure if she was actually asking me to go out alone in search of the potentially rabid dog, who was roaming free in a national park some 45 minutes away, probably gloating over the tiny piece of a gringa’s butt he had won earlier that day. I told her I really wasn’t comfortable capturing the dog and bringing him back to the clinic for observation. The doctor sighed again, and tried to convince me that this vaccine would be a hassle:
“It’s expensive… you’ll have to come back 5 times… you might get jaundice… you really don’t think you could find this dog?”
I was starting to feel kind of silly and spoiled. Why had my parents never taught me any useful skills, like animal trapping? Thirteen years of violin lessons weren’t doing me much good right now. But, as spoiled as I felt, I was determined to get my shots. After having written a report on rabies for Mrs. Cornwall’s 9th grade health class, I had definitively decided that I did not want to die from rabies.
After some poking and prodding, the on-duty doctor finally called the dog-bite-specialist-doctor at home. I caught some whispered snippets of their conversation:
“Hello, Doctor? So sorry to call you at home… foreign girl here… wild dog in the woods… told her to control it, but… doesn’t want to go find it…. I know… I know… Yes, OK, thank you doctor.”
She turned to me. “All right, show me the wound.”
Finally, I thought. I tried to moon the doctor as respectfully as possible and hopped onto the stretcher. Just as she started to clean up the bloody mess, a call went out over the PA system: the doctor was needed to attend to a patient arriving by ambulance. I was left, alone and exposed on a stretcher, for what felt like an eternity (but was probably 30 minutes). Various hospital personnel wandered in and out of the room, seemingly oblivious to my delicate situation as a half-naked, potentially rabid foreigner. Well, at least this will make a decent blog entry when it’s all over, I thought to myself. Not quite Jessica-getting-malaria-in-Nigeria-good, but decent.
Things turned out my way in the end—the good doctor returned, bandaged my bum, gave me my first of five rabies shots, and sent me on my way with just a slight limp and some holes in my pants (and my butt) to show for my afternoon adventure. Now I’m following the locals’ (and T.R.’s) advice to always use Big Stick Diplomacy. Not my favorite foreign policy in U.S. history, but it sure does the trick with Bolivian dogs.
To see all AgroCapital clients currently fundraising on Kiva, click here
Cochabamboozled
I have eaten more in the past six days than in my previous five weeks in Bolivia. Cochabambinos pride themselves on living in the eating capital of Bolivia, and the third question people ask you after “What’s your name?” and “Where are you from?” is usually “How do you like the food?” The local specialty is pique, a big pile of beef, chicken, sausage, hot dogs, tripe, chicharrones, hard-boiled eggs and udder (udder!) stacked 8-12 inches high on a bed of french fries. Ronny and Paola, AgroCapital’s Credit Manager and Kiva Coordinator, were good enough to take me out for a culinary introduction to Cochabamba soon after my arrival. Thanks to the pique, my planned envigorating evening jog turned into severe food coma and falling asleep at 7pm with all of my clothes on. This microfinance thing is exhausting.
Pique
I’m lucky enough to get a tour of Bolivia along with my Kiva fellowship, since I’m spending time at three different AgroCapital branch offices: a month in El Alto, a month in Cochabamba and a month in Santa Cruz. There’s a lot of tension between different regions in Bolivia, namely between the eastern, resource-rich “half-moon” regions that want autonomy and the western highlands, which are poorer, mostly indigenous Aymara, and back the Evo Morales government and its socialist agenda. El Alto is almost 100% behind Morales, Cochabamba is somewhat divided, and Santa Cruz is mostly against Morales. It’s painful to see how much time and effort is spent on regional bickering and political posturing in a country where there’s so much to be done in terms of infrastructure and development. And as far as I can tell there’s no easy solution in sight–though more than 60% of the country backs Morales, accoring to the August 10th referendum, the other 40% controls most of the country’s wealth and natural resources and doesn’t plan on ceding them any time soon. This rich-poor, east-west dichotomy goes way back, as does a tradition of corrupt politicians and dictators who serve the wealthy elite. Bolivia has seen 193 presidential coups in its history as an independent nation (an average of one every 10 months, according to Wikipedia), so many that the presidential palace is known as the Palacio Quemado (“burned palace”). I asked one of the loan officers what he thought of the current government and he responded, “Well, it sure has lasted a long time.” This made me smile–my government sure has lasted a long time too, but that’s not exactly on its list of merits for me 
.
