Posts filed under ‘KF5 (Kiva Fellows 5th Class)’
I quit my job for Kiva
It was the summer of 2008. As I sat and watched the stock markets crash around the world from my Cambodian apartment, I could not help but get nervous about my job prospects post fellowship. At that point, I felt like I’d made a mistake by leaving a great job in philanthropy to follow my heart by becoming a Kiva Fellow to learn how microfinance works on the ground. I remember when I told my family of my decision, they thought I was crazy. I was beginning to think they might be right. Watching US financial pillars crash and stock markets tumble each day, I worried and seriously asked myself, “What am I going to do once my time as a Kiva Fellow is done?”
Giving CREDIT where it’s due
CREDIT Microfinance Institution, Kiva’s oldest partner in Southeast Asia, and 7th oldest in its portfolio of partners celebrated its third year on Kiva May 3rd, 2009. As one of Kiva’s oldest partners, they have received over $3.1m in loans, making it the most invested MFI in Kiva’s portfolio of MFIs. Through the generosity of over 48,500 Kiva lenders, over 4150 of CREDIT’s clients have received loans ranging from $100 to $1200 helping them run businesses, fix homes, educate their children, supply daily needs, and ultimately enabling them to build a higher standard of living for themselves and their families.
To celebrate CREDIT’s third year, I have put together a retrospective video of my time with them on their work in the office and in the field.
Thank you to the tens of thousands of Kiva lenders for investing in CREDIT MFI’s clients and supporting CREDIT MFI over the years. The journey has just begun…
To invest in current Kiva CREDIT-MFI borrowers in need of loans, please click this link
Kiva Fundraising loans at Credit MFI
To learn more about CREDIT MFI please visit their website CREDIT Microfinance Institution
*Teresa Dunbar was a Kiva Fellow with CREDIT MFI from August 2008 – February 2009. During her time there she became increasingly interested in the daily struggles of Cambodia’s peoples. Her interests include; land rights, livelihood and environmental protection, government and business transparency, and the rule of law, and how each affects the viability of microfinance.
Contradictions, Complications, Juxtapositions, and Genocide
It’s easier to make sense of Rwanda if you erase the human element of the Genocide that happened here fifteen years ago. If we could just pretend it wasn’t actual people who perpetrated the one million unthinkable acts, it would simplify the dynamics of the country. Afterall, if we acknowledge that it was not only people but fellow Rwandese who held the machetes, we need to also see that they still exist—and not in an abstract way but in a day-to-day, walking down the street, drinking milk for breakfast, and sending children to school kind of way.
Many perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide, or genocidaires, are in prisons throughout the country. It is likely that many others are not. Either way, those who committed the Genocide still live amongst those who survived. Prisoners do manual labor all over the country, working on plots of land, building brick walls along roads, and doing various other public works projects in plain sight. Their blue, orange, and pink uniforms (each prisoner is in one color which signifies the gravity of their crimes or status in prison) dot roads and farms throughout the country as they serve their time while the rest of the country looks on. They pass through lives as they stand packed in the backs of trucks and taken between their projects and their cells. It is a testament to the discipline and ingenuity of President Kagame that he has those who ripped the country apart now manually putting it back together. As he drives to develop his country, he is making use of those who, through violence, instilled the urgent need.
I have told some people back home about this, about the uniforms, about the prisoners, about their constant presence and my inability to grasp even a fraction of what it must be like to be a survivor and see them every day, because I’m here fifteen years later and as an outsider and even I shudder at the sight. Those back home are always shocked. “You mean you see them!” Well, yes. This is recent history—very much within the memories of those still living. One of the most complex issues this country faces is how to go on, develop, heal, when the painful past remains present. After a horrific divisiveness, how is everyone supposed to come together again?
I cannot begin to answer that question—far more gifted people than I are still grappling with it—but I would like to try to convey a sense of the impossible complexity of the issue. In January I went to visit a client in a rural part of Rwanda. We spoke to a woman who proudly showed the many ways in which she has expanded her business since receiving the Kiva loan. Afterwards, I went to the Kiva website to post a journal update on this woman but couldn’t find her on the site. A few weeks later I went back to the branch and told them she must not be a Kiva client. “Oh,” they responded, “the loan is in her husband’s name, not hers. He was just away that day.”
A month after that I discovered that “away that day” was a euphemism for “serving time in prison for perpetrating the 1994 Tutsi Genocide.” This time, the husband who had been away was now back so we were going to go see him for a Journal update interview.
I generally don’t get anxiety before meeting with microfinance clients. In my experience, there is little to be anxious about, minus some possible awkward moments or silent staring at one another if the translator leaves the room. This time, I began to panic. I knew that if I saw him as a microfinance client, he would have to be human. Previously, I saw genocidaires at enough of a distance that I wasn’t forced to remember their humanity or look them in the eye. I’m not proud to admit: I preferred it that way. This would complicate what I had been trying to simplify. A question that comes up repeatedly here is how so many “normal” people, non-violent people, certainly not killers, could have been moved to pick up weapons and kill their neighbors. It makes no sense. I knew that meeting one of these complicated individuals whose motivation I would never understand would confuse the idea in my head even more.
I spent the car ride to his remote home trying to imagine what he would be like and bracing myself to be professional despite biases. My preparation was cut short as, along a dirt road, the staff told the driver to stop the car and exclaimed, “This is our client!” He was pushing a bike with a load attached to the back, headed towards town. It had just begun to rain so we ushered him into the car, squeezing four across in the back seat of our pick-up truck.
My immediate reaction was that he had such a kind face. I noticed his warm smile and friendly greetings to the staff. Then he shook my hand and it was just like so many greetings I’ve exchanged here before. I tried to eliminate (or at least delay) my judgment so that I could focus on the Journal interview. It was brief since I had previously met with his wife and learned about his enterprises. After a few laughs and a few more questions, we were shaking hands again and he was back in the rain, pushing his bike.
It was a jarring interview for how totally routine it was. It forced me to wonder how many other genocidaires I’d spoken to, worked with, passed on the street without even realizing it. He was not a man you would pin as a killer. He was free because he had confessed his crimes, his confession was accepted as true by the gacaca court (a court system that has been established to process trials for accused genocidaires on a local level), and he had completed the assigned community service. Now he was back at home with his family, dressed in civilian clothing, and working in his businesses.
This client was the closest I’ve come to the reality that ultimately all genocidaires will be free. He put a face to the abstract impossibility that this country is facing as it frees prisoners from overcrowded prisons and reintroduces them to society. Just down the road from his house is a church in which thousands took refuge as the Genocide began. More than 10,000 people were killed in and around the church between April 10th and April 16th 1994. It’s an eerie juxtaposition.
I have no neat conclusion for this blog entry. I’ve been trying to come up with one for 3 weeks. Instead, I keep adding paragraphs that turn into ramblings but in no way neatly tie up my thoughts. Now, during a week commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide I’ve decided that if I wait for a proper conclusion, it will be many many years before I post this. So I’ll end it here, no conclusion, no answers, no neat sum-up and no lesson learned. I end it with more questions than I started with.
Julie Ross is currently a Kiva Fellow at Vision Finance Company in Rwanda. In December she finished her first placement at BRAC Tanzania.
If you’d like to support Rwandese entrepreneurs and help the country on their push towards development, please see their currently fundraising loans or join the lending team.
How Do You Run a Shop in a Neighborhood with No Cash?
I’ve always been curious about what happens when microfinance clients open businesses in places where there is very little capital. Many operate small shops of household necessities but the placement of such stores is generally based more on proximity to home than a strategic evaluation of which part of town is most profitable. So how do they cope if their customers can’t afford to buy anything? Last week, I got my answer: credit.
Pen and Paper: How to issue credit, the old fashioned way
I was in the field with the Kiva Coordinator, John, collecting journals. We were meeting with a client who sells vegetables in a small neighborhood in Kigali, Rwanda. After a series of preliminary questions, I asked the client if he was having any difficulties with his business.
“Creditors,” was the translation I received for his answer.
I paused, trying to re-translate it into something that would make sense. I couldn’t quite guess what he meant, so I just asked. Without going back to the client for more of an explanation, John expanded upon the client’s assertion,
“His customers owe him money but they’re not paying.”
Ahh so he may mean “debtors,” in which case this microfinance client is both a credit-receiver and a credit-giver. Could it be? People always speak about Africa’s cash only economy and I have yet to meet a Rwandese with a credit card so it hadn’t occurred to me that there was a widespread grassroots credit system sans plastic. I shared my surprise with the Kiva Coordinator who gave me the dreaded answer:
“You didn’t know that! Everyone knows that!”
“No one ever told me!” I exclaimed in my defense.
“That’s because it’s so obvious!” John countered. Touché.
Apparently, small shopkeepers all over Rwanda accept credit in the form of an IOU from their customers. If I was going to be the last to know (did all of you already know this?) I wanted to at least fully understand it, so I dove in. What John and the client explained is that most of his customers are regulars. They live nearby and he knows them well. A lot of them don’t have cash in the middle of the month but they still need vegetables so he keeps a record of what they have purchased and at the end of the month he presents them with their tab. He keeps careful records to know exactly how much each customer owes him. When I asked to see the records, he produced three notebooks with pages and pages filled with customers’ bills.
Here, one page of his careful notes of what his customers owe
Lately, he says people aren’t paying. Unfortunately, he doesn’t feel that he can stop accepting credit. If he did, “he wouldn’t sell anything,” John explained. But how does he ensure repayment? How can he get the money if his neighbors insist there is none? He didn’t seem to have an answer. The difficulty with grassroots credit, I suppose, is that there are not systems to ensure that the creditor is ever paid. He could refuse to sell to his customers until they pay, but then they could go to another vendor. He could employ some sort of social pressure since he is based in a small community and try to make it a social taboo not to pay, but if many people in the community are in the same position, that won’t necessarily work.
I don’t have a good solution as to how to get the client his money. We all talk a fair amount about the principle of credit and debt. We debate whether it is wise to purchase things if you don’t have the money to do so. As a shopper myself, I have attempted not to purchase goods on credit unless I knew I would have the money to pay for them at the end of the month. So are this client’s customers wrong to buy vegetables when they’re not sure if they can afford it? If he stopped accepting credit, sales would decrease because clients couldn’t afford the goods or because there would only be a few days each month that they could. The credit keeps his sales more constant which from a stocking perspective is wise in a perishable goods market. But if his customers are buying without knowing if or when they can pay, then credit isn’t being used properly. For me, a large credit card company would be the victim and they would ultimately sock it to me through large fees. Unfortunately, this client doesn’t have that kind of leverage. So what’s the solution? Is there a scenario in which he can keep his business profitable in a neighborhood where customers can’t pay?
If you’d like to see all of Vision Finance Company’s currently fundraising loans, click here. To join Kiva’s Vision Finance Company lending team and to support Kiva’s Rwandese entrepreneurs, click here.
Julie Ross is currently serving as a Kiva Fellow at Vision Finance Company in Rwanda. In December she completed her first placement with BRAC Tanzania.
Tarantula, Dog, or Duck Fetus, srey Teresa (sister Teresa in Cambodian)?
Being a Kiva Fellow in Southeast Asia you meet many small business owners. Some of these business owners sell what I like to call “culinary adventures”. So as not to offend people, you get a chance to try many of the dishes. Over the course of my seven months, I’ve discovered after a while to stop asking what it is, and just try it. Some have left their impressions on me though, and I thought I’d share them with you.
Let’s see, in Cambodia you have fried tarantula and various bugs such as beetle, cricket, and bee larva. The most delicious and famous ones come from the Kampong Cham region, northeast of Phnom Penh. You can get them on the side of the road as you motorbike by, or at any local street market.
"love, love, love me some good tarantula!"
You also have dog. This dish was bought for me by Rong, a Cambodian friend. He told me, “You have to try it since you don’t have it in the US, and after you try it, you must text me what you think.” I was told that dog is a meat that makes you warm. It is eaten mainly by men and coupled with beer. The best dog restaurant in Phnom Penh is just east of the Boung Keng Kong Market.
And I did have a beer or two with it. It just went down better with a beer. My stomach is still upset just thinking about it.
You also have boiled duck fetus eggs called “pong tea koun”. Fortunately, I only had one opportunity to eat it, and my Cambodian friends at CREDIT-MFI let me slide on that one as I watched them chow-down. As they pulled the fetus from its shell, I could see the partially formed baby duck complete with head, neck, beak, and wings. It was explained to me that you can buy “pong tea koun” at different fetus stages, a few days old to 2-weeks old. It all depends on your taste. It was the nastiest looking thing I had ever seen someone eat. It is said that they give you strength and energy.
Now, Khmer and Filipino cuisines do not have much in common, but they do seem to share the same love for boiled duck fetus eggs. In Tagalog, it is called “balut”, and unfortunately, this time my Filipino friends at ASKI-MFI would not take, “No” for an answer.
Now, if you eat “balut” like a lady, you don’t pull the embryo out of the shell, you eat it bit by bit with a little spoon so you don’t have to actually see what you are eating. Lucky for me, the ladies at ASKI-MFI eat “balut” like men which is what they required of me. To eat “balut” like a man, you pull the entire fetus out of its shell in order to see the almost formed fetus duck body . It usually takes about 2-3 bites to completely eat.
Balut, see the fetus duck head on the right?
