Amidst many adventures, this week has had its share of sobering events. Many of Life in Africa’s (LiA) Kiva borrowers live in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Kampala. As a Kiva fellow, I travel to their homes to chat with them about the challenges they face operating small-scale businesses. On most days, the head of LiA’s microfinance program, Grace Ayaa, accompanies me on my interviews to serve as a translator. On Saturday Grace was late to our meeting. After some time she showed up looking dazed and disheartened. Grace informed me that she woke up in the early morning hours to go to the bathroom. When she reached the pit latrine she found the body of a dead baby. Grace remembered that her neighbor’s housekeeper was pregnant; apparently she apparently gave birth in the middle of the night and left her newborn for dead. Grace was forced to summon the police and witnessed them handcuff and arrest the 16 year old girl for murder. The police put the newborn’s corpse in a clear plastic bag and made the trembling girl hold the body while they filled out paperwork. The young mother was brought to the local police station and is expected to serve a minimum of seven years in jail.

Is this girl a monster? No. I am by no means condoning murder or the taking an innocent life, but I can’t shake the image of this teenaged girl giving birth, alone and scared, in the middle of the night. Consumed by fear, she made an error in judgment that killed one life and ruined her own. I have only lived in Uganda for seven weeks and am not claiming to be a psychologist, sociologist, detective, or anything in between. I have, however, met countless women fitting this demographic. They are young. They are poor. They are uneducated. They lack the financial means, knowledge, and requisite emotional support system to care for themselves, let alone another human life. These girls are born into poverty, and, due to its cyclical nature, stand a slim chance of every escaping its clutches despite efforts from development agencies. Did she make a mistake? Yes. Should she be punished for it? Probably. But what factors influenced her decision? Is she a coldblooded murderer, filled with malice and a true threat to society? Regardless of the answer to that question, she was still taken away in a police car, forced to publicly bear her scarlet letter by holding her infant’s lifeless body.

I came into work on Tuesday only to meet Grace’s sad gaze once again. Over the weekend, Esther Akello, an LiA member and ringleader of the Acholi women, fell seriously ill. I have spent many days in Esther’s home in the IDP camp. Most of the Kiva borrowers meet me in her house because she loves playing hostess. Esther serves us tea and traditional Ugandan food as we chat sitting on the cement floor underneath her tin roof. The conversations initially focus on microfinance but always steer off topic as Esther frequently interjects clever remarks. Her contagious laughter and witty banter leave the group in hysterics and near tears.

Esther was under the weather all of last week. I saw her everyday—LiA hosted a five day conference and she was one of the members in attendance—but she maintained her characteristically facetious demeanor despite feeling ill. Her poor condition escalated over the weekend. Esther’s husband refused to take her to Mulango Hospital, opting instead to seek physicians at a local clinic because he could not afford better treatment. Grace implored him to take her to the hospital regardless of the cost.

I went with Grace to Mulago Hospital. I found Esther lying on the dirty hallway floor–one of several patients remaining untreated. I could not believe the conditions I was seeing. This is Uganda’s premier hospital located in the capital city. A woman—my friend—is lying on the floor unconscious and barely breathing; no doctor so much as looks twice when they pass her limp body. Unbelievable. Of course, I am not blaming the doctors; they are understaffed and lack the resources to treat patients. I wanted to scream, who is responsible here??? Then it hit me. This is not America. I cannot protest that this is unfair and demand to see a supervisor to care for Esther immediately. This is not America. She is probably not the first person to lay on their hallway flours unnoticed. She will not be the last. Again, this was another sobering event that brought me face to face with the realities faced by those living in developing countries. This is not America. All I could do was rub her feet and sit with her relatives and other visitors hoping for a doctor to take pity on Esther.

With CHOGM approaching in November, the government has made an attempt to clean up the city in preparation for the arrival of hundreds of delegates and officials from around the world. Will the government actually address issues such as poverty, poor healthcare facilities, etc. or just sweep them under the carpet to hide the horrible conditions those living in the slums endure everyday? The Queen of England will enjoy the drive from Entebbe airport to Kampala because those roads are being repaved and resurfaced. What about the dangerous, potholed, dirt road leading to Esther’s home? I doubt the Queen Elizabeth will be exposed to this side of Uganda.

I’ve been in Nairobi since last Wednesday evening. Eb-F opened a new Unit here about three months ago. On Thursday we moved to a more permanent and bigger office and have just been getting settled. Friday I was able to go to the field – Kibera Slums. A lot of what I could write about Nairobi has already been covered really well by Kerry in other entries but I just wanted to share a quick few thoughts:

- Nairobi traffic is absolutely horrendous. It’s worse than any city I’ve ever seen in the US, except maybe Los Angeles.

- Al-Jazeera news gets a terribly unfair rap in the Western media. It’s one of the five channels I get on my tv in my hotel room and I have found it incredibly well-done. It’s informative, unbiased and just plain good objective journalism. This morning I watched a really good half-hour interview with the UN’s Shashi Tharoor. I’ve seen really solid coverage on US illegal immigration stories, Latin American development, floods in India and Bangladesh, Middle East coverage, etc. I’d say that it’s better than just about every tv news media in the US. A friend of mine spending the summer in Cairo doing his thesis research agreed with me.

- This follows up on what Kerry noted about the Kibera slums – that despite being a sprawling complex of slums of mud houses and horrendous roads, many people living there are relatively well off. They have TVs and electricity and are doing pretty well. Jaji Barlet, the Eb-F Business Development Officer for Nairobi raised some interesting points to me. First, he said there are over 220,000 NGOs and community development organizations working in the Kibera slums. If that’s true, then what has gone wrong, or rather what is going wrong? Why are they still slums? Another really interesting thing was his harangue against Playstation 2. As we walked through the slum streets, we saw a few places where kids could go and pay to play Playstation and other video game consoles. He said that a lot of kids now spend more time playing games than working on their studies, and that they invariably do much worse in school since the introduction of such Western technology and recreation.

So I’m in the home stretch of my time as a Kiva Fellow. I’ll be returning to New York next week. I have mixed emotions about this – it will be wonderful to see my family and friends again, to enjoy American efficiency and hot water and not eat barbecued red meat with every meal, but the past several weeks have been an undeniably instructive, formative and remarkable experience for me.
Last Thursday night was my last in Nakuru, the town where Ebony’s head office is. I went to dinner that night with the whole staff. We spent several hours at the restaurant, dancing to the spirited Kenyan music played by the live band. At one point everyone went around saying goodbye to me – it was truly touching. I did my best to express my thanks and gratitude, for how hospitable and welcoming they have all been, but also for the work that they are doing. I find it humbling to have worked with so many talented people dedicated to helping their fellow man, a sentiment that I often find lacking in my life back home. I assured them that I would be back, and I meant it – I have every intention of returning to Kenya within the next few years.

On Friday James (Eb-F’s director) and I went to Nairobi where we briefly met up with the Nairobi Unit. They were attending the graduation of their latest batch of clients. As part of the loan process, Ebony provides its clients with a three-week business skills crash course. Clients learn everything from accounting to marketing, skills that will help them better utilize their loan and improve their enterprises. Ebony has partnered with the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business to help teach these courses. A professor and her MBA students come to Kenya to teach side-by-side with Ebony’s staff.

In the evening we boarded a short flight to Mombasa, one of Kenya’s biggest cities. It’s on the coast, overlooking the Indian Ocean. It’s a major shipping port for not only Kenya, but East Africa in general. Upon landing I immediately noted that the stereotypical African weather I had been expecting was here – it was hot, humid and sticky. The other day, it was easily 75 or 80 degrees by only 10 am! What’s remarkable is that right now it’s winter in Kenya, meaning that come December, the weather here is much much hotter.

Ebony just recently opened a new Unit here. It’s been in operation for a little over three weeks now and is staffed by just two people, Jane and Mike. They have begun extending credit in what Eb-F terms is Benki Yetu program. This loan scheme is centered around small amounts and is given to groups of five only. Repayment is daily, usually about 100 shillings, and lasts for a maximum 45 days. Groups that successfully repay their first loan graduate to two higher levels within Benki Yetu. If they continue repaying on time, they can then access the higher credit schemes that Ebony offers.

Mombasa is a beautiful city, right on the ocean. At most times during the day and especially at night there’s a refreshing sea breeze floating through the city. The city proper is actually an island, directly off the mainland, connected by a bridge and a ferry system. Right away I got the sense that it was much more of a city than Nakuru. It’s not as big as Nairobi, but sufficiently large and with bigger avenues, more traffic, more high-rises, etc. There’s a strong Muslim and Arab influence in the city, something that is noticeable not only by the Muslim-inspired architecture of many buildings but also simply by the sheer number of women in traditional burqa coverings. The city is also very old and was one of Kenya’s first contact points with Europeans. The Portuguese established a port here as early as 1593 when they built Fort Jesus, a structure that is still standing today. It’s now a historical site and museum, and I was lucky enough to visit. Over the next several centuries Mombasa was held by Arabs from Oman, British, etc.

The city is also naturally a huge tourist attraction, owing to its beautiful beaches. I’ve seen a lot more foreigners on the streets than I ever would in Nakuru. An interesting (yet sad and disturbing) phenomenon is the prevalence of prostitution in Mombasa. Nearly every club/restaurant/bar (they are all the same) I have been to is filled with women of various ages who are hookers. Their industry is fueled by the wealthy white men (mainly Europeans) who come here on vacation looking for a good time. In talking with Jane and Mike I learned that a lot of the women working as prostitutes stay in school only long enough to learn conversational English, Italian and German, then drop out and become prostitutes. It’s an unbelievably sad state of affairs.

