Author Archive
Goodbye Kiva!
Last week was my last week as a Kiva Fellow. As I sat in the cold air of the bar Emprender took me to celebrate the end of my time with their offices and the national Dia del Trabajador (or workers day), I realized how far I have come. And how hard it would be to sum up the personal aspect of being a Kiva Fellow. And equally hard to sum up what microfinance looks like to me.
Here is an effort to show what I mean. Take a look at an album I made of my favorite entrepreneur photos from my placement in Honduras and in Bolivia.
I had just spent a solid hour learning the lilted, stomping, righteous traditional dance steps from Emprender’s regional directors and office managers. I was casually discussing (in imperfect but newly fully functional Spanish) the future of Evo’s MAS party. It was at this moment, during a pause in the live band’s flute playing and guitar strumming that I realized I have learned this city from the inside out. That is, I can tell you where the used clothes come from and how much a cow stomach has been marked up by the seller (35%). Microfinance can be a problem and I worry about over indebtedness, and irresponsibly lending to people who can’t repay. I worry that perhaps we still aren’t reaching the poorest of the poor, and perhaps there is a better way to relieve poverty. Is lending just a construct of “The West” (whatever that is) that shouldn’t be exported to “The Rest” (whatever that is)? I still don’t know.
Looking back on my 6 months as a Kiva Fellow, the sum total is positive. Enthusiastic, creative loan officers and entrepreneurs. Shiny new ideas and optimism. Smiles, laughs and hope. Microfinance doesn’t just change the material position of a family, but their self-image. This idea of self-image bleeds into the national consciousness. It changes women, and it inspires a community.
Flora bakes bread and now sells directly to a school with a monthly contract. Her loan allowed her to commit to a certain amount of product resulting in this contract that evens out her income and lends some predictability to a life wrought with uncertainty. She told me to pass along specific thanks to Kiva lenders.
Flora with her oven
Ramiro was robbed and lost the material he needed to run his tire replacing business. His Kiva loan puts him back on his feet. He spent the whole interview talking about the future. A bigger store. Transmission replacement. Employing his brothers.
Ramiro
Story after story like these two have warmed my heart, and made me believe.
Personally, I learned that I can’t stop my feet from itching, and will probably spend the rest of my life in a constant state of building a home and then taking it down again- and that I like that as much as I hate it.
Morning in La Paz- Sierra cleaning house
I’ll never find a solution to poverty that fits in every way, and I’ll always have my doubts. Still, the fight for equality moves me, connects me, and I’ll never stop trying, thinking, working and exploring. Thank you Kiva for this opportunity.
**Sierra Visher is a Kiva Fellow (KF6) posted in Honduras with Prisma and Bolivia with Emprender. She is heading to Pisco, Peru to volunteer with MAD Volunteers. After that- the open road. You can follow her journey on her personal blog. **
Best for Bolivia
Bolivia’s political conflict, antics and struggle are very much a part of the day to day. But somehow, I haven’t really felt it. I know that in September of 2008 the situation was much more tense. Violence was on the rise. The US Ambassador was expelled. A potential civil war between the highly indigenous west supporting Evo Morales and the more politically conservative, often land-owning east seeking autonomy? Throw in the simplifying and mystifying fact that in Latin America, right now, you are with Chavez or you are with the US, and I am left constantly talking about Evo’s policies and in equal portion, American sins.
Chavez and Evo
This was true this week when I met Don Lorenzo, who with a loan in his wife’s name, makes cholita hats. He asks me within the first five minutes a simple question: do you believe in the indigenous people of Bolivia? Simple. Yes.
Don Lorenzo and His Hats
So why does my government choose to burn down the coca fields, not only an ancient custom but also a competitive product on the capitalist global stage? I’m well versed in this- first, Don Lorenzo, I disagree with the US government’s war on drugs. But I can help explain some of the complex internal politics that have led to our obsession with curbing supply, and often ignoring demand. Second, we should make a distinction between the government of a country and the people of a country. I will do the same in the way I view the Bolivians.
An error. NO! Don Lorenzo sees himself perfectly reflected in his government. Evo is the face of the people. He understands their culture, their dreams, their hopes. He is one of us. Don Lorenzo says he has been molding, steaming, cutting and selling these hats, an image of indigenous Bolivia for his whole life, and Evo makes him even prouder every time his wife dresses in her pollera and sombrero and hits the streets to sell these beautiful products. I am Bolivia, says Don Lorenzo. So, by extension, Sierra is the US. The US government that is. Will it work to explain that electing an African American in some ways carries the same meaning for us as electing Evo was for them? I hesitate to call Obama an indigenous leader, but will “community organizer” transfer?