Needless to say my “culinary adventures” continue. I will be in Cabanatuan City, Philippines with ASKI-MFI for the next three months bringing you Kiva client stories and blogs. Hope you enjoy them, I am off to lunch now.
Hmmmmm, should I have goat or more balut?
Kiva Fellows: My Virtual Family
Not every day as a Kiva Fellow is a good one. There are days when I wait for seven hours for a credit officer to be available to take me to the field to collect journal updates for only two clients. There are hours of intermittent internet in which I am able to load less than one page. There are the clients I meet about whom I would be inspired except that after doing the math I’m not convinced they’ve found a way to run their businesses with a net profit. Luckily, after more than 7 months of victories and setbacks, I think I’m in the black.
Small moments compensate for unpleasant hours. A coworker’s delight at a weak attempt at their local language can be contagious. The look of recognition on the faces of loan officers to whom I just presented a new template keeps me going for days. And the shy request by a client to have a picture taken with me makes me feel that my presence is appreciated.
On top of the ups and downs of the day-to-day, though, there is another secret to my contentment: the Kiva Fellows. In ways both tiny and massive, unexpected and enormously appreciated, having a virtual community of fellows makes my life infinitely better. During training in June, I left four days at Kiva HQ disappointed that after meeting so many fascinating and fun people I would ultimately embark on this fellowship solo. I only wished we could all be placed at the same MFI. Kiva said no—that would sort of defeat the purpose. Time and again, however, I’ve been able to turn to them for all manner of support despite great distances between us.
Three Fellows (Zack, Nabomita, and me) in Mombasa, Kenya--brainstorming about Kiva and how to save the world
Not sure how to shrink a photo? Wondering if anyone has an effective training Power Point presentation? Curious about coping mechanisms for language barriers? For all manner of information—from the recreational to the professional—fellows have proven to be an essential resource.
And as it turns out, Kiva has good judgment. As my Fellows class, KF5, has gradually finished up in the field, I despaired that I’d be left alone without my network of compatriots. I was entirely wrong. When I risked deportation from Tanzania, I was able to call on a KF6 and stay with her in Kenya for a week—all arranged having never met. From there I went on to intrude on another Kiva Fellow whose acquaintance I had never made but who quickly became an indispensable friend. The prospect of Christmas and New Years alone in Africa was depressing so three KF6ers and I ignored the fact that we did not know each other and made plans to travel Africa together to be in the company of people whom we knew would soon be friends.
On the job in Kisumu, Kenya--I met and stayed with Sarah
New Year's in Kigali, Rwanda--in the good company of Fellows Ankush and Sarah
Whether it’s crossing African borders to see one another or participating in email chains that gain momentum and garner nearly 50 responses from fellows in the same boat, I couldn’t live without the other fellows. It’s possible that I’ll never actually be in the same room as some of the fellows with whom I’ve been in frequent correspondence. Others I’m quite sure will persuade me to cross one or more countries just to see them again. Whether in Cameroon or Cambodia, Bolivia or Tanzania the fellows play a significant role both in helping me to get through the day and in helping me to add the most possible value to Kiva and my microfinance institution placement. There’s nothing like a real, live human resource to advise, commiserate, support, and amuse. Thanks for keeping me sane, fellows!
Jara and I did a joint staff training when we were both placed in Tanzania
Fellows recovering from a hard day's work in Dar es Salaam
To see all of Vision Finance Company’s currently fundraising loans, click here or join the Vision Finance Company lending team.
Julie Ross is currently serving as a Kiva Fellow at Vision Finance Company in Rwanda. In December she completed her first placement with BRAC Tanzania.
What Do You Mean By “Profit”?
The word “profit” does not translate easily into foreign languages. I’ve now tried to convey the idea both in Swahili and in Kinyarwanda and I often come up with nothing more than blank stares or long pauses. The difficulty lies in what “profit” includes (or doesn’t). A client may answer my question as to what their monthly profit is with a confident declaration of “30,000 Francs”, but when I ask what she uses the profit for, she answers that she pays the rent and pays off her loan. If that is the case, then her profit is not in fact 30,000 Francs but rather is 30,000 Francs minus rent, loan repayment, and other expenses. Unfortunately language barriers consistently stop me from explaining this coherently.
I understand the confusion. It serves as a reminder that many of these business-owners do not have any formal training in accounting or personal finance. Afterall, for much of their lives there was probably no need for this knowledge. They began businesses with survival and advancement of their families in mind, not as a result of thorough market research or financial backgrounds. Yet despite confusion on what, precisely, I’m asking, after some quick calculations every client is able to give me some number. The only problem with the figure is that I really am not sure what it represents. I have often included these numbers in Business Profiles and Journal Updates that I post on Kiva, but I recently realized that they may be misleading so I am beginning to hold off unless I am sure that the question was properly understood.
This is not to say that clients are oblivious to their earnings. On the contrary, they are very much aware of how much is coming in and how much is going out. They price their goods extremely carefully and perfectly in line with market rate. This is particularly essential since many shops sell the same goods, and a shop that tries to sell for more than market rate will quickly lose its customers. My point is merely that a balance sheet is not something that many shop owners have learned to rely upon. Training at many microfinance institutions is improving upon this as they teach their clients basic bookkeeping before disbursing loans, but it’s not yet ubiquitous. This is why I was particularly surprised when I met Aimable, one of Vision Finance Company’s clients.
Upon first glance, Aimable’s ease with numbers was noticeably absent. There was a significant pause when I asked the size of his loan. This is particularly unusual, as this number tends to live on the tips of the tongues of microfinance clients. As Aimable produced a notebook with detailed accounts of all costs, purchases, and sales, I understood how he was able to allow these numbers to slip from the front of his mind. He kept them on paper instead. In the U.S., we might view such paper bookkeeping as archaic. What’s paper? But here, even microfinance institutions often lack computer technology and do most, if not all, of their paperwork by hand. Therefore Aimable’s meticulous calculations make him ahead of the curve, not behind.
Aimable's Balance Sheet--he meticulously tracks all expenses and income
Aimable in front of his shop, bursting into the street with his many goods for sale
As you can see from the photo, Aimable’s business is booming. In fact, he is bursting out of his small shop with his quantity of goods for sale. I can’t say that this is the result of his careful bookkeeping, but I don’t see it as a coincidence that he has both been very successful and keeps close track of his income and expenditures.
Across the board, microfinance clients are impressive in their ingenuity, drive, and ability to survive within the marketplace. With a little bit of training on bookkeeping, they could likely be even more successful. I am optimistic that in the future, such training will become the status quo. I look forward to the day when my excitement at Aimable’s papers fades as balance sheets crop up all over and eliminate the confusion over that pesky word: “profit”.
To see Vision Finance Company’s currently fundraising loans, click here. If there are none up now, please check back soon!
Julie Ross is currently serving as a Kiva Fellow at Vision Finance Company in Rwanda. She recently completed her first placement with BRAC Tanzania.
News Flash: Kiva Is Not Intuitive
Training microfinance institution (MFI) staff on Kiva never gets old no matter how many times I do it. The excitement lies in the great unknown of which questions they will ask once I’ve said my piece. Across the board, the staff I meet are professional and dedicated to their work. Most have been serving hundreds of clients for years before I dropped in to introduce Kiva, so it is not surprising that they are both slightly perplexed by this new element and also extremely invested in understanding it completely. Their questions illuminate for me how confusing Kiva is upon first (or even second or third) glance. My goal is to make Kiva as small a burden as possible so that the staff both collect the required information and do not have to take much extra time to do it. This is how the trainings tend to go:
Step 1: Introduce myself and make sure to mention Barack Obama in one way or another in order to get spirits high and interaction initiated.
Step 2: Explain Kiva and the MFI staff’s role within the Kiva framework. At Vision Finance Company in Rwanda, the previous fellow trained all staff on what Kiva is and my Kiva summary serves as a reminder of what she taught them several months ago. As such, I keep it brief. I emphasize how the credit officers are the most important piece of the Kiva puzzle. If they were to refuse to gather the information necessary to put loans on the website, Kiva could not exist. I also make sure they understand that information on Kiva-funded clients will be put on the internet. We want to make sure that they impart this to their clients and that their clients sign a waiver indicating that they do not object.
Step 3: Introduce business profile templates I created in order to ease the gathering of client information. Prior to the introduction of the form, they were writing up the stories by hand based on what they knew of their clients. Committed to their work, each would spend upwards of an hour trying to think of how to formulate their clients’ information into a story. This was both time-consuming and slightly confusing since some were not sure where the story went (answer: on to the Kiva website). We go over the form, written in English, with explanations in Kinyarwanda (the local language) of what each question is asking. The forms, much as you would expect, request basic personal information like age, marital status, and number of children. The staff are also to ask their clients business- and loan-specific information like what their business is, how long they have had the business, and what they will do with the loan and the profits that result from it. The form is simple because we don’t want the staff to be scared off from completing it. They already have so much work that the goal is not to create a large additional burden. Staff are visibly relieved at the sight of the form, knowing that this means they will no longer have to struggle with daunting blank sheets of paper as they think of what to say about their clients.
Step 4: Questions. One of the most amusing parts of question time, for me, is that the questions are all asked in Kinyarwanda and usually the Kiva Coordinator takes first stab at answering them. That means that for several minutes there may be heated debate, many players involved, volumes rising, and I will have no idea what is being said. When the Kiva Coordinator determines that I should be privy to the conversation, he’ll inform me of the source of confusion. There has been a great range of questions, all of them valid, since I conducted my first training with BRAC Tanzania until now, 23 trainings later. Some examples:
• How do we know when the loan has been funded on Kiva so that we may disburse the loan?
(Answer: you should disburse the loan according to your timetable at your MFI, not allowing Kiva to dictate the timing. If you disburse the loan before it has been funded by Kiva, the Kiva funds, when they arrive, will back-fill the MFI’s accounts.)
• What if Kiva wants to give the client a different amount than Vision Finance approved?
(Answer: Kiva has no role in determining the terms of the loan. Kiva is only a source of funding and will distribute only the amount approved by the MFI.)
• If it is a group loan, do we fill out one form for each member of the group?
(Answer: If it is a group loan, the group president should answer all of the questions and the rest of the group members should be included in the table where their name, loan amount, and type of business are requested. All group members must appear in the accompanying photograph.)
• By raising funds on Kiva, is Vision Finance exploiting its clients to get money for the MFI?
(Answer: By putting clients on Kiva, the MFI is not exploiting them but rather raising the funds necessary to distribute their loans. The money raised goes only towards that loan and not into the coffers of the MFI or into the pockets of MFI staff.)
• What if the client does not want to be put on the internet?
(Answer: If the client is uncomfortable having his or her information and picture on the internet, then choose a different client to be Kiva-funded. We do not want anyone to be uncomfortable or feel forced to appear on the internet. Just because that client is not Kiva-funded, however, does not mean that he or she will not get his/her loan. It means only that the funds will come from elsewhere, not Kiva. Disburse the loan if it has been approved by the MFI and do not let the client’s choice not to appear on Kiva affect whether or not he/she receives a loan.)
• If Kiva’s funds are at 0% interest, does that mean that our Kiva clients don’t have to pay interest?
(Answer: Clients are still to pay the MFI’s standard interest rates. The 0% rate from Kiva is for the MFI so that they may have more money available to disburse more loans and to help them cover the costs associated with serving their clients. If Kiva clients did not pay interest, all MFI clients would soon hear that certain clients are not paying interest and mayhem would ensue. It is more equitable to have everyone pay interest and for the MFI to use the interest to increase their impact on the community.)
• Why does it matter that the loan amount on the form matches the amount that Vision Finance has approved and will distribute?
(Answer: Kiva values honesty and transparency. As such, all loans raised on Kiva must match precisely the amount that is actually disbursed to the client. Ifs more money is raised on Kiva than is distributed to a client (for example, if the requested loan amount is listed instead of the actual loan amount, and the two differ), the MFI will be responsible for reimbursing the loan to the lenders.)
What the trainings remind me is that if we want quality business profiles and journal entries posted to the Kiva website, then it is important that we fully explain to MFI staff why they are filling out this form in the first place. Though some have never used a camera before and many spend little or no time on the internet, all want to understand the concept of Kiva and where they fit into it. For me, working with the dedicated credit officers at both BRAC Tanzania and Vision Finance Company has been just as rewarding and informative as meeting with their clients.
Julie Ross is currently serving as a Kiva Fellow at Vision Finance Company in Rwanda. She recently completed her first placement with BRAC Tanzania.
It Costs $5000 To Marry Your Daughter?!?!
In Cambodia there is a popular song called Tov Dondung Kon Key by Khemarak Sereymon. The song is VERY catchy and we hear it EVERYWHERE. The best part of the song is the story. It’s about a guy who has this crush on a girl who he meets at the market. When he goes with his mother to meet the girl’s parents so that he can ask them to marry her, the girl’s family asks for $5000 as a dowry. Unfortunately, even if he sold his rice field and cows he would not have enough money, so he sings about his agony.
Here’s a question for you Kiva lenders, if he asked for a loan would you support him?
I used the song to make a video of our recent visit to Takeo Province:
This was my first overnight trip and it was amazing. We went into areas that were much more remote than I had ever been. On our second day, we had to walk a kilometer just to reach the Village Bank meeting. It’s also harvest time so we saw many farmers and farm workers harvesting the rice.