A corollary to this is the pretty large number of Europeans (men AND women) who come here “looking for love.” These are people who are clearly of means and who are all a minimum of 40 years old, some much older. I see them all over town and on the beach, strolling hand in hand with young Kenyan men and women, locals who look barely out of their teens.

I leave this afternoon for Nairobi, where I’ll be working with that Unit. I’ll be visiting Kiva clients who are mainly based in the Kibera slums. I’m there until I head home next week.

Greetings from Uganda! My name is Maura and I have been working with Life in Africa (LiA) for the past four weeks. LiA is a community based organization servicing families affected by Northern Uganda’s civil war. Approximately 80% of members belonging to the Kampala LiA Center are mothers living in the Acholi Quarters–an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp. Political instability and violent rebel attacks over the past two decades have caused people to flee from the northern districts to escape persecution. Many LiA members hope to return home in the near future.

As a student studying international development, I came to Uganda to learn how microfinance programs can benefit those trying to rebuild their lives in post-conflict areas. Many people I have talked with in the IDP camps live in mud structures with tin or grass-thatched roofs. Forced from their villages into the camps, these people had to restart their lives with no means of financial support. Members of LiA access credit to purchase the fixed capital necessary to operate small-scale, income-generating businesses. Sustainable cash flows enable members to buy basic necessities. Often allocating profits involves sacrifices; food expenses, rent, and school fees tend to take priority over proper health care and medical treatment.

From my exchanges with LiA’s Kiva loan recipients, school fees are primarily cited as the average household’s greatest expenditure. And it is no surprise why. The mothers I’ve met usually care for their 4 to 8 children, in addition to supporting deceased relatives’ dependents. Some mothers lack formal schooling because their parents could not afford the fees; others were prevented from continuing classes because rebel attacks interrupted the operations of educational institutions. These mothers work unceasingly to provide their children with opportunities they were denied.

I was expecting to witness poverty in the IDP camps. I was not, however, expecting to hear so much laughter. These women are constantly singing, chatting, dancing, and poking fun at one another. Visiting a camp for the first time, I was nervous about how the local community would receive me. I do not exactly blend in as a freakishly tall, white, young western woman. Within five minutes of my arrival I was promptly christened with my Acholi name–Lakeza (meaning “grace” in Lwo)–and adorned with handmade necklaces. Although I am occasionally harassed by men on the street, generally all of the women and children I interact with have been more then friendly (especially the LiA members!).

As a Kiva Fellow, I meet with loan recipients and journal on the social impact of microfinance. Introductions alone are the most time-consuming portion of my interviews; greeting dozens of family members and even neighbors who sneak over to catch a glimpse of the mzungu (white foreigner) can take hours. After casual chatting has died down, I am typically overwhelmed with heaping plates of rice, posho (bread made from maize flour), and matokye (fried plantain). We then travel to the loan recipient’s business and I am filled in on the daily challenges entrepreneurs face.

Conversations normally start with a focus on microfinance but tend to steer towards more personal subjects. It is not my intention to pry, but the Ugandans I have met are fairly open to sharing their backgrounds and experiences–even if it means bringing up painful memories. For instance, I am shocked by how many people were abducted by or lost family members to the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). Some of the stories are quite disturbing; I find myself getting angry that so many of the horrific human rights violations in Northern Uganda never surfaced in the international media. I came to Uganda to learn how microfinance programs can be utilized in conjunction with poverty-alleviation schemes; the effects of war have added a whole new dimension to my initial curiosities about development initiatives. Although some of my initial inquiries have been satisfied, these answers have spawned an entirely new set of questions.

Last week I traveled to Gulu along with 35 LiA members from Kampala for a week long conference. I brought a few novels to occupy myself on the six hour bus ride. I did not get past page one of my book. The women were intent on transforming me into a true Acholi woman and the entire trip was dedicated to Lwo lessons (most of LiA’s members speak Lwo or Luganda) intermingled with instruction on how to create paper beads from recyclable materials. Quite the eventful bus ride, I also experienced by first Ugandan “drive-thru.” I explained that in the US, we have McDonalds; you drive up to a black box, place your order, pull forward to a window, pay, pull forward to a third stop, and receive your food. In Uganda, you pull off to the side of the road at a trading center, flocks of children run up the the bus thrusting sticks of meat, roasted cassava, fried bananas, and live chickens (yes, live!) into the bus windows. You grab whatever meets your fancy, slip a few shillings to the eagery waiting hands outside, and then the bus departs trying not to run anyone over in the process. Chaos!

After arriving in Gulu I was sent to the volunteer house to sleep. We had ten people to fit on four mattresses–a cozy living situation. Nights were spent teaching the LiA members the electric slide and other equally terrible American line dances. There is nothing like a cold bucket shower in the morning to erase feelings of drowsiness from a lack of sleep! For five days, every waking moment was spent talking with LiA members, facilitating discussions at the conference, or fielding questions by children seeking help using the internet. Writing a short email in the community center took nearly an hour to compose because I was drawn into the surrounding conversations; Ugandans love to talk! It does not take an anthropologist to notice that privacy is valued more in the US then in East Africa. During each of my two minute trips to the bathrooms I was assured to hear voices from outside the door asking “Where is Maura? Lets go find her!” In the end I have no complaints, the bonding was worth the lack of personal space.

During the evenings in Gulu I visited a night commuters center. Fearing abduction in their villages by the LRA, children walk miles by themselves to sleep in the centers each night. Hordes of thousands of children used to spend their nights at these centers, but within the last year the number has dropped significantly. Even though peace is on the horizon, because children have spent years sleeping at the centers there are often no available beds or floor space at home to stay. I also frequented the headquarters of a few other NGOs during my week in Gulu. The influx of foriegn aid in this district is incredible, but much more help is still needed.

My flight back home is scheduled for the end August. I have been consumed with my work at LiA and can’t believe that I only have about three weeks left! I hope to do a little sightseeing before heading back to the States and will make sure to post another message to the blog detailing my future adventures in Uganda!

Last week I had the pleasure of taking a few days off from my duties as a Kiva Fellow to go on safaris in Tanzania. I joined my uncle and cousin who were on vacation from the US; they travelled with a group of about 15 other people.

I left Nakuru early Friday morning for Nairobi. I had beat my uncle and his group there, so I checked into a room and explored a bit – the hotel, the shopping mall across the street, etc. I also checked to see if the bookstore would have Harry Potter 7 – to my delight, they did and I ordered a copy for myself and for my cousin. (We were a  bit disappointed the next morning when we picked up the books though – we expected crazy lines and tons of kids dressed as wizards, but no dice. I guess that mania is only in the US and UK.)

The group arrived – we all had lunch at Sarit Center, the shopping mall. We ate in the food court. It was unlike any food court in the US – the food was actually really good in terms of quality. Also, after you order your food at the counter, you sit down and have your food brought to you – waiter service at a food court! We had a mixture of Indian food and pizza – after weeks of having the same combination of beef stew, rice and other Kenyan dishes, it was a welcome change.

Friday night all the kids (I use that word just to distinguish from adults; I was the youngest of the kids) went to this club Gipsy’s a block or two away from our hotel. Apparently it’s really popular in Nairobi, but mostly with the local Indian crowd. There were some foreigners/tourists and local Africans, but it was a lot of Indians. Indians in Kenya have always been part of the upper class and it was no more obvious than it was here. All of the Indian 20-something-year-olds at Gipsy’s were driven there in chauffeured cars, studied abroad in England or the US and only came home in the summer where all they did was party and spend their parent’s money. Most of them lived in huge houses with servants, servants who were invariably Kenyan Africans. After spending the past month meeting and interacting with people at the bottom of Kenyan socioeconomic ladder, being in the lap of luxury made me a bit uncomfortable.

On Saturday afternoon, those of us who were interested went to Carnivore. Carnivore has been named one of the world’s 50 best restaurants and is a huge tourist attraction. The restaurant is really more of an all-encompassing experience. It is one of the few places that has a license to sell game meat. Years ago, before so many animals were endangered, you could go there and eat lion, zebra, buffalo, giraffe, etc. Unfortunately, poaching and hunting have threatened so many species. The only exotic thing we got to eat was ostrich meatballs. Still, it was a great experience and the rest of the meat – chicken, pork, beef, and lamb – was extremely succulent and tasty.

We left Nairobi early Sunday morning, around 8 am. Our week’s travels had been booked through Sunny Safaris. All 18 of us got into this big green bus and started our drive South. We drove until we hit the Kenya-Tanzania border, where we had to stop to fill out paperwork and get our Tanzania visas. There were a bunch of safari groups there trying to get in the country and the office was obviously understaffed and overwhelmed.