Bolivian Congressional Building
Probably not. I steer clear of the conversation, sweeping a wide arch that includes questions about where felt comes from and how his father learned the trade, but inevitably land roughly on, “so you are in support of Evo?”. “Are you?” he returns. Flat. Well. I don’t know. Like most places, the truth about what’s best and what’s worst lies somewhere in the forgotten in-between. Do I think Evo is good for Bolivia?
Several little points, primarily as anecdotes, come to mind. First, every person over the age of 65 gets 200 Bolivianos a month. This is practically nothing, but it feels like something. It feels like the government cares and that’s not nothing. He is fighting for literacy. Signs everywhere say, “Un Pais Libre de Analfabetismo”, a country free of illiteracy. Good effort, but I know several illiterate people. Still, they can take classes for free…if only they had the time. A rebirth of kids speaking Aymara. I love the thought that languages can be preserved, and something in me lights up when I hear Atajo’s lead singer rapping in Ayamara, even if it’s against the Yankees stealing his identity. More people than ever are employed by city governments to clean up and preserve immaculate plazas. And aren’t they pretty? Makes me proud to be here, like I know a secret- Bolivia is really beautiful.
San Pedro Plaza
But there are several little things that worry me. First, that he keeps changing the constitution so he run again. And then maybe again and again. Hunger strikes, Evo sitting on his floor munching coca, are an effective way to get congress to pass his measures. Corruption hard to measure but still a real force.
And the grey area. A perfect example is the fractura system. Each person in Bolivia has a section of their salary withheld and they can only use it in places that offer fractura. Or a receipt. To be able to offer a receipt, and thus attract customers, the business must both register with the government and pay taxes. This encourages the formal sector, and raises money for the state. A good thing. Except its hard to offer fractura, and most small businesses can’t. And it hurts. Not the woman on the corner selling just a few dozen oranges a day, but it does hurt a Kiva client who dries and packages chili peppers and wants to start selling to incorporated supermarkets. Plus, it seems to infringe a bit on one’s liberties to be told where they can shop. But oops, that’s my American-ness again.
Kiva Entrepreneur's Chili Peppers
And really, how does the political situation here affect business? For Don Lorenzo, his business is, in part, a political expression. Still there aren’t that many jobs, and people become business owners not because they want to, but because they have few options. The market appears saturated, but how could I possibly measure that with my limited tools- a camera and a notepad? I found out partway through my visit that his wife, Mercedes wasn’t at home because she was in a big march down the main street expressing general support for Evo. I asked how often she does this, and was surprised with the answer. Whenever her association requires.
Most small businesses like Don Lorenzo and Mercedes’ are part of a neighborhood association, that pools money to keep the street they sell on safe, and mostly clean. The have meetings once a month and are organized. Its one of the parts I like most about small businesses here. But whenever the director (a member of Evo’s MAS party, always) says they have to march, or blockade, they pick up and do it. If they don’t, the association issues a fine -they can’t sell their products for 1-3 days. Political participation in support of Evo is thus compulsory. Good thing Don Lorenzo and Mercedes believe in it. Otherwise this would be corruption, and an infringement on individuality. But oops, that’s my American-ness again.
After saying goodbye, and eliciting a few friendly laughs with my attempt to bid farewell in Aymara, I was in a taxi on the way to visit a friend when we bumped into Mercedes’ march. It was big. Lots of color and guns. A zebra is knocked down by the crowd. People dressed as zebras direct traffic in La Paz with happy faces and fancy dances. This is Evo’s attempt to “re-educate” people about traffic manners, and its harder to fight a zebra than a police officer. I open the door of a cab to help the zebra up when a riot cop sprays the mob with tear gas.
Zebra hard at work
Burn. My nostrils afire, my eyes burned shut. Have I really just been tear-gassed in La Paz? Where did the plaza with the flowers go, and my favorite egg lady? Where are the tuba players and the children with the icecream? A different world descends and my nearly blind taxi driver drops me above the blockade, near a gorgeous church where a friend is waiting. I’ve been told cigarette smoke binds to tear gas and helps. A non-smoker, I chock back two, trying to blow the smoke into my own eyes and sit it out. I was 100% fine 20 minutes later. The zebra was fine.
Now amidst Evo’s crys for international investigation of a plot to assassinate him, I find myself wondering still, what is best? The only conclusion that I can come to is, like the surreal moment when I’m helping a man dressed as a zebra move out of the street of half-hearted protestors, facing a cop in full riot gear spraying gas generally through a crowd, I am out of my element. I am not in a position to evaluate what is best for Bolivia.
Although, I did like sharing in Don Lorenzo’s pride, and will forever remember his smile more vividly than a blurry taxi ride.
Don Lorenzo and Sierra
Sierra Visher is a Kiva Fellow (KF6) from California on her second placement in Bolivia with Emprender. All funding loans from Emprender can be found here. Sierra can be reached at svisher@gmail.com, and enjoys hearing from Kiva lenders!