The best moment of the trip was when Kieran asked one of the borrowers what they would do if they couldn’t get a loan from AMK. We then asked the same question to the other clients we met. Many of them said they would turn to private lenders who charged 10-20% interest a month (compared to the 3% a month AMK charges). Cambodia has 18 microfinance institutions, but AMK goes into the most remote areas where other MFIs don’t go because of the costs involved to service these borrowers. For many borrowers, if AMK didn’t go out there they would either turn to loan sharks or they would not borrow the money necessary to improve their lives. AMK chooses to serve these clients because of their mission:
“To help large numbers of poor in Cambodia to improve their livelihood options through the sustainable delivery of appropriate and viable microfinance services”
If you think AMK is doing great things you should definetely check out their loans that are currently fundraising on Kiva. Also if you think AMK is awesome as much as Kieran and I do, you should join the AMK Fan Club!
The Benefits of PA2
As many of you Kiva lenders have noticed, Kiva recently upgraded the administration system that Field Partners use to post businesses and report repayments. The partner administration system, aka PA2, is where Field Partners post businesses onto Kiva and report on the status of each loan. This was a major redesign of the site and it has brought a bunch of great new features that benefit both lenders and Field Partners. For those of you who haven’t been reading all of my posts (shame on you!) I am a fellow at AMK and HKL, and I’ve also been working closely with the other two Cambodian MFIs, CREDIT and Maxima, to help them with the transition to PA2. Having been a fellow in a PA1 world and now getting to see PA2 for awhile firsthand, I wanted to give you lenders some perspective of PA2 from the field!
- Now, Field Partners, aka Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), report the exact repayment schedule for each Kiva loan – Previously it was just assumed that loans were on a monthly schedule. In the new system, MFIs can report the exact dates of when a loan payment is expected. This lets MFIs post loans on all types of schedules such as end-of-term, weekly, bi-weekly, etc. If the MFI wanted to set a schedule in which the borrower pays back the loan only on the days when Saturn and Uranus are in alignment, this can now be done on Kiva! Unfortunately, none of the members of the Astrological Microfinance Association have joined Kiva yet…
- MFIs now report the exact status of each loan every month – Every month each MFI uploads a list of the total principal paid for each Kiva loan. This is great for Kiva and Kiva lenders because it can help them get a better sense of what exactly is happening on the ground and identify any loans and/or MFIs that are having a hard time paying back loans. Even though you’re thousands of miles away, you’ll actually know how the borrower is handling the repayment process. If a borrower makes on time payments or an early payment, then you know everything is okay. If a borrower misses a payment, then you know that they might be having problems. The change has been great for MFIs as well. For example, at AMK we do a mix of monthly loans and end-of-term loans. We use to report the status our end-of-term loans manually, but that was a lot of work which took a lot of time. I made a Microsoft Access application for AMK called the Kiva Loan Tracker which can report the exact status of all the Kiva loans onto a CSV file. In PA2 we can just upload that CSV file and our work is all done in just a few minutes! Sweet.
- MFIs Repay Kiva Lenders When the Borrower Makes a Repayment - The MFI repays Kiva when the borrower makes a payment. This helps MFIs because now they do not have to repay Kiva lenders on a different schedule than the loan terms. This is important because it prevents creating liquidity/cash flow issues for MFIs, which is a serious problem for many of the smaller MFIs. This is also great for Kiva lenders because if a loan receives an early payment then the Kiva lender gets repaid early also. This happens quite often at AMK, especially with many of the end-of-term loans. I’ve noticed many AMK loans being repaid months early.
- The Actual Disbursement Date is Posted – In PA1, the MFI would post a disbursement date on Kiva, which was more of an acknowledgment that the loan has been disbursed and that its status will be reported to Kiva. In PA2 the actual date that the loan was disbursed is reported to Kiva. Many MFIs post loans on Kiva that have already been disbursed. They do this because for them it is the only way to incorporate Kiva into their operations. Many MFIs front the money for these loans, hoping that they will get funded on Kiva. At AMK a loan description is written by the client officer when a client applies for a loan and then the picture is taken at the loan disbursement by the Area Manager. This information is then sent to the head office in Phnom Penh by taxi. This prevents AMK staff from having do to an extra visit to the client, which would be a waste of resources. The last thing Kiva wants to do is to be a burden on the MFI, which could inadvertently increase interest rates.
- Google Gears – The Kiva engineers incorporated google gears into PA2. This is EXTREMELY helpful for MFIs, because many of them have VERY unreliable internet connections. When I arrived in Cambodia, the internet at my MFI was down for almost a week. This was a very painful experience if I was posting a business, because if the internet went out in the middle of a business posting, we would have to start all over once the internet came back on. In PA2, if the internet goes out, a draft is stored which you can then return to at a later time. As I’m writing this, the internet just went out and Chan Ry, the HKL Kiva coordinator, was in the middle of posting a business. Now he doesn’t have to start that post from scratch! Hurrah! Google Gears also stores part of PA2 on the computer of the MFI which lets the site load quicker. If you guys can remember the days of dial-up modems, then you’ll know how slowly webpages load at some of the MFIs (that’s if they load…)
- We Can See Your Comments – PA2 has a page where we can see all the comments from lenders. This is helpful because it makes it easier for Field Partners to respond to your comments.
- Separate Server – Occasionally Kiva lenders get really excited and bombard the Kiva website looking for loans that they can lend to. Once in a while, this causes the Kiva webservers to crash. In the past, when this would happen MFIs wouldn’t be able to post new loans. Now PA2 is stored on a separate server, so if Oprah decides to share her love for Kiva on national television again, MFIs can keep on posting.
- Increased Transparency – I’ve been helping all four Cambodian MFIs make the switch to PA2 and I’ve realized that PA2 has created a much greater sense of transparency. The four Cambodian MFIs are not committing any fraud. I can state this for a fact because each MFI gave me access to their data. The more real information Field Partners send Kiva, the easier it will become for Kiva to spot any signs of trouble or fraud. In PA2, Field Partners also report the exact account number for each loan, so when Kiva does an audit of a Field Partner it will be easier to spot any signs of trouble. My Loan Tracker makes sure that information is accurate by taking the exact data from their Management Information System, so when a business is posted the names and account numbers are exactly the same on Kiva as they are in the MIS of the MFI. In the past we had hard times finding information on some Kiva loans, because the names were translated slightly differently.
Some Kiva lenders have been asking Kiva why MFIs cannot send repayments on a weekly basis, so that they could get their repayments quicker. One lender even compared the new system to sports announcers from the 1930s who called away games on the radio using tickertape. The truth is microfinance, at least in Cambodia, works at a pace similar to tickertape. Here at AMK, the central office receives data from the branches at the end of the month. At HKL, the branches send data to the main office every two months. The reason is that these MFIs do not currently have the necessary infrastructure to receive real time data. At HKL the data is put on a CD and sent to the main office by taxi. Real-time Kiva updates would be great but it is not feasible (at least not yet). Kiva and the MFIs are the doing the best they can given the circumstances. Until the network infrastructures of these MFIs is improved (which will hopefully happen in the coming years) there will always be a lag between the date of transaction and when it is reported to the lender. But as the infrastructures of the countries that Field Partners operate in improves, Kiva can start asking for more information quicker.
Because this new system is requiring MFIs to report information quicker than they normally do for Kiva and for their own operations, PA2 could become a burden for some MFIs. The last thing Kiva wants to do is hurt the efficiency of the operations of any of its Field Partners. This is why Kiva gives MFIs a 15-day grace period for when they upload the status of each loan at the end of each month. I’m currently working at two Field Partners, AMK and HKL (I just started at HKL). AMK has a network that allows me to connect to the servers at each of the branches and download the data for each loan. My Loan Tracker works very well there. At HKL they don’t have a network like that. We’re working around that by getting branches and sub-branches to send their data through Windows Messenger. Getting the data from the sub-branches with unstable internet connections has proved rather difficult and for those we may have to rely on receiving the data by CD, which can take weeks. This must be even harder for MFIs where the internet is worse.
PA2 has come a long way in the last few months. I’ve been testing it out since August and PA2 is much more stable now that it was a few months ago. The Kiva engineers should really be commended for their hard work in getting this up and running. Though there are still a few bugs, I’m sure the Kiva exterminators engineers will get rid of them in no time. Also, once MFIs get use to the new posting process many of the errors in the payment schedules will disappear.
If you still need some more info on PA2 you can read all about it here, here, and here.
Thankful.
By Cynthia McMurry, KF5 Peru
When FINCA staff interview clients to write their Kiva profiles, the last question each client is asked is “What are your dreams for the future?” As I looked at the profile of FINCA client after FINCA client, I was struck that almost everyone had some variation of the same three dreams:
1) “For my children to graduate with professional degrees” or “For my children to get a good education.”
2) “To open my own store” (for ambulatory vendors), “To open another store,” “To expand my store,” or “To offer a wider variety of merchandise in my store.”
3) “To build my own home,” “To own my own home,” or “To improve my home.”
Something bothered me about seeing the same dreams repeated over and over, but for a week or so I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that bothered me. In part, I think it challenged a mindset instilled in me from early on, reflecting a PC, middle-class American upbringing laden with positive reinforcement, self-esteem boosters and the notion that everyone is different in a good way. I can see the motivational posters on the walls of my second-grade classroom now: “Reach for the stars!” “I can do anything if I put my mind to it!” “The sky is the limit!” and so on. If you’d asked me then about my dreams, I would have told you that I wanted to be a professional ice cream taster and have my own calf for my backyard (my family lives in the middle of Minneapolis). My dreams today are the same size, though they’ve gotten less fattening and more socially oriented over the years (I don’t want to say what they are for fear of jinxing myself; I never did get that calf).
I think I expected clients to have similarly grandiose responses. To me, offering a wider variety of merchandise is a goal, not a dream. Winning the lottery is a dream, being a world-renowned artist is a dream, traveling to faraway places is a dream. Dreams are limitless and fantastic: if you’re really lucky you get close, but otherwise a dream is something to set your sights on and work towards as you go through life. Goals are concrete and attainable: if you plan ahead and work hard, you should be able to reach and even surpass your goals. I wanted clients to see that their dreams were in fact goals. What happens once you do start selling a wider variety of merchandise? Once your house has a second floor? Once you have two stores? Where do you go from there? It also bothered me that clients’ dreams didn’t involve working less or retiring. Most of the women I talk to work 50 or 60 hours per week and have large families to support; their kids usually work with them while not in school. But no one dreamed of not working. Many older clients told me they dreamed of continuing to work for as long as possible.
A couple of days ago, I came across a woman whose dream was “For my children to grow up to be better than me.” That made me cry, and I realized that this woman’s bluntly-put “dream” is in fact the common theme shared by everyone I’ve talked to. Any given combination of dreams #1, 2, and 3 is just a way of saying “I want a better future for my children.” I think this is probably the common dream shared by most mothers of the world, and I feel silly for not realizing this sooner. It doesn’t really matter if they’re dreams or goals; either way they represent small steps forward, and maybe it’s easier to go step by step than to look to a place miles away that you are trying to reach, since you might get discouraged once you realized how far away you currently are.
Being at FINCA for Thanksgiving has given the holiday a new meaning for me. I’ve always known that I have more material goods than most people in the world and that I’ve been blessed with a good education and a loving family, but I never thought about how much I’ve been empowered by those around me throughout my life. I was given a childhood of leisure time and had the luxury of dreaming about cows and ice cream; I didn’t see any doors closed to me. I never fully realized that my family has already achieved what most families only dream of.
Using GPS to Map Out Borrowers
In my last post, I talked about visiting a client with Phanith, the AMK Kiva coordinator. The client officer (a.k.a. loan officer) was not available to take us, so we relied on a hand written map that got us lost many, many times. We had to ask almost every villager we saw, before we finally got to the client.
Getting lost in a village got my mind thinking about how nice it would be if we had an actual map with the locations of clients and how to get to them. So I spoke to Paul, the CEO of AMK, about how we could give GPS devices to our client officers. This would let us track them as they go to each village bank and client, creating one massive map of Cambodia with the locations of every AMK client. The benefits of such a map include:
- Client officers and other branch staff are often rotated to other branches as a fraud preventive measure. When a staff member arrives at their new branch, they could use the map to help them locate clients, instead of having to rely on other staff members at the new branch.
- Staff from the auditing department could easily locate clients, allowing them to do spot checks on loan amounts and loan payments to help reduce fraud.
- The research department could use the map data to keep better track of clients to further assess AMK’s social impact.
- Organizations that are partnering with AMK to provide highly beneficial services to AMK clients, for example the water filter company IDE, can use the map to find clients instead of having to rely on AMK staff members to direct them.
- Kiva Fellows could use the map to easily find Kiva clients and report back to lenders on their status.
Paul liked the idea and asked me to try it out. I got a GPS device and took it with me on my last village visit with Phanith and Kieran. In case you haven’t already checked it out, Kieran made an awesome video of our journey out there. I also made a video of the trip using Google Earth and the data from the GPS device. We were going to figure out how to sync these two videos together, but instead we made separate videos and set them to the same music 
If you think AMK is doing great things you should definetely check out their loans that are currently fundraising on Kiva. Also if you think AMK is awesome as much as Kieran and I do, you should join the AMK Fan Club!