It was here that I realized fully one of the biggest things that I’ve learned in Africa. It’s kind of similar to the acceptance and understanding that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character has when he sighs “TIA mate, this is Africa” in Blood Diamond. We ended up waiting at the border for over an hour. About 15 minutes in to that wait, most of the people in our group (and the other groups) were complaining. They were used to American/Western standards of efficiency, but also the fast pace of American life. I just sat quietly on the steps outside the office and people-watched and relaxed. Talking to a good friend of mine who is spending the summer in Cairo, we have both realized that while the slow pace of life here in Africa can sometimes be infuriating and inefficient, it is also a welcome change from the breakneck speed of life in America. It’s a good thing to not always be on the run, to not always be trying to meet the next deadline or living life as a slave to your watch. I’ve learned that if I can’t check my email 5 times a day, I’ll survive. And the time that I waste on Gmail and Facebook, I can use instead to read a book or just enjoy a lazy and relaxed Sunday afternoon.

Something that I also realized as the week went on was how how culturally insensitive and spoiled those of us in the developed world can be. I was already uncomfortable riding through towns very similar to those I visited Kiva clients in (mud “roads”, tin-roof shacks, children dressed in rags running barefoot through the street) in our luxurious Land Rover jeeps with plenty of food and water at our fingertips. It just didn’t feel right on some level. At every slight bump in the road – both the literal and figurative road – along our journey, I could hear people in our group complaining. Heaven forbid that one night you didn’t get perfectly warm water. And how can you possibly complain at the quality of food you are having in luxury lodges every night – buffets complete with salad bars, desserts, a variety of entrees, breads, soups, etc – when the towns you drove past earlier in the day were filled with people who are struggling to make ends meet and get enough food to make it through each day? How can you be rude to and annoyed by the Maasai women who try to sell you their painstakingly hand-crafted curios and goods? Don’t you realize that selling those necklaces is their sole source of livelihood? It’s fine if you don’t want to buy one, but you don’t have to be rude and talk down about the women when you are back in the comfort and luxury of your Land Rover

Okay, I’m done ranting.

Once we passed the border, we drover further south to the town of Arusha. (This is where we transferred from the big bus to three Land Rovers.) Along the way we drove through the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. From Arusha, we set out after lunch for Ngorongoro Crater – a huge crater created 1.2 million years ago when a volcano exploded. The crater is about 19 kilometers in diameter and from the floor to the rim rises the same height as a 70-story building. On our drive up to the lodge (several lodges are built around the crater’s rim) we stopped at an observation point. The view was breathtaking. No matter how many pictures I took, they were severely inadequate. My words cannot describe how gorgeous it was and when I look at the pictures, they really don’t capture the whole scene.

All I can do is urge you to find time in your life to visit this place and see for yourself. A bit farther along the drive up, there was a full-grown male lion just chilling on the side of the road. We drove up like 10 feet away from it and took a bunch of pictures.

He was so majestic and regal – when you’re that close, you understand why lions are the kings of the jungle. It’s also then that you realize just how sad and pathetic lions and other animals that are held in captivity (in zoos for instance) are compared to an animal in the wild.

The next morning we woke before the sun so that we could watch the sunrise over the crater.

Watching that sunrise, I realized a few things. First, I think this was the first time in my life I had ever watched the sunrise. Second, and much more profound, I felt completely at peace. No thoughts stirred in my head and no emotions beat in my heart. I just stood. I was. That’s it. And it was unbelievably and indescribably serene and soothing. Looking back on that moment later in the day, and even now, I realize how special it was. It’s very rare to find a moment in time where you can just be. At every such similar moment in the nineteen years of my life, and I’m talking about moments where you can feel right there in the moment that it is special and should be cherished and appreciated – well, at every one of those moments up until that sunrise, I had always tried to match the profound nature of the moment with some kind of profound thought or decision or emotion. I thought it necessary to try and come to some life-changing decision or realization about my life – about what I was doing, where I was going, etc. Of course, whatever I would think or resolve in the moment was hollow and contrived and frankly, unnecessary. It was only watching this sunrise at Ngorongoro that I understood that you don’t need to match the beauty of the moment with a beautiful thought. You can just sit and enjoy it and be better for it. Don’t get me wrong – I did try to come up with something as I stood on that lodge balcony. And I’ll admit that I was spurred on by thoughts of grandeur inspired by reading Harry 7, in which Harry makes so many big decisions and realizations and what not. But after a few fruitless minutes, I quieted my head and just basked in the growing warmth of the sunlight on my face.

As I stood, I was joined by Paavan, one of the guys on the trip. We struck up a conversation about how beautiful the landscape around us was. I admitted that I have never really been religious in my life and have never really bought the idea of a supreme being creating earth, but rather subscribe to the scientific theories of the Big Bang and planet creation that I learned in my Science-B core last semester. Still, in that moment, I came the closest I ever have to believing in the power of a divine hand shaping the world around me.

The rest of the day was spent on a game drive through the crater floor and then a several hour drive to the Serengeti. We saw another lion, a herd of zebras, wildebeests, a lioness and two of her cubs, hyenas battling vultures for a carcass, elephants, tons of different birds, and hippos.

To see a sampling of all the pictures of the landscape and animals, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/tanuj.parikh/Tanzania

As we drove to through the Serengeti to that night’s lodge (we stayed in a different one every night), the landscape kept changing. Sometimes there were a lot of trees and a river or two, or rolling hills, and other times it was just flat and completely empty plains. When we hit a stretch of vast nothingness for as far as the eye could see, I opened my laptop and tried to connect to the internet via the GPRS network I could access on my cell phone. Lo and behold – it worked. I was able to send a quick few emails to family and close friends. I couldn’t help but smile at how modern technology has shrunk the world – riding in a jeep surrounded by absolutely nothing except open land I could still connect to people half a world away.

Along the drive, we stopped at a Maasai village. We were all taken to see the inside of the huts they live in and were treated to some traditional dances. I even joined in on the dancing a bit, which is more of a jumping to a beat created by the humming and cat-calling of the rest of the group which is assembled in a semi-circle around you. Apparently, that village was also located near the spot where the oldest human skeletal remains were found. At least I think that’s what one of our driver-guides was trying to tell us.

The next two days were relatively uneventful. We went on a bunch of game drives, but didn’t get to see too many exciting things. One of the other jeeps saw a lion kill a zebra. We all got to see a cheetah. We also saw the last bits of the annual wildebeest migration. It’s one of the last great animal migrations on earth. Every year, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of wildebeests migrate from the Serengeti across the Tanzania-Kenya border to Maasai Mara, and then come back a few months later.

Thursday morning we returned to Arusha and after lunch headed back to the Kilimanjaro foothils for the Capricorn Hotel, supposedly the oldest hotel still in operation in East Africa or something. Unfortunately because it was so cloudy we couldn’t see the actual peak of Kilimanjaro. After stopping at the hotel to drop off our bags, we took a short drive to a nearby waterfall. After climbing down (steps had been carved in to the rocks) to the base, we took pictures and stuff. Then a few of the guys and I got the brilliant idea to go for a swim. I don’t know why, but I’m glad we did. The few of us who swam definitely enjoyed that waterfall infinitely more than the people in our group who just took pictures.

This week I’ve been back at Eb-F’s head office in Nakuru, meeting clients. I depart for Mombasa, a city on the Kenyan coast this weekend. Then in the middle of next week I’m off to Nairobi again. Eb-F has branch offices in both of those locations.

Well I have been here for over a month now and have a little less than a month left. I can’t believe so much time has passed already. Next week I will be taking some time off from my Fellow duties to visit Tanzania with some family. Then I return to Nakuru for a week. After that I will travel to Eb-F branch offices in Mombasa and Nairobi.

So it’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s going to be easiest to go with the bullet/list format I went with in my last entry. It’ll be a mix of recapping certain days/events and just random thoughts/observations. Enjoy.

• The weekend of July 6, the entire staff of Ebony Foundation went on a staff retreat / team building session to Maasai Mara, one of the biggest national reserves in Kenya. It’s located on the border with Tanzania, and when you cross over to that country you are in the Serengeti. Every Ebony employee came, not just from the head office here in Nakuru but also from branches in Nairobi, Mombasa, etc. Apparently James, Ebony’s director, places a high value on such retreats and they are not an uncommon part of this organization’s culture. I think that’s absolutely fantastic. I took a sociology class this past semester called Leadership and Organizations. Among other things it covered how to build effective organizations and vibrant organizational culture. Everything I have seen at Ebony makes good on the theories my professor lectured about. James and the rest of his management team work hard to ensure a friendly, welcoming and supportive environment for the entire staff. A clear mission and vision are articulated and reinforced at every level of the institution. Speaking of that vision, James took time on Saturday night to reiterate it: Ebony Foundation seeks to help their clients create successful businesses so that they may improve their family’s livelihood. Providing credit is just one aspect of that process. James dubbed it “integrated microfinance” – Ebony provides loans, but also training, mentorship, introduction and access to technology, contacts with both government officials and private sector partnerships, etc.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend. Much of the time was spent enjoying the beauty of the land and enjoying each other’s company. It was refreshing to see everyone’s other side, the more relaxed and informal attitudes that can only come out when we’re out of the office. Saturday we spent much of the morning and afternoon on a game drive. We saw lions, a cheetah, elephants, zebras, rhinos, giraffes, and more. The landscape is absolutely breathtaking – stunningly beautiful beyond what my words can describe. I urge anyone who has the chance to visit Kenya to do so because everything I have seen, not only in game parks and reserves but also just in my visits to the field to meet clients has always left me in awe.

At night we made a huge bonfire and cooked our own dinner. That entailed slaughtering, skinning and roasting two goats on an outdoor cooking fire we made. It was the best weekend I have had here so far.