How Sierra Found Her Glasses
Emprender has two offices in Cochabamba and three in Santa Cruz. Both these cities have a distinct character, and reputation that precedes them. The Cochabambinos, or “ “Bambinos” (best nick name ever right?) are known for their gigantic plates of food. Everyone tells me that I would eat a lot in Cochabamba, and that I would find the climate perfect. In Santa Cruz, I would find people of a totally different culture. The kind that whistle at the women in the street, take off dancing at a moment’s notice, men with mojo and women with hot blood. All ferociously against La Paz’s beloved Evo Morales. I’m told that when I travel to the other parts of the country, that I would understand the background of Bolivia, what goes on behind the scenes. They couldn’t have been more correct. In the last few days, I’ve really learned about what goes on behind the scenes….and…under the table.
I was ushered into the station at 7am in the morning by screaming, bartering women in the Cochabamba station and rapidly found myself down 30 Bolivianos, and carefully stowed into the top seats on a bus, or floata, to Santa Cruz. The seats directly above the driver are incredibly beautiful. A huge surround seat window gives you the feeling you are flying above the road, the panoramic views simply take you’re breath away. I wondered, how did I score this!! I soon found out.
Window Views
The beautiful windows in this seat don’t open. Though I had space, a comfy seat and, of course, the view, I have never been so hot in all my life. The windows acted as a green house, and the little space got hotter and hotter and hotter. People, bags, food and even a dog in a box filled the aisle- there was no where to go. Luckily, in Bolivia, people come running to the window to sell you coolish jello at every stop, so I slurped my way down the road. The worst part though was that my glasses kept fogging up in the humidity became unbearably slippery, so I hung them on the curtain.
Nearly 16 hours later, I arrived in Santa Cruz, flopped out of the bus covered in sweat and filled with jello to wait in the heat for Julio, Emprender’s regional director to meet me at the bus station. I normally keep my cool (pun intended) in these kind of situations, but something unnerves me about Santa Cruz. Everyone has told me that this is a really dangerous station, and I’m just a little flustered. Which pocket has the big bills and which is the small? Do I have all my electronics? Did I keep that tiny scrap of paper they handed me when I boarded, and now inexplicably want back? When I get to the hotel, I realized that in my fluster, I left my glasses on the bus!
Though I’m not supposed to be running around a bus station at night, I pop into a cab and rush over for the price of 30 Bolivianos (a 10 minute drive that cost the same as the 15 hour bus). I run around the whole station looking for someone from the Trans Copacabana line. I find a friendly worker who after asking me to marry him, or provide sexual services, tells me that I arrived in bus 81, parked down this alley way. Keys between my knuckles, taxi driver following me at the rate of 5 Bolivianos, I make my way down the ally way plastered with anti-Evo posters. The drivers are at dinner, and are probably drunk, says a neighbor driver. I can return by 6 am to catch them.
The next morning I am there by six with another expensive taxi driver waiting in the parking lot (other taxis aren’t safe at this hour apparently) in the pouring rain trying to find my bus. Its not there. The ally is, but the bus is not. Trying to be as quick as possible, I run towards toward the main terminal to ask for information and I crash right into a line of barbed wire mysteriously strung between two trees. Maybe I should mention that without my glasses, I can’t see.
The bus has gone on an unexpected trip and won’t be back until night, several loads of passengers have been collected and everyone, six different people I’ve consulted, tell me there is no way they are still aboard. A pair of frames like that can be sold easily here. A last ditch effort, I leave my number with Juan, an assistant with Trans Copacabana who seems helpful, has told me I’m beautiful, and I make my tired, wet, bloody, dirty way back to the hotel to rush into the shower before I have to leave for the office.
Chasing Buses
Like modern miracle, at lunch, Juan calls – they found my glasses!! For a fee.
I ask how much, he says, “a small amount” and my phone cuts out. Rober, the Emprender loan officer I’m with, kindly accompanies me to the bus station, and waits with his car while I follow Juan to the bus. An error. I should have gone with Rober, who might have known what my glasses would cost. When I get there, they bring me down my glasses, and putting them on, the world seems clearer. I realize I have no idea how to pay a fee, or a bribe, or whatever it is I have to pay. Not expecting to have to pay this kind of thing, I don’t have the best denominations. I have a 20 B note, or about $3, and a 100 B note, which is about $14, which is a bit of money here. I rarely spend 100Bs in one setting. I give the driver the 20. He looks at it, scoffs throws it in the mud and trumps off. I feel terrible I want to do whats right. Is it right to pay? Is it right not to? Juan picks it up, tries to make me feel better, but explains that the driver was expecting at least 50, oh, and that he himself expects an additional amount. Can I ask for change? 100 Bs is a lot of money for me, and I’ve already spent hours in the mud, tons of money on taxis, I’m all cut up from the barbed wire, I was at the station late last night, and at 5 o’clock this morning and now this!? I miss the lost and found boxes so common in the US. Where is the little drawer behind the counter?