Bolivia is a beautiful country, making all of the hard times it’s fallen on even more tragic. Weekend excursions have taken me on a glacier climb, hiking and eating trout on beautiful Lake Titicaca–this weekend looks like a climb up the world’s tallest statue of Jesus and a trip to the Tunari national park. And probably a few generous portions of meat and potatoes.
Climbing the Chica Colla glacier with Dan, Doug, Martin and Emmett
Lake Titicaca
Bolivin´ at high altitude
During Kiva orientation, we each had to name our biggest fears about the fellowship. I said I was nervous about not fitting in—I’d learned to adapt pretty well while living in Chile for a year and on my best day I could pass for Chilean, but I knew living in Bolivia would be another story. As soon as I set foot in El Alto, however, I realized how silly my worries were as this fear was immediately eclipsed by another—the constant feeling that I was about to be run over by a minibus.
El Alto is a really vibrant, mostly indigenous Aymara city on a plateau above the valley of La Paz. The neighborhood I’m living in is called La Ceja (“the eyebrow”) because it’s perched right on the rim, about to spill into the city valley. I’ve never seen so much life packed into so little space before—virtually all of my needs can be met without going outside of the two square-block radius around my hostel. Buses to anywhere in Bolivia, international flights, four different microfinance banks and at least one regular bank, quinoa juice, whole limbs of animals in jerky form, you name it. Like Cara and Chantal, I’ve found that Spanish only gets me so far here. Many alteños, especially older folks and recent migrants, speak Spanish as a second language to Aymara. I had hoped to be really good at picking up Aymara, but as it turns out I’m totally useless.
At home in the U.S., two of my tried-and-true maxims are “I’ll take whatever’s cheapest” and “They wouldn’t sell me that if it were really dangerous.” However, after a month in Bolivia (and a handful of broken down buses, a bout with food poisoning and an attempted trip up a narrow mountain road in a snowstorm on a minibus with no snow tires), my mom will be happy to hear that I’ve reluctantly retired these maxims and replaced them with “Is this really a good idea?” There doesn’t seem to be a regulatory agency for much of anything in Bolivia, which leads to delightful labeling like that of my favorite Bolivian beer, El Inca: “An iron-laden beer tonic recommended by the most renowned doctors for anemic, weak and convalescent persons.” Another one of my favorite claims was by a boy on the bus from Oruro to La Paz who was selling powdered maca (a Bolivian root vegetable)—“Do you feel tired? Weak? Jittery? Anxious? Lackluster? Señores y señoras, I have the answer. Maca, señores y señoras, will cure what ails you. Maca is the most potent vegetable known to humanity. Señores y señoras, maca prevents osteoporosis and cancer. It cures anemia, señores y señoras. It is a stimulant, señores y señoras; it is a tranquilizer. It cures impotence, señores y señoras—maca has been called the Bolivian Viagra by international experts. Señores y señoras, maca is used by NASA scientists in the United States to ensure the vitality and heartiness of their space astronauts. And I’m here to offer you, señores y señoras, three envelopes of miraculous maca for just 30 bolivianos.”
One morning, about two weeks ago, I awoke and walked outside my room at the hostel where I’m staying, only to nearly walk into a giant hole with a two-story drop (pictured). Confused, I asked the nice young guy at the front desk what was with the giant hole outside my room. “Oh, that—just wanted to let some more light in,” he replied, equally confused as to why I would ask a question like that.
Letting the light in
There’s a lot of improvisation in everyday life here – which can be fun or frustrating, depending on the circumstances – and serves as a continuous reminder of just how orderly and predictable my life usually is. Last week, for example, we were heading back to El Alto from La Paz, and halfway there the driver told us we couldn’t go any further because the alteños had taken to the streets in an impromptu pro-Evo rally. So we got out and walked along the shoulder. Along the way, we noticed that an awful lot of drivers had gotten out of their cars and were taking apart the highway median by hand so that they could turn their cars around—this was a standard, sturdy metal freeway median with big bolts the size of my fist! It never would have occurred to me that such a thing could be taken apart by hand, much less that this was the logical solution to being stuck in traffic. But when in Rome (or El Alto)…
All in all, Bolivia has been a great experience and quite the adventure. I’ve really enjoyed my first week working with AgroCapital, my MFI, and have been really impressed by the hard work of both the loan officers and the clients I’ve met with. I was also lucky enough to meet up with Partner Development Specialist Dan, retired Kiva Fellow Cara and her husband Engineer Sam in La Paz—it was great to see some familiar faces.
Looking forward to writing more soon!
To see all AgroCapital clients currently fundraising on Kiva, click here