I was also lucky to meet some Maasai. The Maasai are one of the oldest tribes in Kenya and the one that has remained by far the most traditional. They have almost completely maintained the same culture and lifestyle that their ancestors had hundreds of years ago. This rejection of modernity is both a boon and a curse. On one hand, they are respected by all Kenyans for their adherence to tradition. They are a proud and amazing people. On the other hand, there are drawbacks. For instance, it is common for female circumcision to be practiced on girls as they enter their teens. Soon after the girls are usually married off to much older men. Many Maasai children are also not educated at all, or if they are they barely make it past primary school.

• Back in the office after Maasai Mara, we had to move to a new office. The Kenyan government just recently passed legislation regulating microfinance activity in the country for the first time ever. Part of the new laws require all MFI head offices to be located on a quarter acre of land. Renting or owning that much land is not easy, so the provision is one way to ensure that the MFIs in operation are legitimate. It’s a counter for the so-called “briefcase banks” – the con operations that swindle impoverished Kenyans who are seeking loans to better their lives.

• I know I’ve written previously about the frustration of using matatus, the public “bus” system here and the related issue of time culture in Kenya. Well the other day I remarked how there are no traffic lights anywhere in Nakuru. I was told that the government had installed them a few years ago but had to take them down after public pressure. Apparently, people didn’t like waiting (and didn’t understand why they had to wait) at red lights when there were red if there was no traffic moving on the cross street with the green light. I find it ironic that people were impatient about the few seconds wait at a traffic light, but that no complaints are raised about the indefinite and unpredictable amount of time you may have to wait for a matatu to depart, which is entirely up to its driver and conductor.

• Despite the chaos, traffic here works. It just does – pedestrians, animals, carts, rickshaws, bicycle taxis, motorbikes, trucks, and cars all weave through the streets. I’ve rarely seen any accident. But the other day I was given a grim shock. My commute to the new office involves taking a matatu to the town center, walking a few blocks, and then taking a bicycle taxi to the office. On my taxi the other day, we rode past a huge crowd in the middle of a busy street, surrounding a truck that had stopped there. The truck had hit a man transporting vegetables on his bike. He lay there motionless in a pool of his own blood. It was utterly horrific and a very gruesome reminder of just how fragile life is and how quickly one’s fortunes can change.

• Something I have discovered about myself in my time here – and in talking to friends of mine who are also spending the summer abroad – is that I’ve become more patriotic. I’ve always considered myself an American but have never been ardently patriotic or outspoken about it. But for instance, the other day I was watching Black Hawk Down…one of the guys I was watching with said jokingly “the only war America lost” and “I do know this about your country, you’re a big bully.” I found myself feeling oddly defensive and snapped back a bit. But then I checked myself. After all, America’s rep on the international stage isn’t exactly stellar these days.

• Finally, I am craving an everything bagel from a New York City deli. A good bowl of penne vodka and some warm Italian bread would be nice too.

I wish this was a story about an overnight flight to Kenya, but it’s not. I literally have red eyes.  It’s a bacterial infection of the eye which turns the whole eye red. The eye swells and it’s quite uncomfortable and there is a bunch of mucus that comes out of the eye. Yeah, it’s really gross.

I’ve seen many people around Dar with “red eyes” and my roommates warned me against shaking hands with people I meet because the disease is so contagious. They warned me to always, always wash my hands if I touched anyone. I’ve been following their advice and using my antibacterial moisture wipes to keep myself clean, even though I feel like a complete stereotypical tourist (carrying bottled water is bad enough).  I found out later that even the Minister of Heath and Social Welfare has advised the public to stop shaking hands in order to combat the illness.

But then my roommate, Cecy, caught the red eye virus from a woman at work. She came home with it on Friday night. By Saturday both of her eyes were almost swollen shut. She kept glasses on and I kept my distance, but I wasn’t too surprised when Sunday morning my right eye started feeling uncomfortable. A few hours later the eye was swollen and itchy and red.

By Monday the infection had spread to the right eye. My roommate had some medicated eye drops to use and I cleaned the eyes with salt water (which is recommended). By Tuesday the eyes weren’t much better, so I went to see a doctor. She gave me new eye drops, in case the Cecy’s had been infected, and told me things should be better in a few days.

By Wednesday the eyes were not swollen by the whites of the eye were blood red. I can imagine this infection is particularly rough for individuals with a lot of vanity because you look like you look quite devilish during this phase of the illness.  It’s hard to go out in public until your eyes return to white, soI stayed home another day. People here believe that you can catch this illness by just looking at someone with red eyes so they avoid eye contact with you (reality is that you can only catch it through touch).

It’s Sunday now, a week from the beginning of this whole ordeal, and my eyes are still slightly red, but for the most part I’m back to normal.  For most people the illness only lasts a few days but I had a particularly bad case.  But even the best case scenario — just a a few days off work and having to buy medical eye drops ($3-$5 a bottle) to treat the illness – can have serious  implications for a family trying to make it here.  Most of the citizens of Dar already have so many challenges to overcome in their everyday life that the last thing they need is a case of Nairobi Red Eyes.

It’s been a while since my last entry and I have a few different momentsI want to cover, so I apologize in advance if the following is a little disjointed and meandering. (And for Russell, I apologize that I’ll most likely switch tenses several times in this entry.) I think the best way to cover the highlights of the past two weeks is list form:

June 23:

James (Ebony Foundation’s director) arranged for me to see the KCB Safari Rally. Basically, it’s a year-long series off-road derbies, or as I like to call it, Kenyan Nascar. (If you’re curious, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_Rally). The rally itself was pretty mundane in my opinion – I was helping to operate a checkpoint (timing the cars as they completed a certain section of the day’s course). Read: I was waving a flag as the cars passed me, which was happening at about 10 minute intervals.

Regardless, I was happy James had arranged the experience for me. At the very least, I got to see more of the beautiful Kenyan countryside on the drive from Nakuru to Baringo and Cabarnet. The real treat, though, was the locals I met while on flag duty. One was a high-school boy of Maasi heritage who has dreams of visiting America one day. He’s also an avid Barack Obama supporter. The best were the fifteen schoolboys, ranging in age from 6 to 12, who kept me company for most of the morning. We had a great time trying to figure each other out. Mostly our communication consisted of them pointing to various objects or body parts and me telling them what the English word for it was. One boy became especially adept at mimicking my voice, mainly my exasperated pleas of “I don’t understand you guys! English, no Swahili!”

At one point I took a picture of them, and they were elated to look at the image on the screen of my digital camera.

They just giggled and screamed and ran around, and made me take a few more of them and then of passersby on the dirt road. Some of these kids were literally wearing rags, most had no shoes. When I let them all take a sip of cold water, I think it was the first time many of them had drank from a commercially produced water bottle. It was just another reminder of how privileged my entire life and everything I know in America has been. We take so much for granted, and here was this group of kids who had literally nothing but were still so happy, thankful, curious, and friendly. I know this is cliché to say, but it makes just about everything we worry about in the course of our daily lives seem to be absolutely trivial. I think I need a Blackberry and these kids were ecstatic playing with the metal chain holding the Timberland logo tag on my boots. What does that say about me, about America, about the developed versus the developing worlds?

June 25:

That Monday I went to the field with Jane and another Ebony officer, Henry. We went to a village/settlement a little bit past Subukia (the place I wrote about in my previous entry) to meet some clients. It was a productive day of journal writing as we were able to meet an entire group of clients. The group, the Baraka Weru Self Help Group, was the pilot group that Ebony had lent money to in the region. Ebony chose Baraka Weru because the group had already established itself – it had its own internal regulations, its own hierarchy and most importantly its own system of table banking. (The approximately 40 active members, before involvement with Eb-F, came together to pool their savings and resources and then dole out loans to various members in turn.)

All of the group members were eager to talk and tell me their stories. At first when Henry explained to them why I was there, some were nervous about what they would say and what they would tell me, especially because most had used their loans for farming and haven’t harvested yet. I assured them that that did not matter, because I was there to learn about their lives in entirety, not just about the loan. I did my best to explain that Kiva lenders delight in learning as much about borrowers and their lives as possible. Once we got underway it was smooth sailing, and they enjoyed the picture taking. At the end, they requested a group picture with me in it – they want a copy so they can hang it in the small room they use for group meetings.

At one point Henry asked me to address the group; I spoke and he translated into Swahili. I tried to convey why I was there, telling them that most of the lenders were ordinary people just like me who felt a sense of global responsibility and we are trying to do our small part to help. We aren’t Bill Gates and can’t fix everything, but we can help in our small way. I told them how awed and inspired I am that despite their hardships, they remain resilient, resourceful, cheerful and perhaps most remarkably hopeful. I thanked them for that, and wished them all good luck. My words felt hollow and inadequate, but when I was done they all clapped heartily. I guess what I said wasn’t lost in translation.

(To my left is the group’s chairman, Peter. Standing in the back row with the blazer and white shirt is Henry. Samuel, the group’s own internal loan officer, is in the back row with the light blue jacket.)

June 28:

Fieldwork this day was conducted in Nakuru town itself. Ebony disperses loans according to a cluster system, with each cluster containing varying levels of funds. Many of the clients in Nakuru town fall among the lower clusters.