The driver won’t look at me, or stop grumbling loudly to his buddies “Gringa blah blah blah Gringa blah blah”. I leave the 20 B plus the 100 B (because I have to pay Juan something) with Juan asking him to share because the driver now won’t take anything I hand him and keeps throwing it in the mud. And looking at me with a combination of repulsive lust and hate. Will Juan share? I feel like a bumbling cultural idiot, I ashamed I can’t do what seems to be normal all over the world, and what looks so easy in American crime movies- passing slippery money from hand to hand, no one noticing. At the same time, I’m furious that I should have to. Who knows if it resolved. Glasses in hand, or rather, on face, my last pair of pants thoroughly wet, Rober and I take off for the next Kiva client.
Later, I met a group of women today who really brought it all into focus. One of them sells cosmetics for Avon and needed a loan to pay a fee to them that she feels is unfair. One of them was unfairly fired from her job as a babysitter and is trying to make ends meet by selling sweets from her home. One of them has a husband who is a bus driver who is constantly working more hours than is legal, and because his company doesn’t pay insurance for the truck, only the cargo, a recent accident has devastated their family, and they needed a loan. Rober and I have a long conversation about how lawyers are all crooks and their only ability is to suavely do what I couldn’t – pay bribes. Later I learn from one loan officer that El Torno, a town outside of Santa Cruz, where Emprender has an office, is suffering from a corrupt mayor who avoided corruption charges by signing up with Evo´s party, now he´s a true Masista. This is of course what everyone believes, but the truth is probably somewhat more nuanced.
New Friends
Its not that the country is so ramp with corruption that small businesses can’t get ahead, but rather that it happens often enough that it appears no one trusts the system. They don’t trust the political system, or the economic system or any of the promises that have been made to them by most institutions. Despite all this by at the end of the day, as Rober helped me over a slippery slope, I realized, maybe trust can begin with your solidarity group, and then with your bank. Then with your neighbor, your employer, your political party, and with your country. I felt a little bit more cheery, and felt like I could see.
A Day in El Alto
El Alto is the place where microfinance pretty much started in Latin America and it has held my interest for years. This cold, wind-swept city is an incredible phenomenon of urbanization, globalization, and pretty much any other -ization you can think of. La Paz, the city proper, sits in a bowl high up on Bolivia’s altiplano. Here, the city is protected from some of the bitter cold and wind. High up above the city, the flat plateau-like city of El Alto, is where the city’s poorest residents live, work and get by. A place washed by persistent, filthy, rotten poverty.
On the Edge of El Alto
Despite the cold, the sun at this altitude not only burns me instantly but imbues everything with a surreal light. Perhaps this is why El Alto struck me as one of the most colorful, vibrant places I’ve ever been. Markets are pouring out of windows, stands, corners and the very faces of El Alto residents. This desire to sell, to move, to change seems to me the very essence of El Alto. Most residents have come from “el campo”, or the country, looking for a better life. They stopped here and did their best. Now this sprawling, freezing metropolis of nearly a million people is a city unto itself boasting an apparently famous youth hip hop movement (must learn more about this), industries budding on every corner, a re-constitution of traditional art now mixed with urban vibes, music, family and of course- the market. Here is where we find Kiva funded clients.
El Alto Market
I met Saturnina and her husband Eufrin. She had so much to say about how Emprender needs to lower their interest rates, that I couldn’t get a word in edge wise. I had the long list of Kiva questions to run through, but standing there talking to her, the sun searing my back, through the shirt I have, the sweat slipping down my back and soaking the top of my jeans, I just didn’t get to them. I recently learned you can sunburn through your clothes. This is a first for me. I suddenly felt my eyes tracking, my mouth cracking and my feet swelling. Too much walking in too much sun for too long with too little water. I ended the conversation, walked promptly to the juice lady behind me and drank three glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice one right after the other. Despite not asking my normal questions, I learned from Saturnina, dressed in colorful clothing and mysteriously with some sort of leaves stuffed in her ears, that she has several loans from many MFIs and while Emprender’s interest rates of 39% annually are the lowest she pays, they are still too high. Duh. How do we lower them? She is over-indebted and I’m reminded again of the limits of microfinance.