The odds are 1 in 14 million
Wow, this Kiva world is small. The other day, while I was attending a United States Presidential election-day event with a good portion of the other expats in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I noticed a woman just as teary-eyed as me as the results rolled in for President Elect Barack Obama. Both overwhelmed with emotion, we gave each other a hug out of pure joy. Then we just started talking, launching into a familiar round of questions you ask when you live or travel abroad.
Kiva Fellows at the Foreign Correspondence Club in Phnom Penh (left to right): Teresa Dunbar, John Briggs, Sanjaya Punyasena, Kieran Ball
“So are you traveling or do you live here?” “Where are you from?” “Where have you traveled?” “Do you recommend any countries or cities to visit?” “Are you traveling by yourself?”
After about 15 minutes into the conversation, the question that might have opened it all is asked. “Oh, and by the way, what’s your name?”
We introduce ourselves to each other. Her name is Erica, and she’s traveling with her husband Joe. Erica asks me, “So what are you doing here in Cambodia?”
I say, “I am a Kiva Fellow. Have you ever heard of Kiva?”
I’m about to give her my 10-second Kiva pitch, but she beats me to the punch and says, “Of course, my husband and I are Kiva lenders.”
Completely surprised, I say, “Wow, really? How long have you been lending on Kiva?” I’m expecting they’ve been lending for six months or less, since Kiva has only been around for about three years, and is such a young organization.
She says, “Since about 2006, I think.”
Surprised even more I ask, “How did you hear about Kiva back then?”
“We saw a piece on Frontline, and have been lending ever since,” she replies.
When Erica and Joe first visited kiva.org in 2006, they found that all the loans had been funded. But they persisted and revisited the site a week or two later, lending their first $25. Since making their first loan, they have made more loans. As the loans are repaid by Kiva-funded borrowers, they have re-lent all the money that Kiva has credited back to them – so far their money has been through at least two or three cycles of loan funding and repayment.
So — a Kiva Fellow meeting a Kiva lender somewhere like Cambodia. What are the odds are of this happening? If there are 6.72 billion people in the world (per Wikipedia), and there are about 360,000 Kiva lenders, then the odds of me meeting a Kiva lender are about 1 in 18,611, but I think the odds of a Kiva Fellow meeting a Kiva Lender are more like 1 in 14.4 million. Then again, since I’m a very social person, let’s just put the odds at 1 in 15,000 or 1 in 14 million.
Not so accurate back-of-the-napkin statistics aside, my point is that our meeting seemed like a rare thing. So I thought is I’d take the opportunity to ask Erica and Joe if I could interview them for the Kiva Fellows’ blog. They graciously agreed.
Erica had mentioned that she and Joe were not feeling well the day of the elections. They had caught some nasty bug, and I offered any help or advice on Cambodian medical facilities I could since I had been sick not so long ago. We emailed back and forth a few times, checking to see if they needed anything, but eventually they recovered and we went out a few nights later.
The weather was perfect since it was the tail end of the rainy season, and we opted for a low-key night of art, food, and conversation. We met up at The Meta House which is an art gallery/ movie house, and enjoyed a series of short films. After that, we headed to a lovely outdoor restaurant quiet enough for me to hassle them with questions.
Erica and Joe left Brooklyn behind in June to travel around the world for a year. So far they’ve been through parts of Africa, and India, and Thailand, and are now traveling through Southeast Asia. When I met them, they were staying in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, for about a week. Prior to traveling, Erica worked in the non-profit sector with low-income housing initiatives, and Joe was a software engineer for an e-commerce company.
“How many borrowers do you think you’ve lent to over the years?” I asked them.
Humbly, they say, “We’ve lent to about 30-40 entrepreneurs,” without disclosing the amount of money they’ve lent.
Erica and Joe say that from the loans they’ve made, they have received about 5-6 journals, updates on borrowers posted by Kiva Fellows or partner MFI staff. While they don’t remember any journals distinctly, Erica and Joe say they find them interesting. However, they consider journals to be the icing on the Kiva cake, and not the reason they actually lend.
“So how do you choose who to lend to?” I asked next.
They said at first they started to lend to entrepreneurs that live in countries to which they had traveled. So they split their loans 50-50 between Latin America and Africa, and at the same time they split their loans 50-50 between men and women, to reflect their gender division as a couple.
Joe said for a while he was fond of trying to fund loans to completion, topping them up and enjoying the moment when the loan is completely funded. However, that’s more difficult to do now on Kiva because loans are completed more quickly, and because of a $25 per-lender cap. Now Erica and Joe just want to keep as much of their money lent out as possible, so they can continue to have an impact.
When I asked why they lend, Erica and Joe said that they simply to want help effect positive change in the world. They said that when they’d traveled in Latin America and Africa and talked with people who owned businesses, they heard many stories of how people were being charged very high interest rates by moneylenders. When they heard of Kiva on Frontline, they thought of the small business owners being taken advantage of, and thought that lending through Kiva could provide a great alternative for entrepreneurs in the developing world who needed loans
Erica stressed how she appreciated the difference between what Kiva does and what many charitable and philanthropic organizations do. Access to money from Kiva for developing world entrepreneurs is simply faster, and hopefully easier, for them to get.
Kiva money is channeled through partner microfinance institutions (MFIs). MFIs require all loan applicants to fill out an application, and requirements for Kiva-funded applicants pose little additional burden – a photo, and a follow-up interview. So for entrepreneurs, great effort isn’t needed to get a Kiva-funded loan, and they are able to use their time to get done what they need to do.
This is something philanthropy just doesn’t seem to know how to do, with its numerous application forms and individualized reports that each foundation and lending body requires. They ultimately keep the person from doing what they were given the money to do, which is just not a good use of the person’s time and a drain on financial resources for everyone.
While we sat, a late night monsoon rain hit. We headed for a covered area of the restaurant, and continued our conversation in between moments of shared laughter with the waitstaff of the restaurant as we watched them maneuver between puddles, trying not to get to wet. They were quite skillful and resourceful.
Multi-purpose table umbrellas, I knew I should've packed one.
While Erica and Joe are the first Kiva lenders I’ve met by chance since I’ve been a Kiva Fellow in Cambodia, I’ve met others here. Since the MFI I work with is Kiva’s oldest field partner in Southeast Asia, they have received a few requests from lenders to visit borrowers they have lent to. The MFI is open to the idea, so when a Kiva lender made a request a few months ago, the MFI agreed, and we took the lender into the village to meet the borrower he lent to.
With that story in mind, I had to ask Erica and Joe if they had a desire to ever meet the entrepreneurs they’ve lent to, especially since they could do so while traveling around the world. Their answer was a quick and firm, “No.” But, they also feel that their answer might not reflect what most lenders would say.
Erica said she thought such visits would be a drain on MFIs financial and staffing resources. Moreover, she said that borrowers would likely become overwhelmed, depending on how many lenders came to see them, and that the visits would take the borrower away from his or her work. Erica and Joe said that the money it would take to travel and visit borrowers would be better used on Kiva to fund more loans.
I had so many questions for them, but it was getting late in the evening. And the torrential rain was finally pausing, providing us an opportunity to get home without getting soaked. So I asked one last question, quickly.
“Would you consider taking your money out of Kiva since the economy is doing so poorly?” I asked.
“No,” they said, after thinking it over a bit.
Erica and Joe said that they would only withdraw their money from Kiva if things got really dire — if they really, really needed it. But they just do not foresee themselves needing the funds more than the people to whom they lend.
We finished our food and drinks and paid our bill. As we parted, we wished each other happy travels. I hope Erica and Joe are enjoying their travels, and are doing so in good health. From what they told me, I think they might be in Vietnam about now. I wonder if they’ll meet up with any other Kiva fellows along the way? What would the odds of that be?
Kiva Fellows and Kiva Lenders hanging-out (Left to Right: Teresa, Erica, Joe, and John
Portrait of a Client
The noon-day heat of equatorial sun beat down on tin roofs and dirt roads. It was quiet, the sounds a little muffled outside the paint shop of Rwandese Kiva client Marie Chantal Mukasafali.
“The business is good here,” she says, “thank goodness our inventory doesn’t spoil.”
Marie Chantal, operator of this small enterprise for well over a decade, has kept her eyes open for opportunities. She chose to begin a paint shop, she says, because housing construction became a large market in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which many buildings were appropriated or destroyed.
“I got the seed capital for my business by selling my former house.”
Today, Marie has bought another, larger house than the one she sold for her business, complete with a dining room and indoor plumbing.
Marie’s story is by no means an anomaly among the many Rwandan micro-finance borrowers funded by VFC. All around, the clients visited demonstrated keen business acumen, quick to take advantage of any opportunities they could find.
One farmer on the Rwandan-Congolese border-town of Gisenyi has taken advantage of his location to export tomatoes to Congolese merchants. A retail seller of clothes and shoes near Kigali treks to Kampala, Uganda (a nine-hour bus ride) instead of the nearby capitol to get cheaper goods to sell in his shop. An owner of a fabric store in the south of the country sells not only to her own neighborhood, but also across the border to land-locked Burundi.
Entrepreneurs who have some more savings plow their earnings back into the business, often with master strategies.
Small grocery shop owners invest in wholesale purchases of goods – beans, rice – during the harvest season, so that they can sell them for higher values during the later months. “This grain was 250 RwF per kilo when I bought them,” says shop-owner Yvette Mukamana. “Now they are 350.”
Irene Nsabyimana, a cook for a children’s school, has even invested money in school dormitories, so that more children can board at school and eat from her business.
This diversity of business strategies is no oddity. Many clients are involved in several businesses at once. For instance, one shop owner conducts buses in his off-hours. Another drives a motorcycle-taxi to make some extra money.
The work ethic encountered in the clients I have interviewed in the past few months is matched only with their generosity. A majority of families in Rwanda (almost all of the clients interviewed) are taking care of foster dependents. Many are teen-age orphans who lost their families in the 1994 Genocide.
“The vulnerable children come from so many places,” says John, my Kiva colleague here at VFC. “Some of them, their parents were killed. Others, the parents are in prison for what they did.” Then there are offspring born of rape. Families have taken in the children from all sides, as many as could be provided for, though the associated cost is often difficult.
“The school fees are very high,” says Marie Chantal.
But for the entrepreneurs, and the families they care for, Rwanda is a nation of hope and growth.
“I want to take English lessons,” says Claudette Nyiragicari, a fabric-store owner. Rwanda has just recently moved to eliminate French in favor of English in public schools. “And when can I get another loan? This loan was not enough.” She has already made enough money to pay off her current loan, months ahead of schedule. Gesturing to the bundle at her feet, she says, “I was only able to buy a few bundles of fabric.”
The call for financing is echoed all over the country. Many shared their future plans and hopes.
One convenience shop owner expressed her desire to start a hair-salon business. Another wants to start a wholesale trade, which offers better returns and faster turnover than retail.
Even John, Marie Chantal’s husband, shared his goals. “I’m going to driving school now, and want to buy a car for a taxi-service.”
Each in her own way, the clients interviewed in Rwanda are modestly working towards a better standard of life.
“I’m able to buy some more food for the kids,” says Domina Ngirimana, a mother of nine.
A long overdue staff introduction
Yes, as I am leaving. Julie Ross, the next Kiva Fellow to be placed in Rwanda, will take over with better and I’m sure more consistent postings here. But in the meantime, a quick note on some of the staff here at VFC, whom you will soon meet in more detail:
The Managing Director, Shem, is a genial and humorous man from Uganda. He is a new director here, having done previous work in other accounting and finance positions, including the largest microfinance institution in Uganda. He joined World Vision, the Christian international umbrella organization for Vision Finance Company, as Senior Financial Specialist in Africa, then moved to Rwanda to help with financial management. At the same time, the previous MD for VFC resigned, so Shem stepped in.
Antoinette is the head for administration and human resources here at VFC. She is a graduate of Butarye university, the nation’s best university in the south of the country. She studied public administration there, and joined World Vision right after college; she hopes in the next few years to start up a training center of her own. The target population is vulnerable orphans and widows – Antoinette hopes to teach them vocational skills they can put to use in making a living.
Patrick is the operations manager here at VFC. Having studied finance in university, he has been with World Vision for fourteen years – starting with a program for orphaned and vulnerable children. His involvement in this program led him to the calling of serving the poor and disadvantaged. True to nature, he can always be found with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye.
Donat: the finance manager here at VFC. (The name does not derive from the sticky sweet, but rather the French for “Donate.”) Donat exudes energy at all hours, even late at night while slogging through paperwork generated by external auditors. “This was supposed to be over with last month!” he complains loudly, in good cheer.
Ben and Providence are the directors of the MIS (the computer record-keeping) department. Ben is technically above Providence in rank, but let’s not talk about these things over-much, as the two just got married in September. They get teased about this a respectable amount.
Jean-Paul is called the “baby brother” Kiva coordinator. But don’t let the name trick you. Jean-Paul is indispensable to the Kiva process. When loan officers come to the headquarters, bringing photographs, stories, repayments and journals, he is the one who single-handedly posts it all onto the Kiva website, producing the content you see today. Jean-Paul, as are several other members of Vision Finance staff, is still in university. He holds this full-time job during the day, so that he can finance his education; then he attends classes at night.