One entrepreneur in particular really stood out that day. Meet Lucia,

a 55-year-old mother of three. Her husband works as a matatu (Kenyan equivalent of public buses) conductor, a profession that doesn’t earn nearly enough to cover her family’s expenses. Lucia has been selling bags (purses, backpacks, duffel bags, etc.) for the past 28 years! In the same spot! Her “shop” is a stretch of sidewalk next to the main matatu staging area in Nakuru…a stretch of sidewalk that she has to rent from the local government. For nearly three decades Lucia has been selling bags from that sidewalk – six days a week, every week, rain or shine. But this isn’t what I admire most about Lucia, although the kind of fortitude, patience and strength she must have to keep at it day in and day out is remarkable. What truly struck me is just how incredibly vivacious and friendly Lucia is. From the second you meet her, you like her. She laughs easily, is always smiling and radiates an exuberant and confident feeling. Jimmy, her loan officer and my escort for the day, assured me that this was Lucia’s standard demeanor and not just an act because I was there.

Clarification: In rereading that last paragraph, I admit the tone of it seemingly indicates that she is an aberration. What I want to make clear is that Lucia, while she does stand out in my mind, is not the exception. Rather, most of the clients I have met in my field visits share her outlook on life and good spirits, and that, it seems, is the rule.

This was also the day I discovered that having mail delivered directly to your house or office location (a norm in the West) is not standard operating procedure in Kenya. Everyone’s mail is sent to the post office and put in to mailboxes. You physically go to the post office to collect your mail from the box, like a college campus mail center.

Did you ever consider receiving your mail at your home everyday to be a luxury?

June 29:

Today I got to see the darker side of microfinance: default. Personally, all my previous interaction with microcredit (lectures/seminars/panels/info sessions at college, personal reading and research, and Western press coverage) had never really addressed what happens when a borrower is unable to repay his or her loan.

Since arriving here, I’ve read the Ebony Foundation Operations Manual that fully outlines the steps Eb-F is prepared to take in the case of default. To go in to them in detail would take too long and I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to disclose that anyway. Suffice to say, part of the process is similar to what traditional banks do with regard to recovering their assets when clients default on loan repayments, mortgages, etc.

What I want to recount is the interaction in the field with the group in default. I accompanied an Ebony officer who had called a special meeting of the group. The officer wished to address the entire group, because it is Ebony’s policy to not go down to the individual level in group lending schemes. In other words, if just one person in the group is unable to make a monthly repayment, then the entire group is considered to be in default. Ebony deals with the group as a single entity and does not distinguish amongst its individual members.

The officer conducted the meeting with tact and appreciation for the difficulties of the group (only a few members had failed to make this month’s repayment) but also with a firm hand. Said officer made it clear that the money was a loan and by terms of their agreement must be repaid. The dynamics of group lending (1 group, no individuals in the eyes of Eb-F) were stressed. To be perfectly frank, the scene was reminiscent of a parent scolding a misbehaving child, from the officer’s tone and gestures to the averted eyes and hunched shoulders of the clients. (The officer later admitted to me that maintaining a firm composure in meetings such as these is the hardest and most unpleasant part of the job.)

The meeting was successful in that the officer was able to convey Ebony’s stance clearly and remind the members what group lending was all about. They were given the rest of the day to collect the balance of this month’s payment by whatever means they felt necessary (e.g. dip in to the group’s internal savings or perhaps some members could cover for the members in default for this month). By the time the officer and I left the village a few hours later, the group was still a few thousand shillings short.

June 30:

Saturday night, at dinner, I met some other foreigners who stood out in the restaurant more than I did. They were volunteers from Norway, England and Ireland. It was their last night in Kenya. They had been doing medical volunteer work in Nakuru.

One thing we all agreed on: the people in Kenya are among the friendliest and most hospitable that we have ever met.

(This was a sentiment that I was sure to express a few nights later at dinner with the entire Ebony staff – everyone in the office has been nothing but welcoming and accomodating in helping me get settled and used to life in Kenya.)

July 2:

I commuted home on matatus by myself for the first time. Hooray for life’s little victories.

On one leg of the commute, I paid the conductor 25 shillings. He said something to me in Swahili. In characteristic I-may-be-foreign-but-I’m-not-dumb hubris, I thought he was trying to charge me more. I insisted, “it’s 25 shillings, I know.” He turned away. When I got off at my stop, he put a 5 shilling coin in my hand without a word. Turns out I didn’t know – that leg was only 20 shillings and he had been trying to explain that to me.

Imagine a world without Walgreens, Macy’s, Banana Republic, Nordstrom’s, Blockbuster, Ethan Allen, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Safeway or Whole Foods. Instead of driving to your favorite mall or grocery store to buy clothes, food or supplies from a salesperson working for a corporation, you walk down the dirt road to your local market to buy goods from a neighbor, friend or acquaintance. Instead of one-stop shopping, you stop at several different stores to pick up all the supplies you need, relishing each transaction by engaging in conversation and slowly passing over the bills and coins for payment. Each purchase you make goes directly to supporting their family. And you count on them coming to your stop when they need the things you sell. This is the cycle of loyalty that I’ve observed during my time in Dar es Salaam and I have to admit, it’s a bit refreshing.

Dar is a big city, over four million people, and yet the suburbs of this city still retain a strong sense of community. Most of the suburbs I visit are only a few kilometers out of town, yet it can take over an hour or more to travel from the city center because of the constant traffic jams. So even though members of these communities could go downtown to the big markets and wholesale stores to buy their goods at a cheaper price, the transport costs are prohibitive. As you travel down the main road of any neighborhood you pass several shops competing to sell you the same types of goods. You’ll find hardware supplies, furniture stores, groceries, butchers, salons, pharmacies, clothing stores, movie rentals, internet cafes and restaurants. Sometimes I wonder how all of these businesses make money, since there is so much competition. But each business doesn’t need to make more than enough to support one family.

In addition to these store-based businesses, there is another tier of business-minded individuals who try to eek out their living by selling just one item. It’s common to find young men walking abound the city selling only samosas or tea or small bags of peanuts. There are women and men who walk the residential neighborhoods with baskets filled with one product (fish, lettuce, bananas) hoping to entice you to buy that one item from them by shouting their offerings while they walk past your door. This economy includes so many of these micro transactions. Even cigarettes are sold individually at the local cold drink stand. Every space for a middle man has been exploited and developed into an enterprise. This is done out of necessity, not choice.

Sure, there are a few corporations in Tanzania – banks, mobile phone providers, prepared foods and drinks, utilities – where you must buy services directly to cover their costs and staff. But even some of them have outsourced their distribution of goods to small businesses. You buy a mobile phone voucher from a local shop or guy on the street and bottled food from the micro grocery on the corner of your block.

As I observed this interdependency, I tried to cut my ties to my old ways. I stopped buying at one of the few supermarkets in town and started purchasing things from my local store. I walked the streets of my residential area trying to spend money with each business I passed along the way. I rented movies, had my bangs trimmed, bought mangos from the mango guy and lettuce from the lettuce lady. I met the people of my neighborhood. We shared smiles and elementary Swahili sentences. I handed over the money with respect, enjoying counting coins and handling grubby bills. When my purse was empty and my hands were full, I went home satisfied and feeling more accepted.

Is this more personalized economy better than what we have in the US? I’m not a trained economist but I know that Tanzania has not seen their economy grow for many years, so it’s not a model to strive for. Is this more personalized economy better for the soul? Absolutely.

My name is Anne Sophie Breuning and i am a Kiva Fellow in Ghana. I have now been in Accra, Ghana for almost 72 hours and my jetlag is slowly wearing off. The air is hot and humid; the streets are crazy with no sidewalks, open sewers, a million honking cars, and street peddlers hawking everything from plastic spoons to Ghanaian soccer shirts. We are staying in the Osu district in the center of Accra at theMotel4.com – not to be confused with having any connection the internet since the hotel has no internet connection or website. Most places here are named God is Great, God is King and Trust in Him so names that have nothing to do with the business itself are quite common here.

Yesterday I went to my first field meeting to meet some of the Kiva clients – each fellow has to meet and journal about 15 clients per week. Since Kraben (Kiva partnership organization in Ghana) has only one official vehicle, we took tro-tro’s to the meeting. A tro-tro (also named by my fellow Kiva fellow Delana as a ‘sweat-sweat”) is a beaten up minivan (and not the cushy kind with DVD’s and comfy seats) with extra seats put into it. Yesterday I counted 16 adults in the first one and 17 adults and 2 kids in the second one – a tro-tro doesn’t leave its stop until it is “full” so the battle is to always find one that is almost full so you don’t get stuck waiting in the heat! The fare per person is about 25 – 40 cents – in Ghanaian cedis this is 2500 / 4000 – the currency is devaluing in about two weeks since it is becoming rather impractical to carry around a million cedis ($100US) in your purse. It feels like monopoly money when you are millionaire!

The first group meeting we went to was 3 tro-tro rides and a 20 min walk into the village to find the Addente Barrier Women’s Association who meet every Tuesday under the banyan tree. Our next group Abundant Grace was another 2 tro-tro rides away – they meet every Tuesday in one of the women’s stall’s that sells snacks and drinks. All of the women in each group have received 1 million cedi ($100) as their first initial loan and should cycle through to their second loan once they show steady repayment cycles of their first loan and some of the group members are on their 3 or 4 their loan cycle– as part of their training they receive basic book keeping skills and each woman has a bank book where each loan payment and repayment is recorded. The women are subdivided into smaller groups of about 5-7 and this smaller group is held responsible for the repayment if one member defaults on their loan – the interest rate on the loans received through Kiva’s partner Kraben is about 20% – this is relatively common for NGO micro finance programs – commercial micro finance that are beginning around the world typically charge more in the 40 – 50% range.