Saturnina and Eufrin
For lunch, I had the single foulest food I’ve had yet. And I have had goat head soup. Charquecan is llama meat dried in the sun until it resembles beef jerkey. The word jerkey, coincidentally, comes from charque. Then you shred the llama meat and serve it over homily and dehydrated potatoes, or “chuño” with a chunk of what appears to be mostly rotten cheese and a hardboiled egg. It comes to you looking like a big bowl of hair with an egg. I sat with Alberto, a really nice, unusually single loan officer who is probably the kindest person I have met here. Loves charquecan, and is stoked that I’m shoveling it in my mouth with equal proportions of fanta. He says he’s worried about the poverty in his country and wonders how long it can go on like this. “Estoy orgulloso de ser parte de la solución”, or I’m proud to be part of the solution. It was like he was speaking straight to my heart.
Alberto, an Emprender Loan Officer
We return to the office where I pull myself together, organize a bit, and prepare to leave. Suddenly the confusion. Its my first day in this particular field office and everyone is worried. How will she get home? Can she understand the buses? She has her computer, can she make it to the bus stop? I knew what I was doing. I could see the stop from where we were standing. I just needed to get going so I’d arrive back home in the La Paz, or “the hole” before dark. After some commotion, a kiss on every face I’m off. Except. The security guard truly cannot handle me walking alone and insists on putting me in a bus to take me two blocks to where I catch the other. There is literally nothing I can do about it that would be appropriate. He flags one down, opens the door, negotiates with the bus driver and literally helps me into the front seat like my dad on the first day of school. I take these buses constantly, and am proud not to be a fumbling idiot in them. I have never felt so white, or so incapable of organizing my own time. The bus immediately turns down a different road. I ask to get out and the bus driver says, no, he has to first make a U turn. Suddenly I’m lost. Its getting dark. I am carrying a camera, a computer, a video camera and some money in the middle of El Alto. Sigh.
About 45 minutes later, after many conversations I get to a bus that takes me mostly in the right direction. I’m in. Its steaming with people’s warm breath in the frozen air. Cholita’s bowler-hats blocking my view. Its warm and as I start to drift off BAM! We blow a tire. Standing in the hail 45 minutes later somewhere between El Alto and La Paz, trying to catch another bus with the throng of Bolivians, I am reminded of how convenient everything in the US is. The metro with its predicted arrival times, clean and orderly. I’m frustrated, but I have some sort of inner calm that comes with knowing that I’m going home to a warm house with food in the fridge. Not just tonight, but always.
Sitting Some Days
Some days as a Kiva Fellow totally rock. Its like, “snap, snap, snap!” You are in the groove, making good decisions, few cultural errors, you are visiting clients, streamlining internal processes, inspiring the staff of Kiva’s partners, making connections and generally rocking out. Here is a quick video I made of a day during which I visited clients.
Some days…ie, today, are not so snappy. I got to one of Emprender’s field offices to find that they really didn’t have time to take me to visit clients like I had thought, and as we planned together. So far, Emprender has been more strict about adhereing to the daily plan we nailed out on day one than me, so I didn’t expect this change. I come without computer, in sneakers, jeans, sweater, rain jacket, plastic bags for electronics and lots of pens. I sit down, still not totally getting it that we aren’t going anywhere today and start to “observe”. Which means……make sure my eyes stay open.
Without preparation, besides being available for casual, around the water cooler conversations about Kiva, there is little capacity training I can do, and no one has time for me anyways. I ended up observing a few groups repay their loans (not Kiva clients), and a group prepare for a disbursment (again, not Kiva clients), and I managed to eat an enormous bowl filled will boiled chicken feet, but other than that. I sat there. For 6.5 hours. No book.
Kiva Fellows looking to pump me up, and my own internal dialogue tell me, “This is very normal, and your physical presence actually does create connections between Emprender and Kiva. It is important not to undervalue the importance of observing their processes and becoming a familiar sight. You can learn a lot that way about how the office functions, and use your experience with the group loans to write a general blog post about Emprender”. Its true, I know. But still.
So far, I’ve been truly surprised by the productivity, so I won’t beat myself up over today. But its still good to note, despite climbing Mt. Kilamanjaro, massively re-working the way Kiva is implemented, connecting on a deeply personal level with clients and generally saving the world- some days, a Kiva Fellow just sits.
Carnaval Crazies and Office Calm
I arrived in Bolivia on Sunday to the happy sounds and bright colors of Carnaval. The whole country was busy with their week long celebrations before lent. This Christian country incorporates many indigenous beliefs. Nearly all the entradas, or parades, that made getting from the airport to my apartment really difficult, are to honor some deity related to the earth, the sky, hell or food. Many offerings are made throughout the drunken mayhem. Water balloons and super soaker 5000s arm every child on every corner. The streets were filled for days with the sounds of fire crackers, screaming children and traditional music. Every person’s eyes were glazed with the happy film of Paceña, the local beer in La Paz. Though adjusting to the crazy altitude where fires don’t light and pasta doesn’t cook since water boils at such a low temperature, I partook as best I could.