Then of course, there is John Gasangwa. John has been absolutely instrumental in helping with Kiva work in my time here. Responsible for all donor relations (and now, also duties as a loan officer), John was the one who accompanied all my visits out to the field, whether for training, journaling, or just plain travel. John is, of course, as loud, crazy, and energetic as befits his position. Born in Uganda in a refugee camp (his parents left the country in the 1959), he has since returned to Rwanda to “be a part of the solution,” as he puts it, with a hope to serve the disadvantaged in his country. Having graduated from Butarye with excellent marks, he aspires to go to business school in the states – but is certain, by all counts, that he will come back to Rwanda to help solve the challenges that the nation faces.
For more about the kind and wonderful and generous staff here at VFC, stay tuned for Julie! There is sure to be more to come.
Navigating Monsoon Season by Moto
I’ve been working with CREDIT-MFI as a Kiva Fellow for about a month and a half, and I still feel like I’m getting my feet wet. CREDIT is fairly large with about 360 employees working throughout Cambodia in their 7 branches. I work closely with CREDIT’s two Kiva Coordinators, Sopheap and Vichet, at the head office in Phnom Penh. We work behind the scenes managing Kiva CREDIT clients in CREDIT’s Management Information System (MIS), and on the Kiva website. We translate business questionnaire forms and often journal questionnaire forms (when we do not interview the clients directly) from Khmer to English in order to post on the Kiva website. The other day though, Sopheap and I decided to head out and interview some Kiva CREDIT borrowers ourselves. We decided to head out to the city of S’Ang located about 30 kilometers south of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
The following day I show up at work about 7:30am, we hop into the CREDIT truck and we are on our way. Our goal is to interview 5 clients and be back at CREDIT’s head office by noon for lunch. It takes us about an hour to get to the S’Ang branch office as we drive through the outskirts of the city and into the country side. It is currently monsoon season (June-November), and everywhere is flooded. Rice is growing as far as the eye can see in all shades of green. It rains almost every day, usually in the afternoon, but lately it has been unpredictable since it’s the end of the rainy season when the skies open-up whenever they wants. It is lovely though since it cools everything down, but unfortunately it does bring out all the mosquitoes. Yikes Dengue Fever and Japanese Encephalitis (wish I had convinced the vaccination clinic back in the states to give me the $500 vaccination)!
rice fields of green
We arrive at the S’Ang branch office, drop off the truck and hop onto motorbikes with the branch’s loan officer who works with the clients we will be meeting today. The borrowers we are meeting are reachable only by motorbike since they live down long narrow, dirt (or mud depending on the season) roads surrounded by rice fields on both sides. We break off from the main road onto a dirt road, and weave in and out between an occasional moto, but mainly bicyclists, walkers, and vendors. We drive through the open air market where people are hustling, and I cover my eyes afraid that we might run someone over since the market is quite busy. After about 15 minutes, we arrive at the first borrower’s house, and she invites us to sit down on her front porch. It is made of slatted wood with a thatched roof. It is raised about a foot off the ground in front enabling access to the road. The back is about 5 feet off the ground. The roads are maintained dirt mounds between houses and rice fields. The slatted floors and walls keep the house a lot cooler than the western style cement. The house is airy and relaxing with woven mats to sit on.
CREDIT-MFI Branch Office
First Kiva Borrower interviewed that day.
The interview takes about 30 minutes. We try to ask the best questions getting the information we need to write a proper informative journal in the smallest amount of time. And often, it kills me to finish-up an interview session since with each question, I could ask a million more questions. There is just so much to learn from each borrower about life in Cambodia, their business, their loan, how inflation is affecting them, their dreams for the future, etc. My goal is to bring back as much information as possible to the Kiva lender in a sensitive, but informative manner.
We finish our first interview and hop back on our motos to visit the next client. Sopheap and I are on one moto and the loan officer is on the other in front of us. We follow him since he is the only one who knows where the clients live. We travel further down the dirt/muddy road, and make a left, and then another left, and a few more turns. As we drive, I get off the moto intermittently due to flooded road areas, and at that point it is just easier and safer to walk. With each dry patch, I hop back on the moto with Sopheap struggling to keep up with the loan officer in front of us in fear of getting lost. We dodge smaller mud patches, grazing cows and water buffalo, heaps of dung, the occasional child riding their bike to market or school, all while waving to locals we pass as they smile and wave to us.
S
Finally, after about 45 minutes and many un-navigateble road sections, we lose the loan officer. He is nowhere in sight, but realize at the same time that there is only one path in and out so we press on. After about another 20 minutes, we reach a fork in the path and see the light green uniform shirt of the CREDIT loan officer to the left. We wave and head down an even smaller un-navigatable path to an eventual stare-down with two cows. Hoping they don’t kick us, Sopheap and I move slowly past them so as not to startle them. After about an hour total, we reach the borrower.
The only thing between us and the Kiva borrower are some mean looking cows.
Everyone greets one another with the traditional respectful greeting, “Jem reap suor,” with a slight bow and hands pressed together in prayer-like fashion under your chin. We sit down, and proceed with the interview, asking questions regarding their loan and business. After about a half hour, we finish the interview, and get back on our motos for the dreaded ride back. Sopheap and I check the time and are shocked to find that it is nearly noon. We really need to hurry back to the S’Ang branch office to pick up the truck in order to head back to Phnom Penh.
We finally reach our 2nd Kiva borrower.
We start our moto journey back down the muddy path doing the same dance as before, weaving between muddy potholes, dung, cows, water buffalo and the occasional bicyclist. We do not want to get lost this time. Highly impressed with Sopheap’s moto skills I simply hold-on and hope for the best. My goal was to get off as little as possible since it slows us down too much and we need to get back.
We drive, and finally we come upon an impassible section in the road. As we head towards it,
I tell Sopheap, “I’ll get off.”
“No, no. Stay on.”
“No, I’ll get off.”
“No, no. Stay on. I’m a good driver.”
I say, “No. I’ll get off,” as we head into the mud.
We lean right, then left, and then right again trying to maintain balance, and then our wheels lose traction. The next thing I know I am in a mix of mud, dung, and foliage. The cows are staring at me, and the locals are peering over at us from their lunchtime meals grinning as I try to get up. I look up at Sopheap, and notice that somehow he managed to jump off the moto before it went down, and he is nearly spotless. He asks, “Are you OK? I am so sorry, Teresa.” I say, “I am fine as I look at the mud all over my hands and left side.” We then both start laughing as we stare at the moto lying in the mud.
Sopheap, spotless as can be.
Me, after washing off my hands and arms, but always with my trusty helmet
A woman living in a house nearby comes over, and we borrow a plastic container from her. We get some water from the rice fields beside us, and start rinsing off the moto. We hop back on laughing, hoping not to lose the loan officer again, and knowing that it is just another day in the field during monsoon season.
Ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille
I am a little nervous. Not for myself, but on behalf of some of our Kiva clients. The reason? We are heading out to Bac Ninh ( the small town where Kiva’s Vietnamese micro-finance partner has a regional office ) to film some clients. Kivab2b is making a short film about Kiva and the engaging dynamic duo Rachelle ( Canada ) and James ( US ) are here in Vietnam to interview and film a few Kiva clients. They have already criss-crossed the US filming Kiva lenders and now it’s the turn of the borrowers. We have chosen 10 clients who we think will be comfortable being filmed. I am fervently hoping that the cameras, microphones and not least the legal form giving consent ( of which the English version confuses the hell out of me! ) do not prove to be too intimidating.
We arrive in Bac Ninh in relative luxury in a small mini-van we have hired for the occasion. It makes a very nice change from the local buses and hair-raising motorbike taxis I usually take! The mood is a bit like heading to summer camp, as we have myself, Rachelle and James with associated equipment, a translator and a couple of interested head-office MFI staff all coming along for the ride. It’s early as we depart Hanoi ( 6.30am ) and the street markets are at their busiest as vendors sell all manner of fruits, vegetables, breads and meats for the day’s meals – I am sure you can buy virtually anything you desire from a Hanoi street vendor!
We were given strict instructions by Mrs. Lan – the Bac Ninh branch manager – to be there by 8am sharp. I always tell Mrs. Lan that she is the boss and I will do whatever she tells me to, so the early start is to ensure we uphold our part of the deal. Mrs. Lan is impressed to see us already there enjoying a morning cup of Vietnamese tea when she arrives at 7.45am. Introductions over, we depart for our first client, with SEDA’s neighbours curiously observing this motley crew.
The villages around Bac Ninh have not seen many mini-vans and we gingerly progress down tight alleyways and over mud-tracks, Mrs. Lan navigating for the city-slicker driver. We arrive at the home of our first client. She has been expecting us and warmly invites us into her home. I have met most of these clients before and they greet me like an old friend – it’s very heart-warming. Some of them chastise me for not yet providing them with the photos I took of them during my earlier visit – I try to tell them I am waiting until the very end of my stay – and make me promise that I will bring them with me next time. Some of the clients are exactly as they were the first time I met them and have obviously not allowed the fact that they will be filmed intrude on their daily routine. Others however have clearly made a special effort to look a little special for filming and I detect a bit of make-up, some nicer outfits and hair neatly tucked away in elegant buns.
Another notable observation is the stronger presence of the husbands during these filming sessions. SEDA works with the Vietnam Women’s Union and as such well over 90% of their clients are women – as you would expect! Sometimes a client is taking out a loan on behalf of herself and her husband for their joint business but in most instances the wife and husband have separate jobs so as to maximise the family income. Here I must digress slightly to express my admiration for the strength and resilience of Vietnamese women – they really are the back-bone of this country. I am certain that official statistics would show they are key contributors to the nation’s gross domestic product. They do all manner of jobs – I have seen female construction workers, mechanics, garbage collectors – you name it – while also bearing the greater load of the family and household responsibilities. Getting back on track….The husbands are not usually present at the repayment and loan disbursement meetings at which I have previously met the clients, but now that the cameras have arrived they take a more active and visible role, proudly being the man of the house.
James and Rachelle immediately and easily place the clients at ease and scout for a suitable location. These are not closed, controlled film sets – they are people’s homes and businesses – and we are often disturbed by tractors and harvesters passing by, children and neighbours wandering into the midst of filming, ubiquitous mobile phones ringing ( the Vietnamese love to have cutesy pop songs as their mobile phone ring tones) with the call recipient loudly answering and chatting away. Luckily the clients are wearing microphones, which when first shown to them draws the identical response of “I have never worn a microphone before”. Kudos must be given to Mrs. Lan who quick-smart became an expert at discreetly disguising the lapel microphones in the client’s clothing.
If more cameras were available, it would have been fascinating to film “a making of” as word spread and curious neighbours sit, stand and squat at the edges, fascinated by what is occurring. For some, bravery and curiosity combines and they approach the camera lens and peer through it. A special treat awaits me at one of the villages which I have visited many times and has become a bit of a favourite. I always draw a crowd, but it’s the warmth as opposed to the quantity of the people which has left the greater impression. In particular I have been enchanted by these 3 magnificent grandmothers. The first time I saw them there were sitting outside a house that was about 25 metres away and they kept their distance. The next time they were sitting outside the same house but got up and pretended to casually walk by, when in reality they were intently watching what I was doing. This time they had no qualms about coming directly coming over to us and asking what we were doing. “We have seen you here before” they stated and I finally got my longed for interaction. Upon spying my camera, one of them asked me to take a photo and I was extremely pleased to oblige.
But back to the interviews… As previously mentioned I was a little apprehensive as to how comfortable the clients would be, but it turned out to be needless anxiety as many of the clients comfortably and confidently answered the questions. Responses were direct, succinct and matter-of-fact but also peppered with laughter. They were often puzzled at the question “what was their happiest memory?” but all of them were easily able to answer the question “how long do you expect to have to work for”? The answer – “forever”. When asked “How does it make you feel to know that strangers thousands of miles away want to help you and your business” they become a little emotional and thanks and gratitude are demonstrated in their individual ways.
Our client’s businesses and their specific skills continue to fascinate me, be it rice noodle production, silk production right at the source from silkworms, breeding said silkworms, making roof tiles or making specialty cakes. Tremendous pride is evident but never explicitly stated when we compliment them on their output.
When we finished filming after 2 very successful days, I returned to Hanoi feeling yet again privileged and humbled to have had this unique glimpse into our client’s homes, businesses and indeed lives. Memories I will cherish for a lifetime.
To make a loan to a SEDA client similar to the ones we filmed, please click here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=85&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_tpg=fb
News Flash
Earlier this month, the Rwandan government announced that French was no longer to be the official language of communication and teaching. Currently, French is used as the language of instruction in over 95% of schools; all of them must now switch to English. In addition to schools, government workers must be fluent in English. The agenda is effectively to phase out French in the country.
I heard this news, of course, with some astonishment. Were the teachers going to learn English overnight? What were the implications of switching languages for millions of Francophone employees and civil workers? For high school and college kids already dealing with quarter-life crises? My first inclination was to interpret the announcement as a sort of grand political gesticulation, not unlike a motion for certain wars. This I read as foolhardy: postcolonialism might be all the rage, but after all I haven’t heard of Mexico abolishing Spanish.