At Abu dent Grace I meet Agnes. Agnes is not sure how old she is, but she has birthed 10 children, 8 of whom are still alive and she has 13 grandchildren – 4 of whom still live with her today. Her husband deserted them 22 years ago and she has been taking care of her children alone since that time. She has been a member of Abundant Grace for 7 years and owns a “chopbary” (a stall that also has 3 or 4 tables to serve food). Though Agnes does speak some English (it is the official language in Ghana and all signs are posted in English) she speaks Twi and our conversation is facilitated through Millicent – a fantastic young woman who works for Kraban. Agnes has savings in the bank and wants to send her youngest son to vocational school so that he can learn to type – this will give him the opportunity to get a job in the government or a NGO like Millicent. When I comment on how impressed and humbled I am by Agnes’ feats in life, she laughs with a wide grin and says that is her duty as a mother – to take care of her children. I ask her if she thinks that they will take care of her when she is too old to work. She says she hopes so, but doesn’t want to put that burden on her children, so she plans to save for her retirement once she has paid for her son’s education. It is truly humbling to sit across from this woman and know that she supports her entire family on less per month than what I usually spend on a weekend in San Francisco….when I ask if she has any questions for me, she says that she wants Kiva lenders to know that she would re-invest more money in her business if she were given another loan!

My culture shock is competing with my jetlag to spin my head in more directions…the heat, crowded streets where any second I could be hit by one of the crazy drivers incessantly honking while yelling “Obroni, Obroni” (white person) to get me to buy something or take a cab or talk to them, the excitement in the village kids eyes when we blew up 3 beach balls for them to share amongst the 20 of them, the vibrant colors of women’s head dresses, the dust and soot in the back of my throat all converge on slight nausea and giddiness. One moment Delena (the other Kiva fellow who is an amazing 20 year old woman from North Carolina who has been here for 5 weeks) and I are dying laughing about cultural impressions and the next we have more questions than I ever thought possible. Today we are spending the day at the Golden Tulip aka the “Obroni” heaven – the only 4-star hotel in Accra. There is wireless Internet, a swimming pool and a reprieve from being Obroni! More on our adventures there later.

Africa is hard and I wonder if I am up for conquering it

When you enter a YOSEFO community bank you are sure to encounter business owners facing every stage of the business life cycle. Some entrepreneurs are just getting their ventures off the ground and are using their loan money to purchase their first sewing machine, food stuffs or rent a salon space. Other businesses are flourishing, sales are growing and customers are becoming more regular. A few businesses are on the decline; higher prices for goods or a new industry regulation could be making it hard to maintain profits. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get to meet the veteran business owners – those that received their first loan money from YOSEFO 8 or 10 years ago. They have been around long enough to grow their first business and subsequently started other successful businesses. Leonard Lusungu would fall in that category and I had the pleasure of talking to him today in the Vituka community of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Leonard took his first loan years ago and used the money to purchase a deep freezer for his small grocery. Over the years, he has reinvested his business income and borrowed more money to expand his grocery store and establish a local restaurant and pharmacy. In addition to those businesses, he raises cattle and operates a bus service. He employs over 20 people in all of his businesses yet manages all the operations in a relaxed manner. When I asked if feels a lot of pressure because he owns several businesses and employs so many people, he just smiled and told me that he’s found good managers to run the operations of each of his businesses, leaving him free to continue to think of new ways to make money. His next venture will be a wholesale beer and soda store.

Leonard has been a good client for YOSEFO over the years and now borrows funds ten times the amount of his first loan. Not surprisingly his needs have changed over the years. He is now interested in making it easier to increase the amount of money he can borrow and wants to make larger loan payments less frequently. I imagine tenured microfinance institutions are finding distinct customer segments emerging and now have to determine how to make their model more flexible to meet the needs of these high-value customers.

When I asked Leonard why he enjoys running his own businesses, I wasn’t surprised by the answer because it mirrored the feelings that other small business owners in the US had been telling me for years. It’s the fact that his work will almost directly determine his success and income. He also mentioned that he enjoyed the freedom of coming and going without having to report into a boss. His flexible work schedule allowed him to take his four kids to school in the morning – something that most fathers he knew were not able to do.

I left Leonard’s restaurant inspired by the power of microfinance. Leonard told me that without the community bank he would not have been able to achieve his dreams — professionally and personally. His business income has paid for a home in Dar es Salaam and a second home in his home land in the Kilimanjaro district. All four of his children are thriving in primary school and he’s able to take care of his extended family. By sending capital to well-run microfinance institutions, like YOSEFO, Kiva Lenders are helping men and women, like Leonard, down the path towards achieving their life’s dreams.

Yesterday was my first day of field work – meeting entrepreneurs who have gotten loans from Kiva lenders and capturing their stories and lives to be written about in journals that are then posted on the Kiva site. The following is an account of the day’s happenings. Disclaimer: It was an eventful day so this will definitely be a long entry; feel free to skim.

I arrived at Ebony’s office around 9:30 in the morning. Jane made some brief preparations to leave and then we were off. Jane was a loan officer for Ebony and worked here out of the main office, servicing areas in and around Nakuru. She was recently promoted to Business Development Officer and then again to Unit Manager for the Mombasa (Kenyan coastal city) Office. She’ll be moving to her new position in a few weeks, but until then I’m lucky enough to have her accompanying me on my field visits – she’s friendly, knowledgeable and from what I can tell, extremely skilled at what she does. After seeing her interact with people in the field, it was clear Jane had developed a strong rapport with her clients during her time as an LO.

Our destination for the day was Subukia, a village town surrounded by acres and acres of farmland. Subukia is approximately an 80 kilometer drive from Nakuru, so Jane and I found ourselves subject to the whims of the local public transportation system. From the office we flagged down a matatu (“bus”). Now, when you picture this bus, I need you to not think of the huge American public transport vehicles that can hold upwards of 40, 50 people. Rather, think minivan, but not the American soccermom type…I’m talking the bank robber getaway type – the big white ones with one side sliding door. Inside each matatu, behind the driver’s seat, 3 triple-seat rows have been installed. On the outside of each, painted on yellow stripes are the destinations of that particular vehicle. Here’s the catch though – matatus do not operate on a set time schedule or even a standard driving route, and there is not set price (you had better negotiate your fee before you get in). Drivers will take any shortcut or alternate road they see fit and will stop at any point on the road that a potential passenger could be waiting. What’s more, once stopped, it may be several minutes (if not 20 or more) before you get moving again b/c each driver is trying to maximize his profits (these are privately operated businesses, not government run) by filling the van to capacity. (Our day’s first matatu blasted reggae from the speakers and the interior was adorned with stickers in Swahili saying “If you think the music is too loud, then you’re too old.”)

Anyway, a 10 minute ride later, we arrived at the central Nakuru “bus station” where we found a matatu heading to Subukia; we waited a good 15-20 minutes before the driver felt the vehicle sufficiently full of passengers. As we drove out of Nakuru, we passed the State House. I thought it was for the local city government, but Jane corrected me. The State House is a sprawling estate, complete with full-time staff, meant solely to house the Kenyan president whenever he visits Nakuru, which according to Jane was very rarely. It seemed a giant waste of resources if you ask me; Jane agreed.

On the ride out to Subukia – interrupted by many abrupt stops and shuffling of passengers in and out – Jane and I chatted. She commented on the lack of any set matatu schedule as a microcosm of a general lack of adherence to time schedules and deadlines in Africa at large, and figured that it would require a sea change in people’s attitudes to change the time culture. I feel that it will require a change on the other side – ideally, the public transport will be taken over and fully regulated by government. Once the government sets up a strict time schedule for buses to adhere to, and drivers stick to it, and people start missing buses when they don’t come on time, the culture will change. Of course, that all supposes that the Kenyan government has the flexibility and resources to address such concerns, a seemingly quixotic hope considering all of the other more pressing challenges it faces.

As we left Nakuru farther and farther behind, the landscape outside became increasingly more scenic and breathtaking. On either side of the road rolling hills swept up and down, covered in lush greenery. At first glance it reminded me of some parts of the US I’ve seen before, namely Wisconsin and parts of California.

We arrived at the Subukia town center, which I can best describe as reminiscent of the town square you see in old American Western movies. Except rather than dusty desert, the roads are thick, hard slab of mud in varying degrees of wetness. And the buildings weren’t wood, but more clay and cement, but still low-slung one-story edifices lining either side of the streets. Jane flagged down two motorbike taxis – they were the only way to get out quickly to the Subukia farms, because the mud roads were too rough and rugged for any vehicle (except maybe a Humvee or something).

As I mounted a motorbike behind its driver, I elicited loud laughs from a nearby group of teenagers. I sincerely doubt they meant any derision – it was probably that I just looked funny in my bright orange t-shirt and gray sweatpants (my luggage still hadn’t arrived as of yesterday morning, although it thankfully did this morning). To be honest, I could feel it, just how much I stood out. On the 15 minute motorbike ride to the first set of Ebony’s clients, everyone we passed did a double take when they saw me, most with mingled looks of curiosity and wonder on their faces.