Women wear over 30 skirts to show off their textile skills
This kind of break is clearly needed. The Bolivian staff at Kiva’s partner MFI, Emprender, work long, hard hours. Bolivians are known for their clear, slow Spanish (lucky for me), and their serious affect. I find this to be very true in this office of solemn faced workers. At first I was intimidated, but not more than 5 minutes had passed when they started to make straight faced jokes, that I’m proud to say I understood. I am so welcomed and comfortable in their office. Though serious and solemn, the Emprender staff feel an intense connection to the social aspect of their work. Christian, the young doctor who manages Kiva in Emprender is happy to pass along his responsibilities to a new Kiva Coordinator and focus full time on his health program. Starting shortly, Emprender clients can opt into a health insurance plan, pay slightly more at every loan repayment, and receive health services. I look forward to attending the opening. Around every corner I find a new plan for improving the lives of Emprender’s clients. They have an integrated approach to microfinace that is refreshing and inspiring.
Christian working in Emprender's Main Office
Our time together has been thoroughly planned, and I look forward to recounting the successes Emprender has here, the struggles I might encounter, and the face of microfinance in Bolivia. I can’t wait to meet the clients. I expect solemn faces barely hiding the color and excitement just below the surface that greeted me on my arrival.
Leaving Honduras
Yesterday all the loan officers and agency coordinators from all over Honduras gathered in the small conference room in Prisma’s main office summarize, discuss and clarify the way Kiva would be implemented in the coming year. This was the final day and our final hurrah. I was so honored that they considered my assistance and their partnership with Kiva worth the administrative cost of bringing everyone together for a day- effectively halting all normal activity. The loan officers from San Lorenzo and Choluteca were up at 3 in the morning to catch the bus to the capital and surely didn’t arrive back in their homes until nearly midnight.
Sierra and most of Kiva's Staff
I entered the office before anyone to go over the copies one more time, to wipe down the table, to center myself. The worries. “What if it turns out to be a big waste?”, “What if it becomes obvious that still, no one really understands Kiva?”, “I am hoping for a big discussion, but what if my questions fall flat and they respond with deafening silence” By the time I get the projector hooked up and water laid out on the table I’m starting to sweat. And by the time everyone trickles in, and begins reviewing their carefully prepared folders including the day’s agenda, a pencil for everyone, places for notes, and summaries, I’m starting to shake. And by the time Prisma’s director, operations manager and credit manager adjust their glasses in the back I’ve nearly forgotten all my Spanish.
We start and to my surprise the somewhat distant faces open up into big smiles and everyone takes part. People emphatically describe the kinds of journals they want to write and want to make sure that they have the right idea. Orbelina, Prisma’s Director, emphasizes her confidence in her employees, encouraging them to be creative. She reminds them how important Kiva is to their goals as an organization. After nearly 4 hours of pounding out the process, reading examples of profiles and journals and discussing the operational difficulties facing every office we were all relieved to enjoy a big lunch.
Manual and Octavio Enjoying Lunch
In typical Honduran style, the Thank Yous began. Each person took the time to express their gratitude and friendship to me. We spent about 20 minutes reminiscing about the occasional disastrous moto ride. Side trips to visit the grandparents of the loan officers who lived “just beyond that little hill”. Adventurous lunches in the local markets. Funny language mix ups. Memorable clients.
Sierra and Elia
I realized that though I know that Honduras is an environmentally rich country, filled with incredible species of birds, rainforest and arid highlands. I hardly made my way out to these places. Instead, my experience has been colored with the rich culture and individual connection I’ve had with so many people. The family I live with is a true blessing. I’ve witnessed a marital fight. 3 birthday parties. A huge baptism. The daily ins and outs of raising grandchildren, making ends meet. I have been so welcomed into their home and comfortably pass the time with both Doña Elia and Don Carlos. Carlos listens to the radio. A big clunker he carries around the house all day. He watches TV and recounts the plot to me almost as if it were non-fiction. “Then the shark attacked the scuba divers and they thought that it was safe to swim but it wasn’t. He ate all but one. She made it to the island and became a savage. She didn’t even believe in God”. Elia is in a constant state of preparing food for the endless stream of neighbors, God children, sisters, grandchildren, children and strangers that pass through her dining room daily. She turned 60 last night and joking put only 6 candles on the cake. “I’m still a child at heart,” she said. The salsa dancing began a few minutes later.
Salsa Feet
Prisma’s clients have contrasted this incredible affluence. They are honorable and interesting people. Each person has their own incredibly varied background, but their dreams for the future are almost always the same. They want a well-constructed house, healthy nutritious food, and the ability someday to stop worrying. I love the way that Kiva funded clients pat my arm on the way out of their homes saying “Nos vemos”, or loosely, “see you soon”. I feel that I really could come back any time and visit with them, or see them on the street and stop for a quick chat.