To my surprise, my colleagues and friends took this news with all due nonchalance. Oh that’s nice, they said – it was a move that neither surprised nor nonplussed any of them. As they explained to me, the change had been justified for two reasons:
As has been well documented, the first is political. The soured French-Rwandan relations after the 1994 genocide undeniably smolders in the background of the decision. A report this year from an official commission investigating the role of France in the Genocide alleged that the French provided weapons and support to Hutu-extremists behind the killings, and furthermore facilitated the escape of militants from the pursuit of justice. Rwanda has over the past decade made several motions to sever ties with France, including the shutdown of the French embassy and the French-Rwanda cultural exchange center in Kigali.
However, the main reason on record for the move (as stated by Industry and Trade Minister Vincent Karega) is business – English is, in his words, the “backbone for growth and development not only in the region but around the globe” – while French is, he dismisses, “spoken only in France, some parts of West Africa, and parts of Canada and Switzerland.” The business impetus became even more important in recent years, after Rwanda joined the English-speaking East African Community, consisting of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Admittedly, my indifferent colleagues say, the change will not be easy for many citizens of Rwanda. But they’re not concerned, quite simply, because for the majority of Rwandans neither French nor English is lingua franca; Kinyarwanda remains currency. As with many other matters, the shift mandated by top-level announcements does not reach very far below.
By some estimates, English is spoken by 3% of the population. French is spoken by around 8%. In the marketplaces and streets, transactions continue as usual; money and goods exchanged hands as they always have, in the vernacular. Here at VFC the loan officers looked at the headlines, shrugged, and saw little of relevance for the clients they serve.
A Match Made in Heaven
After working at FINCA for six years and then earning a Masters degree in the United States, Winnie Terry was well prepared to start a new microfinance organization (MFI). Together with some former colleagues, she opened an MFI in Dar es Salaam known as Tujijenge Tanzania (meaning “build together” in KiSwahili). With Winnie as the managing director, they kicked off in July 2006 and were giving loans to their first groups that November.
When Winnie first learned about microfinance in 1998, her initial reaction was, “that will never work!” But after she started working at FINCA, she found she related well to the women receiving loans and liked this systematic method of offering credit. When opening Tujijenge Tanzania, her and her colleagues were looking to fine-tune the process of offering credit. Even today, Tujijenge isn’t trying to be the largest MFI in Dar es Salaam in terms of clients or portfolio size. Rather, they want to be an MFI of best practices. They work hard to determine the needs of their clients and meet those needs through innovative products. For example, Tujijenge administers debit cards when disbursing a loan instead of handing a client a wad of cash. They believe this hinders the urge to quickly spend the cash on hand, and is safer for the clients and loan officers than carrying cash.
In the next few years, Tujijenge is hoping to expand its outreach and grow its portfolio – but at a sustainable pace. In 2009, Tujijenge intends to open a second branch in Mtwara. Just north of the Mozambican border, Mtwara is a rural area where there is little or no access to credit.
When speaking with her, Winnie stressed the importance of being a transparent and honest MFI. To Winnie, working for a transparent and honest organization is more important than anything else. When I heard this, I immediately thought about the importance Kiva places on transparency. Perhaps this underlying principal of transparency is why Kiva and Tujijenge Tanzania are such great partners!
To see loans currently being fundraised by Tujijenge Tanzania, click here.
Victory is Mine! . . . or is it?
I’m going to make a bold statement: microfinance is the land of minute incremental change, and joy resulting from massive professional achievement is rare here. Afterall, one loan of $125 does not take a family from impoverished to middle-class, and three months in the field does not illuminate the solution to eradicating global poverty. As a result, any goal achieved feels like an immense victory, and yesterday, victory was mine.
Several weeks ago I spent three weeks traveling north to train 7 of BRAC Tanzania’s branches on how to implement Kiva (for a synopsis, see summaries, part 1 and part 2). Yesterday, I finally saw the fruits of my labor. Allow me to give you some background:
BRAC Tanzania has more than 65 branches throughout the country, and that number is constantly growing. Right now, only a handful of those branches actually “do” Kiva. What that means is that only a select number of the branches have been trained on what Kiva is and how to produce the business profiles that are found on the Kiva website. When I travelled to 7 of the branches in September, I did so to train the Community Organizers and Branch Managers at those branches so that they could begin to produce Kiva business profiles. The goal was that after I left, they would be self-sufficient in the Kiva process and able to complete business profile templates with their groups and take the accompanying photo. An added bonus would be if the pictures were interesting and the forms contained more detail.
For those of you unfamiliar with BRAC on Kiva, a picture like this has been the norm:
Typcal BRAC Kiva Business Profile Picture
In addition, the descriptions are historically brief and lacking in colorful details. After arriving here I realized there’s very good reason for that: BRAC has more than 100,000 clients throughout the country, and more than 2,300 groups on Kiva. The staff is extremely busy and has a lot of paper work to fill out, of which the Kiva Business Profile Template is just one piece. When I first arrived here, I spent quite a bit of time ascertaining how l could create a template that produced more interesting profiles for Kiva lenders without demanding more time from the BRAC staff.
What I came up with were a few multiple choice questions and a bit of clarification on existing questions. I tested the forms in the field to see where the staff got confused (the forms are in English but the level of English spoken by each CO varies), which questions clients had difficulty answering (for example, listing the ages of their children is no easy task), and which blanks were likely to be filled by something generic (i.e. the loan will be used “to expand her business”). I revised the BRAC-Kiva template based on all of these observations, and I still consider it a work in progress.
Waiting to receive the first batch of profiles from the branches I trained has been like waiting to receive exam results; I was dying to know how I’d done. To see their finished forms and photos would be my only guage of success or failure. Yesterday, my waiting finally came to an end as I received profiles from 2 of the 7 branches. The elation I felt at seeing pictures like this made those three weeks on the road fully worthwhile:
A new-and-improved Kiva Business Profile picture from BRAC Tanzania
Look at the depth, color, and action!
As I hurriedly looked over the forms they completed I was happy to see very few questions left blank (possible if the staff forgets what the question means) and a lot of great, thorough information. I left the office eagerly looking forward to coming in this morning to begin adding them to the Kiva website.
Unfortunately, the pictures above will never make it to the Kiva website. What I viewed as a major professional accomplishment turned into a disappointment as I made a frustrating discovery: many of the pictures were not correctly matched with their accompanying form. During training I tried to convey to the branch offices how important it was that we know which picture goes with which form, but it remained a difficult task. I explained how to find the picture number on the camera and there were nods of understanding all around, and even demonstrated understanding as I stepped back and watched the staff complete the Kiva process on their own. But alas, I now have brilliant photos and thorough templates that will never see the light of day.
For an evening, I thought victory was mine, but it seems I did miss something afterall. This is not a fatal error nor is it irreconcilable. After a few hours of trying to make sense of the picture numbers, I admitted that I’d have to chalk these ones up to a loss. I got on the phone with the branch and tried to re-explain the picture number concept, and this time I think I got some traction. Happily, not every business profile had this issue and I’m hopeful that the next batch I receive will not have this same problem. To see if my optimism paid off, check out Kiva’s currently fundraising BRAC Tanzania loans. Now, if I could just find out what happened at those other five branches . . .
Asking Kiva Entrepreneurs Questions From Lenders
Last Wednesday Phanith, the AMK Kiva coordiantor, and I were very eager to head out into the field the next day to ask two Kiva entrepreneurs, the Siphat Yang Village Bank and the Chon Erm Village Bank Group, questions that I had gathered from lenders. Unfortunately, when we called the loan officer she told us that she got the dates mixed up, and that she had visited those clients the week before for repayments. Phanith and I knew that we couln’t let you Kiva lenders down, so we weren’t going to let this stop us! We decided to try to find the villagers ourselves… easier said then done.
We went to the Kandal branch office the next day. An area manager agreed to show us the entrance to the village on his way to a disbursement at another village. He drew us a little map and dropped us off at the entrance. Phanith and I hopped onto a moto and headed into the village, only to get lost very quickly.
Phanith tries to decipher the map that was drawn by the AMK Area Manager.
We started asking villagers for directions, but most of them had no idea where these clients lived and tehy mistakingly sent us off in the wrong direction. Finally we found a villager who knew these clients, HURRAY! He hopped on our moto and took us straight to them. Unfortunately, he took us down a road that was in horrible shape. Phanith tried to navigate the large puddles, but then we got stuck in one. Our moto started to lean to the left. Our navigator was smart enough to jump off, but Phanith and I were still on the moto. My leg was holding the weight of the moto and the two stranded passengers. After a minute, my leg gave way and down we went into the puddle. My butt went straight into the puddle. We decided to walk the rest of the way and we eventually reached the house of Siphat Yang.
White Pants, Brown Mud
Here are the answers to the questions asked by Kiva lenders:
Mary Larkin asked:
“Where do the business people get the goods in the first place? Are the goods sent in by mail? Do the business people have to travel to a larger city to buy the goods?”
Siphat Yang gets her goods from Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, which is about a 45 minute drive on moto from her village. She buys her clothes from Olympic and Chbar Ampil markets.
Yusuke from Japan asked:
“How much does their per day income increase because of loans so far? and why?”
Before Siphat took out a loan she was making about $1.75 a day. Now she makes $2-$2.50. She said that the loan allowed her to buy more clothes to sell. It also allowed her to sells her clothes to factory workers on credit. The workers would then pay her back when they receive their monthly pay.
Yusuke also asked:
“How do they cooperate with each other in the village after getting the loan?”
According to Siphat, whenever a group member cannot make a payment, the other group members must cover the difference. The group member who wasn’t able to make a payment is expected to pay back the other group members when he/she can.
Ms. Siphat Yang and her neighbor check out the Kiva business descriptions of the two loans.
We weren’t able to find Mrs. Chon Erm, so instead we posed our questions to Ms. Taing Im Sum who is another member of Mrs. Chon Erm’s group.
Dan Landrum asked:
“Is it at all a hardship to pay back or does the benefit of the loan truly make for increased profits, so it is easy to make the payments as the plantation grows?”
Ms. Taing Im Sum and Mr. Som Yang, another villager who is a farmer, agreed that the loan terms offered by AMK are very reasonable. They pay 2.8% interest monthly, which according to them is the lowest interest rate available. Mr. Som Yang stated that if AMK didn’t offer loans at interest rates this low, then they would not be able to borrow any money. He also joked that he wouldn’t mind if the interest rate was even lower.
Dan also asked:
“Would it be useful for Mrs. Chon Erm’s group to receive some exchange or training in the various aspects of their business, farming, marketing, etc.?”
According to Mr. Som Yang, an organization called IPM has come to his village to train farmers. They showed the farmers new fertilizer techniques and to limit the amount of chemicals used as fertilizers and pesticides. Before he received the training from IPM, he was able to grow one ton of food per hectare. Now he is able to grow four tons on his hectare of land.
Finally Dan asked:
“Is there anything else we might do to help them prosper?”
I didn’t ask this question to the villagers directly, but I told Ms. Taing Im Sum and the other villagers who gathered around about Kiva. I explained that thanks to Kiva, AMK is able to keep interest rates low. (In the picture below you can see them checking out their Kiva business description and photo). So Dan, one of the best things you can do is to keep loaning on Kiva and supporting other organizations that are not only do good, but also to make a sustainable change.
Ms. Taing Im Sum looks for herself in the photo of her group loan. (She's in the second row, third from the right)
Despite all the difficulty in getting out into the field, this was a lot of fun. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this! For those of you who were wondering, I have washed those pants three times with all types of detergents and bleach, but the stain is still there. Any suggestions? 
To see a list of all the AMK loans that are currently fundraising on Kiva, click here.
If there aren’t any AMK loans on Kiva, you should check out the AMK Fan Club instead!!
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I had the pleasure of meeting Yusuke a few weeks ago. Yusuke was in Cambodia to promote Kiva in Japan through the Kiva Japan Project.
Have you ever wanted to ask a Kiva entrepreneur a specific question?
Well now is your chance!!!
I will be visiting the Siphat Yang Village Bank and the Chon Erm Village Bank Group this Thursday. If you want me to ask the members of the village bank a question, send me an email with your question: sanjaya.punyasena AT fellows.kiva.org
This is the first time I’m trying this, so I might run into some problems. I want to apologize in advance if I am unable to ask your question.
If you could send me your questions before October 15th, that would be great!
Also, if you haven’t voted for Kiva on the American Express Members Project, do so now!!! You only have 10 hours left and Kiva needs 400 more votes to reach second place!!
You Know You’re in Tanzania When…(Vol III)
A past fellow to Tanzania, Alec Lovett, posted two blogs on “You Know You’re in Tanzania When…” I’ve posted the links to his blogs and added volume III with my own observations. Enjoy!
http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/03/21/you-know-you-are-in-tanzania-when…/
http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/03/24/you-know-you-are-in-tanzania-when…-vol-ii/
Volume III
1. They say “Hakuna Matata,” which is actually Swahili but it’s still funny.
2. The water stops running in the middle of your shower. (This only applies if you are lucky enough to have running water).
3. You meet someone with a pet monkey.
4. You spend 10 minutes just with greetings.
5. The children point at you and yell “mzungu”.
6. Someone passes you his or her baby to hold in the dala-dala.
7. The dala-dala won’t leave until its full, which means the person on your lap has someone on his or her lap.
8. Half the channels play Bollywood films, which are actually addicting.
9. Women wear crazy colored kangas (traditional fabrics) that don’t match at all.
10. People order beer warm.
Interview with Paul Luchtenburg, CEO of AMK
I hope you guys enjoyed the interview. To see a list of all the AMK loans that are currently fundraising on Kiva, click here.