When we got to the farms I was the one who had to do a double take. The landscape was absolutely stunning – in a developed country where utilities and access to this area would have been possible, the land would have been worth a fortune and surely a high-income neighborhood. Words can’t capture just what I saw, and I’d love to upload pics but the internet connection here won’t allow that too easily, so you’ll just have to trust me.

As we walked from farm to farm for the rest of the day, I had to remind myself to look up and take in the natural magnificence all around me.

The first two women I met were Lucy and Rebecca. Both women received loans from Kiva lenders to expand their farming business, mainly in the form of leasing more acres of land and buying farming supplies like fertilizers, seeds, etc. Both women had to lease land that was quite far away because all available land near their current farmland was already taken. Rebecca for instance walks 2 hours one way to get to her extra land. Each woman, and every person I met for that matter, was extremely friendly and hospitable, taking great care to invite me in to their homes and offer me what little they had. Lucy wouldn’t let me leave her farm until she had made me tea and eggs. Their hospitality was so refreshing – it wasn’t offered with any ulterior motives or hidden agendas, but simply because they knew it was the right thing to do, and it gave them joy to include me in their lives in whatever small way they could.

Something else I found so interesting was the handshakes. As background, you should know that everyone you meet in Kenya, even for the briefest of encounters, will shake your hand. The strength and firmness and style of a handshake is considered cross-culturally to be indicative of a person’s bearing. What touched me was how every single person I met yesterday greeted me with a strong, deliberate handshake – they were more poised in their handshakes than many successful adults I’ve met in America. What this told me – and it was confirmed in their voices and their eyes – was that these people are proud, earnest, honest and decent. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t naïve – they understand the plight of poverty that they are in – but they are not defeated. They are hopeful, resourceful, resilient…and frankly, people to be admired.

Later in the day, I met Samuel, a 48-year old farmer who cares for his own two children, his parents, and his deceased sister’s three children. Samuel specializes in tomatoes, but when he isn’t working in the field, he supplements his income by teaching Standard 1 at a local school for youngsters. He was just hired a few months ago. Samuel must have been a tour guide in another life, Jane and I both thought. He was incredibly vivacious and eager to show us around his farm and the surrounding areas. He took us to the south side of his land where a natural river ran through the property. Proudly he stood by the natural waterfall, describing with joy how he harnessed the power of gravity for his irrigation pipes. With a smile and a flash, Samuel was off again, briskly winding his way through the trees and crops to take us to the next stop on his tour.

And what a stop it was – the now-in-ruins estate of Phillip Mitchell, British governor of Kenya in the late 1940’s when the country was still a colony. The sprawling complex must have been magnificent in its heyday – there were large open courtyards, several gardens, a few buildings connected by pathways. According to Samuel, Queen Elizabeth herself stayed there in 1948.

Samuel also was determined to find the snakes he knew to be hiding in the crops, much to Jane’s laughing displeasure. He kept describing a huge black mamba he knew he to be slithering around somewhere. (It’s a sign of how out of touch with nature this New York City raised Kiva Fellow is that the first thing I thought of when I heard “black mamba” was Kobe Bryant…followed closely by Uma Thurman and Kill Bill).

Samuel also provided another reminder of just how pervasive American influence is abroad. One of his brothers moved to the US a few years back and is currently stationed in Afghanistan as a Sergeant in the US Army.

The day was filled with a lot of walking but it was pleasantly relaxing and energizing. I think that was the first time in several years that I’ve been in an outdoorsy nature setting for an extended period. It was also inspiring – meeting people who faced tremendous adversity day in and day out with a smile. Daniel, for instance, is nearly 60 and is still caring for three of his own children and five grandkids. Yet, he stood in the middle of his freshly dug fish pond (where he plans to breed tilapia in the coming months) looking carefree and telling me how wonderful his Kenya was.

Jane and I left Subukia around 5:30 and made our way back to Nakuru. All in all, I’d say it was a fantastic first day in the field.

A good friend of mine at college who is currently spending the summer in Cairo emailed me a comment in response my post about Mariah Carey being everywhere that I thought was really insightful and well-said and deserved to be shared:

“I really have to agree with you about how ridiculously pervasive American sh*t is everywhere—-even in the Middle East, which is supposedly the most anti-American place ever, basically every bilboard is about some American company…I just went to Alexandria and there was this one block where there was a McDonalds, Pizza Hut, LIttle Ceaser’s, KFC and Hardee’s all in the same building! Ridiculous….its funny but i also worry if someday everywhere will just look the same.”

I start going out in to the field to meet entrepreneurs tomorrow, so I promise to have more Kiva-related info on here soon. In the meantime, here’s some more about the touristy aspects of my time here…

I still don’t have my luggage. It seems that a lot of people had their bags lost on British Airways because their Nairobi airport lost bags telephone # is always busy or no one picks up. It’s a bit frustrating to be honest. I had to go buy some clothes from a store called Wool Matt, which I’m pretty sure is a thinly veiled imitation of Wal Mart. You can buy anything you need there – groceries, liquor, clothes, random odds and ends, hardware, etc.

I spent all of yesterday afternoon, last night and this afternoon at Lake Nakuru National Park. It’s a huge tourist attraction, mainly because the lake is beautiful, has an unbelievably large population of flamingoes, and because of the game park that you can take safaris in. I drove around the game park for a good 3-4 hours yesterday and again today. It was absolutely stunningly gorgeous. It’s a huge expanse of a park – hundreds, if not thousands of acres of vast terrain. It is open plains, African style. So it’s not pristine beauty, but more serene and rugged beauty. You look out and see just shrubbery and bushes and trees, but not dense forests but rather trees spaced apart, for as far as you can look. I took lots of pictures (although my camera died by the end of yesterday and since my charger is in my luggage, I was forced to resort to my cell phone…until that too, died.). We drove as close to the lake as possible and took pictures of the flamingoes. From afar, all you see is a sea of pink ringing the edge of the lake. Once you get closer, it still seems like a large pink mass, except that it’s moving slowly to and fro, and you can hear the flamingos chirping or calling or whatever it is they do – it sounds kind of like a low hum of static when there are millions of them doing it all at once. I also got pictures of baboons, monkeys, rhinos, buffalos, giraffes, zebras, impalas, and antelopes. It was really sweet because at a few points we got really close to the animals. Sadly we couldn’t find any lions or anything like that. Hopefully I’ll get to see that stuff before I leave Kenya. One thing that I wish I had was a quality camera meant for taking serious photographs. I feel like my digital camera just can’t capture the vast expanses of beautiful landscape that are in front of me, but rather just takes narrow slices of the view.

Last night I stayed by myself at Lake Nakuru Lodge. It’s a really nice hotel located on a high hill somewhere in the game park. The scenery and view from around the entire complex is unbelievable. The lodge is a series of small huts connected by open walkways. There’s a bar and a pool and nice amenities, but it’s not garish and they’ve worked to make the architecture and ambience flow and meld with the surrounding nature. I was sitting outside before just staring out on the plains because they are so peaceful. Then it started raining and I was wearing the only pair of clothing I currently have so I couldn’t afford to get it soaked.

After the hotel’s dinner hours, there was live music by the bar and pool area. The hotel came alive as all the guests from different countries relaxed after long, hot days out in the park. It provided me a solid few hours of people watching.

This morning I woke early, around 6 am, ate breakfast and then sat by the edge of the hotel complex on the side overlooking the lake. I watched a grazing herd of impalas for a while, and then just read the morning away (currently: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). Around 11 am, James picked me up and we took another drive through the game park, but this time with a much better tour guide than I had yesterday. The rest of the day has been spent lounging. Sunday is a day of rest here and life moves pole pole (Swahili for “slow”).

And now I must familiarize myself with the first set of Kiva entrepreneurs that I will be meeting tomorrow.

    I arrived in Kenya on Wednesday evening (two nights ago) after a long flight from New York via London. Because of weather delays from New York, I had to literally run the length of Heathrow Airport just to catch my connecting flight to Nairobi. Apparently my bags didn’t move that fast. The British Airways reps assure me that the bags will be coming hopefully within the next day or two. In the meantime it’s been amusing to see how long I can stretch the small supply of clothing and toiletries that fit in to my carry-on luggage.

I was met at the airport by Nancy, who is the unit manager of Ebony Foundation’s  Nairobi office. That night she arranged for me to stay in a small, quiet hotel in the middle of town. I was a huge fan of the hotel, mainly because the first sound to greet me in the lobby was Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes,” followed closely by Marvin Gaye.

The next day I woke up feeling quite well-rested (although slightly bug-bitten, as I forgot to put up the mosquito net in the hotel room – rookie mistake, I guess). Nancy took me to the Nairobi office briefly, and then we set out on the 3-hour drive to Nakuru, the fourth largest city in Kenya and where the headquarters of Ebony is located. From what I saw of Nairobi, I was reminded greatly of India. The similarities can be attributed to their ongoing development – overcrowding, the perpetual and palpable cloud of dust and smog in the air, a “controlled chaos” flow of traffic on the roads (cars, bikes, pedestrians, animals), and the bombardment of Western-style advertising, particularly for cell phones. That feature struck me in India too – I think it’s fascinating that the developing world has come to house such large and insatiable markets for mobile telephones. People who literally have little else to their name can often be seen walking around with a phone to their ear. Absolutely fascinating…

As we drove away from Nairobi, the landscape began to change. Gone was the bustling and dirty city burgeoning under its own development. It was replaced by a single, clean and well-maintained road surrounded on both sides by expansive stretches of ruggedly beautiful landscape – you know, the types of scenic images you see on the discovery channel of African plains. (A sidebar on the driving: I’m from New York City, where navigating your car through hordes of taxis and tourists requires skill and an adept hand at the wheel, but it’s nothing compared to how drivers here operate. It’s as though everyone is trying to see how close they can get to hitting something – another car, a goat, a bicyclist- without hitting it. And that’s to say nothing of the technique of overtaking the slow truck in front of you on the single-lane road to Nakuru: cross over so that you are rushing top-speed in to oncoming traffic and then darting back across the divider line to safety at the last possible second. All in all, it makes for an interesting ride.)