The country is a mix. Many feel incredible shame and anger at the corrupt system everyone agrees is the problem and which no one knows how to change. They have a curious love-hate relationship with the US. Everyone wants to go there, anything in English is way cooler, and clothes or lotions or food or machinery from the US is assumed to be higher quality. Still, people seem to be searching for the reasons they can be proud to be Honduran. Many have found it, some still yearn to leave. I’ve been asked for help getting a visa so many times I have lost count. Still, each person loves to brag about the parts of their country they love most. Nothing makes them happier than to hear how much I like the food, how beautiful their beaches are, how incredibly open their homes are, how I love the dancing and the visiting and the coffee and the weather and the clean air. “I’m happy you are comfortable”, everyone says.
Honduras is a country that often suffers. Mitch nearly destroyed it in 1998, and they’re constantly battered by rains, draught, disease. They’ve been undermined by economic exploitation by other counties for the past 400 years. Now they have a president that recently raised the minimum wage, in an appeal to the large population living below or near the poverty line. Unfortunately, the majority of small business simply couldn’t pay and the larger ones often refused resulting in a massive lay-off that combined with the drastically reduced remittances from the US has crushed the economy. Worried faces. Small businesses fighting yet another battle. Another complication Prisma has to navigate. But they have a wealth of potential. Honduras has incredible natural resources, a fighting spirit and a country filled with incredible kindness.
Waiting for Change
I’m not sure exactly how microfinance fits into the picture here, but it could not be clearer that Prisma is passing hope to its clients, who pass it to their neighbors, who enact it in their churches and local governments and schools, who continue to struggle to make this a better place. It has been an honor.
Speaking about Poverty
Day in and day out I swerve through Honduran shanty towns, isolated hovels, over exquisite landscapes and into ditches. I can’t open my eyes wide enough, and at the end of everyday I have more questions than the day before. The questions are complex and every one leads me down a rabbit hole. Its starts like this: To begin with, how do we really measure poverty here in Honduras? And once I identify the poor, I wonder, does Prisma reach the poorest of the poor? If not, is it enough that they reach the middle poor, and by virtue of growing small business opportunity, they grow opportunities for employment of the poorest of the poor? Given the global economic crisis, is encouraging debt responsible? Is it more important for the borrower to just feel less poor? Or is that just an enormously arrogant view? And once we move into the realm of feelings, we lose all measurements. But lets say we wanted to measure feeling poor, is that something we should do? And how? My head is swimming.
All my questions really crystallize as I write journal updates. Let me stop asking and begin.
Sometimes I meet people whose situation is dire. They live in garbage. As we drive up, dirty children come to greet us. Big, haunting stares. As we talk I find it hard to focus for the sheer quantity of flies in their open homes. This was the case of Doña Reina Marina Fernandez. She lives in a tiny isolated village. To get there I rode on the back of a motocycle for over two hours of dirt road. We stopped twice to push it through rivers and sludge. We arrive to find the majority of her property totally destroyed by the recent flooding that has decimated the southern region of Honduras. The flooding has changed the shape of her land and her oven is about to fall off a cliff. She is trying to figure out how to move it since she makes her business baking bread and other sweets.
Flooded Property
Her smiling son of about 15 comes to greet us. I give him a hearty greeting just to find that he is mute. Like an idiot I say, “hello, how are you?” in sign language. First, signing in Spanish is as different as speaking in Spanish. Second, of course he didn’t go to sign language school. This person has no communicative ability, because he was never taught to talk. He smiles and gestures and Manuel, the saint of a loan officer that has been taking me around, understands him. Or pretends to. For several months this year, the flooding isolated this town. Most of the crops of every person, including Doña Reina, were destroyed and there is little to eat. They take the bus in now to Danli to buy basic goods, and try to sell them in an economy, that for all appearances, is hardly functioning. It should be stated clearly that she is open about her circumstance and is honest about her difficulties but she was honorable and resolute. She has a quick wit, and asked me interesting questions about the US. She wonders how many people are farmers. I could only tell her that my family was a family farming and my dad still works in agriculture.
Surely, this is “the poor”. Right? But who are the children I see out of the corner of my eye as we whiz through pueblo after pueblo, and in the shadows of Tegucigalpa? They raise their heads out of giant dumpsters as we pass by, faces covered in flies. Are they being reached by microfinance? If not, can they be?