If there aren’t any AMK loans on Kiva, you should check out the AMK Fan Club instead!
“Hi. I’m in Jail, Please Get Me Out of Here…” (Part 2)
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Jail in Beirut wasn’t really a high-security sort of place. Most of the “prisoners” were being led around without handcuffs, and no one was carrying a weapon. People were actually fairly friendly. My holding cell had only a few people in it when I arrived: two women who had apparently had a longer day than myself, and two men who had clearly over-dressed for the occasion by my standards. Ahmad had seemingly called ahead for a reservation, because he arrived with pita bread and labneh cheese in a shopping bag. He offered me some, but I wasn’t really in the mood to eat. He was there for some sort of immigration issue. The other guy whose name I didn’t catch said he was there “for cocaine.” With me, I had my folder of useless paperwork, my handy planner, keys, wallet, cellphone. When I finished my cigarette, I fished around in my pocket for my used and gently abused cell that I had just acquired for ten dollars the day before and flipped through my planner for a helpful number. The first one I came upon was a colleague at work, who I managed to get through to. The warden saw me on the phone– I made no sincere efforts to hide my call– and decided it was time to process me. That meant saying goodbye to the phone, my belt, shoelaces, money and my pen. I had a real mammoth of a metal pen at the time and understandably they wanted to take it away– it was definitely passable as a weapon. Not certain how long I would be there, I protested enough to at least keep the ink cartridge so I could write to pass the time… I already had a grandiose plan in the works to record my memoirs by matchlight and sneak them out of jail with the guards inside hollowed out cigarettes. I also insisted that I get my phone call. For a good twenty minutes I had a yelling match with the warden, refusing to move an inch until I got my phone call. I don’t think the Lebanese typically get one, but I had a terrible feeling that if I didn’t get in touch with the embassy, it would be awfully easy to get lost for a while down there. Begging and pleading finally won out and I was allowed my call to the embassy. I had enough time for a quick “Here’s my name, I’m in jail, please get me out of here” before the phone was snatched away and I was led down a long corridor to meet my new cellmates.
I spoke to some of the prison guards (They weren’t exactly guards, more like custodians. They had no billyclubs or handcuffs and from what I could tell spent most of their time sweeping the place.) who showed me around and found out they were almost all from Sudan and here in Lebanon on working papers from the U.N.. Really nice guys. We walked by cell after cell, each one filled with maybe 30- 35 prisoners, each one maybe 10×20 meters in size. Some were more crowded than others, but there seemed to be enough space to at least sit comfortably. The cells were covered on the far wall inside with prisoner’s dirty plastic shopping bags filled with clothes and toothpaste. The hallway had fluorescent lights hanging down from the low ceiling which dimly lit the passage with a hazy yellow glow. Huge fans blew around hot, damp, salty air, and there was a shelf for shoes outside of each cell. By the time we reached my cell, number 12, the last one at the end of the hall, I had made friends with a jovial guard, Hadool, who was happy to learn that I was from New York. Hadool had a sister living in Queens and gave me a pack of cigarettes as a welcome present “If you need anything, let me know” he whispered to me through the bars as the door was shut anew.
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb if I say that I stuck out a bit. My cellmates were all gathered in circles in their respective corners, many not wearing shirts, talking amongst themselves and sneaking glances over to the new guy. I quickly found out that these divisions were by homeland– the Sri Lankans in one corner, Indians in another, Palestinians, Iraqis, Thai; they all had their own enclave. I was welcomed by an Iraqi man wearing nice jeans who immediately started my inquisition. I got the impression he was the enforcer. He asked why I was there, and I said I really wasn’t sure, and he asked where I was from, and all I could manage was a feeble “Eh, far away.” Not content to leave it at that, his friends pressed on- “What, like from Australia?” Now I’ve never in all my travels misled people about where I’m from. Those who have traveled around a bit know that it’s tough sometimes, particularly recently, to say you’re American. Not just out of fear of a degree of embarrassment, but in some cases, out of fear for your safety. But I honestly think it’s kind of a responsibility of those who can travel to be totally honest and represent our country well. That said, in this situation, surrounded by imprisoned men from places where America isn’t exactly a nice word, and not knowing how long I would be spending with these guys, I admitted that yes, I was from Australia. The enforcer caught a knowing grin, “Welcome,” he said, “Welcome to Lebanon.” I felt a faint tinge of regret as I let out a sigh of relief and returned his greetings.
I struck up a conversation with a man sitting to my left on the sleeping pads who I learned was a doctor from Iraq who had been imprisoned for 54 days after being detained for immigration issues at a border crossing into Lebanon. At this, I swallowed hard, but he assured me that I would be out in a few days at worst. Countries that have embassies, he explained, always send people down to help. The guys from Thailand and Saudi Arabia got fresh clothes and food every morning. He was not so lucky.
I was only there for maybe half an hour when a military officer came to get me. I was hoping this was my ticket out, but my respite was brief. I handed him some documents and back I went. Another hour went by, and I was let out again. This time I was led past all the cells to an office where I sat counting the minutes as I watched the officers clock out one by one, grab their jackets and berets, and head out the door. My chances of leaving seemed increasingly grim as time passed, but at what seemed like the last possible moment, ‘le directeur’ emerged from his office. He came over to me, asked another officer who I was, tossed me a quick wink as if to say “Yella, let’s go” and we headed out the door. I don’t think I’ve ever be so happy to breath fresh air in my life.
In all, I was only in jail for the day. And to be honest, it wasn’t all bad. I was a bit concerned what spending the night would be like, but I met some interesting folks and learned an important lesson. I never really did find out why I was put in jail, but it doesn’t much matter, and I can assume it had a lot to do with the approach I took toward dealing with the military officers at General Security. I was quite sure based on my experience living here so far that assertiveness was the right tactic, but looking back, I was clearly mistaken. It was foolish to assume that I knew beyond doubt what I was doing, and I obviously should have shown some more deference to people who had a lot more power than I did.
Reaching into my pocket as I left the General Security compound, it occurred to me that after everything, at the very least, I had gotten a free pack of cigarettes out of the deal from my Sudanese friend. I think I’ll be saving those as a souvenir. Now how to explain this to my mother…
“Hi. I’m in Jail, Please Get Me Out of Here…” (Part 1)
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(So the following actually took place a few weeks ago, but by request, I’ve written an exceedingly long account of everything that happened. Certainly not a typical Lebanese experience, but an unfortunate twist of living in a strange land…)
I think my first thought when they shut the cell door was something along the lines of “Oh. Okay. So that’s what happens when they put you in jail… Crap.” And I’m not a smoker. I don’t smoke cigarettes. But I clearly remember my second thought being “Man, I need a cigarette.” It had been a long day.
The story really begins the day before. I believe my last post actually referenced this marathon of bureaucracy and I think I gave some grand advice about never loosing your passport in Lebanon, which I stand by. I also made the connection between the folks I was dealing with at the Lebanese General Security office and the insufferable French commander from the movie The Battle of Algiers, Colonel Mathieu. Unfortunately, I didn’t know just how accurate that comparison was. The only difference may have been that for all his authoritarianism, at least Colonel Mathieu had a real solid sense of humor.
On Tuesday I went back to one of the Lebanese General Security buildings as instructed at 9am, hoping to get the simple police report that my embassy hold told me I needed to show them and that a dozen Lebanese officials of various rank were unable to produce without signatures from the Prime Minister, Waldo (Where is he?), and Batman himself (Christian Bale would not suffice, I would have to find the Batcave). What I learned from the day before, and from my first two weeks in this country as a whole, was that generally speaking you can’t accomplish much unless you are assertive and refuse to let people step on you. This mantra served me well on Monday and when I came to the military wing of the GS Office on Tues, I was convinced of my tactics. I was sticking to my guns. Unfortunately- and there are a lot of unfortunately’s in this tale- I did not factor in the simple truth that military men are not civilians and do not take kindly to assertiveness. They had bigger guns than I did. After getting the run-around for a solid three hours, I was terrified that my application for a police report would get lost amidst the literally thousands of papers and carbon copies piled on desks throughout the building– not a single computer, photocopy machine, or even filing cabinet for that matter in sight. I told a few people that I wasn’t leaving until I got my police report and was pretty satisfied when I was brought to the office of an important-looking guy in new fatigues and shiny boots who was wearing his beret indoors. The man sat me down and told me, “I think… eh, you might have to pay 70,000 Lebanese pounds [just over $25] in order to get this processed immediately.” Given his hushed tone and seeming uncertainty with the truth of his statement, I was convinced this man was asking for a bribe. I would later be told by higher authorities that this was not a bribe at all, so in hindsight I clearly made a poor judgment. But at the time I was sure of my impression, and reacting as much to the insanity of the whole situation as to what was just told to me, I cracked an incredulous smile. The general’s face went blank and showed that he had no idea why I was smiling. “He really expects me to grease his palms for this,” I thought to myself. My smile broke into a chuckle, and for a few solid seconds the chuckle gave way to a deep, Santa Clause, belly rumbling guffaw. This time the general’s face was not skeptical nor inquisitive, it was flush with rage. I was directed to get out of his sight immediately, and I complied, only to realize that I didn’t know where to go next. Finding myself in another sticky situation, I returned a few minutes later to ask what I could do. I ran into even more angry words and curses, this time in English. After standing in the hall of the fourth floor of the General Security building for a good twenty minutes as a few military guys stared and others tried their hardest to ignore me, I took out my pen and started writing down the names on the doors of the various offices. I thought just in case I finally met someone who was helpful, I could explain where I’ve been. Or at the very least it would improve my Arabic handwriting. The bystanders were apparently not aware that I was a student of the language, and assumed I was getting ready to tattle on the aforementioned angry important-looking guy. It was about when he found out about this that my fate was sealed I think. There were more rooms and more generals and more signatures, and along the way I picked up one and then another escort with guns, but since they were carrying around an official-looking report I thought perhaps I was nearing the end of my journey. Unfortunately (there’s another one), that wasn’t my police report, it was my receipt. For jail.
Things started to feel wrong when I was sitting in one nondescript office next to my new entourage and a soldier came over and told me to put on some handcuffs. I had a brief moment of panic, but when I refused, everyone in the room had a good laugh, and I gathered they were just trying to lighten the mood a bit. They didn’t push the issue and although I thought the joke in poor taste, I let it slide. After this pit stop, we were off to a police jeep which was parked outside. I happily bounded into the back seat like a puppy on his first trip to the park. Thinking back, these guys must have never had an easier time transporting someone to prison. Of course I asked where the field trip was headed, but the only response from the driver and his accomplice up front was that we were headed to “Chez le directeur.” I thought perhaps this was finally it. I had figured out how to speak to the head honcho. I was going right to the top. The director. In a jeep. Fantastic. I would be on my way back to the embassy for my new passport in no time. Unfortunately, my dreams began to fall apart when the police jeep made a hard turn into what appeared to be a tremendous cement parking garage beneath an overpass. Led from the truck down a dark, wet stairway with several armed guards standing sentinel it seemed an inauspicious home for a directeur, and it was unlikely we had stopped there for coffee and donuts on the way. Still, when the clanking of doors became audible, then dozens of jail cells became visible, and then a man with a large manifesto before him demanded my name, I gave the boys the benefit of the doubt. Wasn’t it possible the prison warden was the one I needed to speak to? In a flash as the door of the holding cell slammed shut, however, I finally put the pieces together with all the excitement of a foreigner who has just found out he is going to jail. “Does anyone have a cigarette?”
Honey I’m Home ( aka A Typical Kiva Day in the Office )
I am not a morning person. I know this about myself, but am starkly reminded of this fact when my alarm goes off at 6am. In a zombie trance I get out of bed, put the kettle on and have a shower. I put on the clothes I chose the night before, as I know that at 6am in the morning my brain does not work at its best and there is a high risk I may choose clothes and footwear completely impractical for riding on the back of motorbikes and sitting cross-legged on the floor. Today I head out to Bac Ninh, where SEDA has one of their regional offices and where the actual work of meeting clients, disbursing loans and collecting repayments occurs. All of the Kiva clients are serviced out of Bac Ninh and I travel there twice a week, travelling 2 ½ hours each way on 3 local buses to get there.
Back to my cup of tea. I gulp it down and head to the bus stop down the road to catch my first bus of the day. It’s 6.40am and the routine is to meet Huyen – my university student translator – at Long Bien bus depot at 7am. From there we catch the next bus to Bac Ninh. Long Bien is the largest bus depot in Hanoi and a nightmare to navigate. There is no order to the buses, no signage or timetable to indicate where you can find your particular bus. You basically wait and pray. The one positive is that it’s still early and there are less hawkers about to bother us. The Bac Ninh bus arrives and we get on quickly to ensure we get a seat. Getting a seat on a Vietnamese bus resembles a competitive sport and women get no special treatment. I try and avoid any diplomatic incidents despite what I observe, but once I saw a young man nearly trample a pregnant woman to get to a seat. I could not help myself and stood directly in front of him, loudly announcing that he should be ashamed of himself. Despite the language barrier I think everybody in the bus could understand what I was saying. At the next stop he sheepishly got up and offered the pregnant woman his seat. One thing I do admire however is the fact that older people are treated very respectfully and as soon as they board a bus, somebody will instantly get up and guide them to a seat.