A few hours (and an extremely bumpy and pothole-ridden detour road) later, we arrived in Nakuru, the fourth largest city in Kenya. It’s a cleaner and less Westernized town than Nairobi, but still definitely pretty developed and modern by my standards. I met James, the director of Ebony, at a surprisingly good Chinese restaurant called Bamboo Hut. After lunch, James and Irene (another employee of Ebony) took me to check out several accommodation options, which included a homestay and a few hotels. This will be temporary until Ebony’s guesthouse option is up and running, which should be sometime next week. I was really touched by the sincerity and care James and Irene showed me. Personally I would have stayed in any of the options they brought me to, but they themselves ruled out several saying that they were too dirty or too old. It’s a true mark of how hospitable and friendly Kenyan people are (because I’ve encountered the same warm spirit in everyone I’ve met so far) that they were so picky on my behalf, a person they had only known for a few hours.

I think the best part about my first full day in Kenya was when I realized, to my amusement and chagrin, just how pervasive American influence is overseas. I purposefully did not bring my ipod with me because I wanted to disassociate myself with the familiar routines and parts of my comfy and privileged life in America. I figured that not having my own music would only help me further immerse myself in Kenyan culture and society. Alas, all I’ve heard on the radio so far are popular American songs. Driving around Nakuru, James hummed happily to the Backstreet Boys and The Eagles. I had to suppress a smile when his phone rang – James’ ringtone is Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together” – a tune that he’ll proudly tell you he picked himself. I even heard a celebrity news report about Lindsay Lohan’s latest trouble with the law.

James is the director of Ebony Foundation, one of Kiva’s partner MFIs in Kenya. Ebony has been around for the past ten years or so and officially became an NGO MFI approximately 3-4 years ago. Ebony originally started out as an idea that James had with his siblings. His parents were uneducated but were able to make a living for themselves and send all of their children to get university-level educations from the business they started. From this, James had an idea – if his parents could earn enough money to support themselves without any official training or skills, then imagine what industrious Kenyans could do if they were given the opportunity. Ebony thus originally operated as a consulting firm, providing entrepreneurs with the technical skill and business training to start and operate their own businesses. Soon they realized, however, that the biggest thing hampering the success of the entrepreneurs once they were trained was a lack of capital. Logically, Ebony made the step to becoming a provider of microcredit.

Ebony currently operates two distinct programs. The primary credit and loan program is the bulk of their work. The other program they have is an initiative to start up a virtual banking system for their clients. It’s Ebony’s ambition to offer banking services to the remotest rural parts of Kenya in an unprecedented electronic system via mobile phones. The program is still in development but sounds extremely promising to me. James told me that it may be ready to be rolled out towards the end of my time here, so hopefully I can report more on it later on.

That first night, I had dinner at a sports bar called Taidy’s that could have been in any major American city, except for the Kenyan news playing on the gleaming new flat panel TVs. I ate with James and a few other Ebony staffers. Over dinner James and I discussed Ebony’s history and the state of Kenya’s poor in general. I was really impressed with his breadth of knowledge and his visible excitement and passion for his work. You can tell that he’s a man who really knows what he is doing and more importantly is committed to improving the lives of his fellow countrymen.

Still jetlagged, I called it an early night. I did remember to put up the mosquito net this time though…

This morning I awoke feeling quite refreshed, and have spent the day at Ebony’s office meeting the rest of the staff and getting familiar with its practices and procedures. This weekend they have arranged for me to visit Lake Nakuru National Park, a huge tourist attraction and a supposedly beautiful display of Kenyan natural landscape. I’ve been told it’s home to the world’s largest concentration of flamingos.

Starting Monday I will be going out in to the field to begin Journaling about Ebony’s clients.

Until then…

The entrepreneurs that apply for loan money in Tanzania face all the typical challenges of a small business in the United States or Europe – recruiting and training staff, marketing their business to new and existing customers and finding suppliers with good prices – but they also have to contend with another set of challenges associated with operating in a country that doesn’t have a reliable infrastructure. Their unpredictable working environment became crystal clear to me on Saturday as I spent the day idle without power or water in my home in the Sinza neighborhood of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I have to admit I was slightly frustrated that the absence of utilities resulted in a day filled with inefficiency. I had started the day with a list of items I was hoping to accomplish and now was only able to get a few things done.

But throughout the day I was also thinking about Sauda Kivike, a salon owner that I had met the week before. Saturday’s were her busiest days – she had twice the clientele as during the week – and for a growing salon a missed Saturday could mean the difference between profit and loss for the month. As a business owner she counted on 24 days in the month to make money and if one or two of those days are lost to infrastructure problems, it could dramatically change her financial outlook for the month. Even if Sauda and other business owners in Tanzania did all the work necessary to have staff and supplies ready and customers interested in their services, at the end of the day they weren’t guaranteed to make money if there was no power or water that day. Imagine the frustration!

But I also remembered that Sauda was able to operate her salon that day because she had already invested in the infrastructure necessary to overcome these additional obstacles. She used the Kiva loan money she received five months prior to purchase a generator to power her hair driers and buckets to hold spare water. So with or without running water and electricity, Sauda was able to make money on a busy Saturday. In the future when I read through the business descriptions of Kiva entrepreneurs who need funds for their business, I now have a stronger appreciation for the impact that a generator can have on a business that operates in countries like Tanzania.

    Hi, I’m Tanuj Parikh and I’ll be living and working in Nakuru, Kenya (which is about 50 miles outside Nairobi, I believe) this summer for the MFI Ebony Foundation. I’m a 19 year old rising junior at Harvard and was born and raised in New York City. I just finished final exams last week and will be leaving for Kenya on June 12. I’ll be there for 10 weeks, living with a host family that Kiva and Ebony helped arrange for me.

I first became interested in microfinance when I got to college because it’s a pretty hot topic on campus – there are always panel discussions and information sessions about it, hosted by various student groups, international development organizations, economics professors, etc. From the beginning it struck me as an unbelievably powerful tool in the fight against global poverty and I’ve done all I can to get involved with it.

While searching for an internship for this summer, I knew that I wanted to be on the ground in Africa, a continent that I had never visited before. I also have several friends who have volunteered with various NGOs in different African countries the past few summers and they all raved about their experiences. While searching for an opportunity, I was given the recommendation to pursue a Kiva Fellow position and now here I am, about to embark in a few days.

I guess I don’t have much else to report, at least not until I get on the ground in Kenya. My best friend asked me the other day if I was nervous, and I told him a little. I’ve traveled to a lot of different countries before, but this will definitely be my longest stay anywhere by myself. It’s also sure to be a vastly different experience than the ones I’ve had in the past. That said though, I’m really looking forward to it. I can’t wait to get away from everything and everyone here and to immerse myself entirely in a new and unfamiliar country and culture. I know it’s going to be an amazing learning experience for me, both about Kenya and her people but also about myself.

Hi, I’m Roxanne Miller from San Francisco, CA. I am a Kiva Fellow volunteering this summer with Kiva’s partner Youth Self Employment Foundation (YOSEFO) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I arrived in Tanzania in the middle of May and will be working here until the beginning of August.

The first two weeks have been amazing and I’m learning so much from this experience. Swahili and English are the national languages of Tanzania but Swahili is much preferred over English, so I’m first trying to learn enough Swahili to hold a basic conversation and be able to navigate the city. Tanzanians learn English in secondary school and all university classes are taught in English, but not everyone had the opportunity to learn English or remembers the language. Luckily this language barrier hasn’t kept me from meeting Kiva entrepreneurs. Rodney Chubwa, the manager of the Kiva program for YOSEFO, has been serving as my translator. During our interviews it’s been easy to hear the enthusiasm in the voices of the Kiva entrepreneurs when they talk about their business, even if I can’t understand the words.

I am lucky to be living with four Tanzanian women in their home in a suburb of Dar es Salaam. They are sisters whose ages range from 23-31. I work with their aunt, Happy Sambega, at YOSEFO and she arranged for me to stay with them during my time here. I am learning so much about Tanzanian culture from them and they like to hear my stories about American culture as well. We watch cable TV together (American Idol is one of their favorite shows), cook dinner (I’m learning to cook East African meals and eat food with my right hand), and go shopping (the second hand clothing stores here are fantastic). Living someplace where you don’t speak the language can be isolating, but with my roommates I don’t feel lonely. A few weeks into the trip the only thing I find myself really missing is Mexican food. The grocery stores here don’t stock tortillas or black beans; I did find a bottle of El Paso salsa, but it cost $7 USD!

I’m looking forward to sharing with you more about living in Dar es Salaam, working with YOSEFO and meeting Kiva entrepreneurs this summer. Tutaonana! (Goodbye in Swahili)