And in my journal updates how can I represent the poverty here. Telling one person’s story is satisfying, and its my job, but really its not about one person. Its about a system. I write the details of one person but on re-reading every update they seem flat and one-dimensional. I find myself wanting to highlight poverty for Kiva lenders. Then they can feel like their loan meant something. They can feel they are helping. I feel horrible when on my visits find myself looking for the saddest part of their story. Preserving their dignity is important to me, and I try to stop myself. I do, but its hard. I so badly want to see an extreme transformation that I have to make sure I’m not fabricating it. Progress is so incremental, often non-existent.
Sometimes I have a totally different problem representing the borrowers. Sometimes the borrowers don’t seem nearly as poor. They definitely needed it, accordingly the loan was helpful, but in no way life altering in the Muhammad Yunus sense. This was very true on a recent visit.
I meet many people like Victor, who really make me question the system and the goal of microfinance. He is a former professional football player in Honduras. He played 10 years in the professional soccer leagues of this country and for many teams. I’m told that 10 years ago soccer players didn’t make the money that they do now. Still- this seems to indicate a level of opportunity Doña Reina can only dream of. He now operates his own taxi business. We talk on his outdoor patio while workers finish painting his two-story house a nice new shade of vibrant yellow. His lovely, stylish wife passes through on her way to visit friends, high-heels clicking past my filthy, dusty tennis shoes. He owns his taxi, and his personal car, and needed a loan to fix a broken transmission. This sounds like the kind of debt I have. He supports two children who live in Tegucigalpa while the attend University. As an unpaid Kiva Fellow, with little to no plan about how I’m going to finance my life in the U.S when I return in 5 months, saddled with student loans, I wonder if Victor is actually richer than me. Surely not. Right?
Victor
Though this doesn’t feel like the microfinance of my imagination, the Victors of Honduras are a crucial cog in the microfinance machine. In order to reach the poorest (assuming that they do) Prisma needs him. Before they are a development organization, they are a bank. Their technical abilities, and sound internal policies make the humanitarian arm of their business more effective. Obviously this is a simple concept, but will Kiva lenders feel emotionally fulfilled when they learn the true details of his life? Is this a breakdown in the system? I want to accurately describe what I see here, really shedding light on the whole system, and thereby foster true understanding. But something about Victor’s loan doesn’t feel like microfinance. Still, it was a small loan, so that counts. Right?
Understanding what poverty looks like here, how microfinance fits, and whether it’s addressing the real causes of poverty, where cultural differences begin and end, how to speak to truth, and where I am in the whole system is hard. I’ll admit freely: right now, I am lost.
Christmas in Honduras
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.
Home
Merry Christmas!
MFI Prisma wins a prize!
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!
The Internet People
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!***
First Thoughts
I am sitting quietly in the cool, green room of a family operated hostel called Dos Molinos in San Pedro Sula. Shortly I will leave for a long bus ride to Tegucigalpa where I meet up with Prisma staff who will show me to my new home.
As I prepare for Monday, when I want to hit the ground running, I find it hard to focus as my mind begins to wander all over the place (though maybe it’s just the vestiges of chloroquine induced dreams…)
My boyfriend prefers professional football to college. He likes brute force of it, and feels closer to the professional teams, which represent to him, his hometown in California more than any college team could. They are old friends, and a powerhouse of activity. Me- I can’t stand football, but the only games I’ve truly enjoyed are between college teams. These are players that still play for the love of the game, for the camaraderie, to make their coach proud, for Mom, Dad and maybe a girl in the stands. They play less for the money than they do for the love.
This is like me- I want to work for the love, and not for the money. This is why I’ve left my paid job for an unpaid Fellowship, left my apartment, friends and family and most of my worldly goods to move to Honduras. I’ve already met the kindest people, sobre todo, the folks here at the Dos Molinos. I find myself thinking, somewhat pedantically, what kind, wonderful people. I’m depressed by the next thought which is, “yeah, but they are only nice to me because I represent money”.
Is that true?
Worse, is my commitment to using microfinance not only to raise the standard of living, but facilitate global connections and understanding actually condemning the world to a game of professional football, where we loose that intangible human nature for a structured, monetary interaction? I love Kiva for its commitment to people, and for using technology to make the world a little smaller, but what do we lose in doing so? And how can I minimize the loss and maximize the benefit?
What can I do to make technology real in people’s lives, relationships both personally and financially prosperous, and us all a little happier?
I will explore these questions here in the coming months here. Join me.
Microfinance Adventures: Training
I’m nearly a full fledged fellow, simply waiting a few more intense sessions and a final knighting. Once all that formality is over, it will be a whirlwind two months while I sell everything I own, say goodbye to friends, family and co-workers, stuff myself full of vaccinations and purchase the ticket to begin my new life in Tegucigalpa, Honduras as a Kiva Fellow!
Training highlights have been really inspiring conversations with Matt and Premal (and yes, I do have a crush on him now). Its wonderful to be a part of this great organization! Please tune in…