It’s a 1 hour journey to Bac Ninh. Huyen and I usually chat away for the first half an hour, but then after a while we put on our respective MP3 players and listen to music to pass the time. The journey is primarily highway and the scenery would not make it onto a postcard. An hour later we reach Bac Ninh town. We disembark and walk to the bus depot to catch our next bus to Yen Phu, a small town in Bac Ninh province where the SEDA office is based. The Bac Ninh bus depot is one of the few places I get approached by beggars. There is one particular young man – I’d guess early 20s – with a severe limp and facial disfigurement who is there every week. The first time we saw him Huyen told me not to give him money as he would most certainly be hired by somebody to beg and would have to pay his ‘pimp’ the bulk of his takings. This knowledge coupled with telling myself that I am already doing some good by volunteering in Vietnam for 4 months makes me feel more comfortable about ignoring the beggars.
Our last bus arrives and we board for the final 45 minutes journey to Yeh Phu. In contrast this is a stunning journey and I still enjoy looking out over the rice fields and slices of life in the small villages we pass. Then we arrive at Yen Phu. It’s 9.30am and it feels like we have done a full day’s work already, but we have just begun.
On the Way to Yen Phu
On The Way to Yen Phu
We are warmly welcomed by the SEDA credit officers. Then onto the back of a motorbike and off we go to visit clients. The credit officers have 3 days of client interaction – Tuesday through to Thursday. In the morning they have their weekly repayment collection meetings and in the afternoon they disburse new loans. On Monday and Friday they are in the office catching up on paperwork. I enjoy the motorbike rides out to visit clients. The preparation beforehand is hilarious. I basically lather my face, arms and neck in sun-cream, put on sunglasses and sometimes a hat. And that’s it. The locals however have a much more fastidious routine. They wear long shirts, gloves, hats and face masks to ensure that no skin whatsoever is exposed to the sun and that they stay white. It makes me laughingly think of the women back home who pay a lot of money for regular fake sun-tans.
All Covered Up and Ready to Go
We drive through all manner of surrounds – narrow village laneways, along canals, pass cemeteries, through rice fields- arriving at the location for our first collection meeting. The meetings are usually held in a central location such as a school, pagoda or a home and we will meet with 4-5 groups at once. I always get a little nervous at schools as invariably one of the students sees me and then bedlam ensues. They leave their classrooms and jump and dance around singing “hello, hello, hello”. After a few minutes a teacher will appear and yell or dramatically bang a drum and they scurry back to class. Occasionally some persistent little rascals will remain throughout the meetings, intriguingly observing us.
On the Way to Clients
On the Way to Clients
Hello, Hello, Hello
The credit officer meets with each group leader one by one and collects the weekly repayments. I then enquire if I can ask them a few questions. It never ceases to amaze me how open the clients are with a complete stranger and they patiently answer my questions about their family finances, families and hopes for the future. Interview over, I ask if I may take a photo. This usually draws a response of nervous laughter and protestations that they are not suitably dressed for a photo. The credit officers interject telling them that’s nonsense and that they look fine, so they acquiesce whilst patting down their hair or straightening a shirt – the response to having a photo taken really is universal! One time while I was taking photos of clients, one of them was taking a photo of me with their phone – the shoe very firmly on the other foot!
The meeting is repeated 3 times at separate locations and we usually meet with 10 -15 groups per session. Lunchtime. The Vietnamese take their lunchbreaks very seriously. Usually we drive back to the office and will have lunch at one of the food stalls in Yen Phu. Occasionally we are too far from the office and may have lunch at a client’s home. I am always humbled by our client’s hospitality when we visit their homes. They are always delighted to see me and dust off their best chair for me to sit down on. Cups of tea will be thrust into my hand and instantly refilled the moment they are empty. It’s an honour when we eat with them but I also feel a little guilty that we are taking food from their families’ mouths. I quash the strong desire to ask the credit officers to give them some money for the meal as I know that would be incredibly insulting. Thankfully for my western conscience we don’t have meals with clients very often.
After lunch we have disbursement meetings where new loans are distributed. These are large meetings as every member of the group must attend, so 20 – 30 women may be in attendance. These meetings are held in a public area as a home could not comfortably contain this many people. The credit officers commence by talking about loan discipline, the importance of meeting their repayment obligations and also of making savings. Typically a SEDA client will also have a savings account where they will contribute 5,000 Vietnamese Dong ( $US 0.30 ) a week in savings. That does not seem like a lot – and it isn’t – but instilling a behaviour of savings is important and even a small amount will ultimately pay dividends. Once the ‘pep talk’ is over, the groups approach one by one and each member of the group needs to sign a basic contract acknowledging that they have received the funds and will repay accordingly. It’s very businesslike and the women usually count their loans to ensure they have received all their funds. One woman once made me laugh as she did not like the fact that some of her notes were old, so she emphatically asked the credit officer for newer notes!
A Loan Disbursement Meeting at a More Subdued Moment
Making it All Official
About 2 – 3 disbursement meetings are held in an afternoon and then it’s back to the office. It’s typically 4 – 4.30pm and Huyen and I bid the Yen Phu team good-bye. We trudge back to the bus stop, fervently praying that we don’t have to wait too long for the bus. The longest we have had to wait is 50 minutes! There is absolutely nothing at the Yen Phu bus station so that was 50 of the longest minutes of my life. Eventually the bus arrives and we commence our 3 return bus journeys. The music I choose on the way back to Hanoi tends to be mellow as I am often reflecting on the clients I have met and the sneak peek I have had into their lives. I am always in admiration of the resilience, hospitality and sheer hard work demonstrated by the Kiva clients – there is no ‘woe is me’ self pitying attitude.
Eventually, mercifully, I turn the key and enter my apartment. In reality it’s modest but in contrast to where I have been today it’s palatial. It’s already dark and usually between 7 and 7.30pm. I immediately head to my shower as I am always sweaty and grimy. I cook a modest meal and usually treat myself to ice-cream. Exhausted it’s early to bed, but satisfied that in a small way I am doing my bit to help.
This is what I do two days a week. They are long, hot and tiring days, but they are also my favourite days of the week.
Comedy White Man
Anyone who has spent time in some of the more remote parts of Africa will probably shrug their shoulders at my observations. But as a first time visitor it’s hard not to feel like a bit of a celebrity, at least with the children. Wherever you go, kids stop and look. Sometimes they laugh or point and every now and then they wave and shout ‘white man!’
At first I was a little taken aback, but now it has become quite routine. Mostly I rather enjoy being the local novelty and giving a wave as I walk or ride past.
Earlier this week we visited one of GHAPE’s established centres in the lush countryside that surrounds the town of Bamenda. An elderly women was leading the group in a quiet prayer in Pigeon English. As she solemnly continued, a small child walked into the meeting, then stopped in the middle of the room and exclaimed loudly ‘white man!’
Just occasionally it becomes a little wearing. There is a gaggle of kids who play near my house who are always around to greet me when I return from work. The youngest girl, who is perhaps four, and very sweet, says ‘hello… hello… hello…’ repeatedly when she sees me. It doesn’t help to reply: she still carries on in her little voice, ‘hello… hello… hello…’
Further down the road there are three children who find me most amusing. As I climb the track to pass their house they always gather, smiling and waving. When I return the greeting they burst into fits of animated giggles. I thought after time the novelty might wear off, but it seems I’m still as funny as ever.
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When Primates Attack (And Other Tales of Fellows’ Mayhem and Adventure)
As the next round of Kiva Fellows finished their training, Nabomita, Zack, and Julie (KF5) met for a weekend getaway in Mombasa, Kenya. During our reunion, we came up with some words to live by both for successfully completing your fellowship and for happily taking a respite from the rigors of life at an MFI. Read on, for our pearls of wisdom.
1) Don’t let the signs fool you; greasing an Immigration Official’s palm can buy you entry into a foreign country
After 8 hours on a bus from Dar es Salaam, Nabomita and Julie reached the Kenyan border only to face the reality of parting with $50 each to enter the country (the equivalent of 250 delicious breakfast chapatis.) Luckily rules in Kenya—even those pertaining to immigration status—are flexible. After a few minutes of talking to the official who was clearly looking for some sort of entertainment (evident through his use of different cartoon voices for each passing visitor) he indicated that he might be willing to help us get into the country if we could make his Ramadan feast a nicer one. Watching him sip on a Fanta Orange at 3:30pm, we were naturally skeptical that he, in fact, had an Iftar in his future, but we decided to let it slide. We were able to buy our visas for $30 each and he even gave us his email address should we confront problems trying to reenter Tanzania. It was difficult to fathom how we would be able to use this address to solicit his aid if stopped at the border, but he handed us the post-it note with such gusto that it almost made us believe it wasn’t worthless.
2) Don’t be afraid to use your muzungu status to sneak in to 5-star resorts
On our first morning at our dodgy “cottage” down the beach, we felt the call of the resorts farther north and tried to wash the dirt out from under our fingernails well enough so that we could pass as luxury vacationers. The resort staff welcomed us suspiciously to join their exclusively European, golden-anniversary-celebrating clients. The only issue arose as we tried to maintain our tight $5-per-day budget while sipping on a glass of their $8 juice. Eventually we resorted to the only food there we could afford: a fresh coconut, the milk of which quenched our thirst while the meat sustained us until we got back to our side of the beach. The lesson here is that while you might be able to get in because of your status as foreigner, it does not necessarily mean you can afford to be there.
3) Don’t let the bottle fool you—spray on sunscreen still needs to be rubbed in
Julie—the palest member of the trio—made the tactical error of spraying herself with SPF 15 sunscreen without rubbing it in in an attempt to spare her hands from yucky sunscreen residue. Believing it would air dry, Julie looked down five hours later to see that she resembled a leper (no offense to lepers). The pattern of the sunburn was so random that it made one wonder if someone had taken a paintbrush to create sunburn abstract art on her legs and stomach. The next two days resulted in Julie’s new-found modesty as she alternated between applying soothing aloe and trying to hide the offending legs in long pants at the beach.
- Paintbrush strokes of sunburn and a geometric sternum burn (and pants to hide the offending legs)
4) Thieves are not only found walking through bustling markets. They can enter your room, and they don’t even have to be evolved
After a breakfast of champions (Nutella and crackers), the trio wandered the 50 meters to the beach while leaving their cottage door ajar. Upon returning a few minutes later, we walked in on 5 monkeys boldly making away with a yet unopened package of crackers from inside the room. That the monkeys knew the crackers were to be found under Zack’s moldy clothing demonstrates that they had been spying on us through the windows all morning and awaiting our departure. In an attempt to win his crackers back, Zack set peanut butter and biscuit traps but the monkeys knew better and stayed away to enjoy their feast. This was a harbinger of things to come (raw unedited monkey battle video forthcoming)
Stealthy monkey and the stolen crackers (he even has a cracker hanging out of his mouth)
5) When using your guidebooks keep in mind that they probably haven’t been updated in 5 to 10 years
Reading about the only Mexican restaurant in East Africa led the fellows to salivate over the thought of margaritas and guacamole for the five hours leading up to dinner. After taking three matatus, one ferry, and two tuktuks we finally arrived at the anticipated source of our greatest meal in Africa. Perplexed by the void where the restaurant should have been, we asked some loitering locals where we could find our enchiladas. After a few minutes of confusion as to what we were asking, the locals informed us that said restaurant was not only closed, but had closed in 2003, never to reopen. Having eaten nothing for the previous five hours in preparation for the grand feast, the ravenous fellows exclaimed in despair at the revelation. Unable to think clearly through the hunger we started wandering until we came upon an immaculate seaside restaurant—the kitchen of which was closed. Sure we would collapse before our blood sugar levels were restored, we made our way to the middle-school hangout of upperclass suburban Mombasa to satiate our hunger with bagfuls of movie popcorn and paneer pies. Never put your life or your stomach in the hands of Lonely Planet.
6) Just because you’re taking some time off does not mean you get to escape the hassles of Africa
After months of solo travel, the group discovered that even strength in numbers does not deter drunken suitors. Walking through Mombasa, Julie and Nabomita were berated by an incoherent local for being “thieves” and “robbers”. Despite being impressed that he knew both of those words in English, they sped up their pace. Undeterred, he followed them all of the way to the ferry, volume and rage-level increasing. “If he touches either of us, I’ll break his hand,” Julie affirmed to Nabomita. Her deadpan indicated that she might even be looking forward to having a violent outburst. Stepping up to play his role as Man of the Group, Zack tried to place himself between the offending man and the ready-to-pounce women. Unfortunately, Zack’s strategic positioning made him the victim of an ill-aimed blown kiss as the drunk man landed one right on Zack’s shoulder. Julie lunged, ready to fight, but Zack wisely told her that she need not jump—he liked it a little bit. At this point, we remembered that Africa’s hassles are typically as harmless as butterfly kisses.
7) You’re not alone; whatever bizaro experiences you’re having, one of the other fellows can probably empathize
From the moment Zack, Nabomita, and Julie met up, there was no lull in the conversation. Having experienced so much in our completed months in Africa, it was refreshing to tell our respective stories and find that even though we’d gone through them alone, many were shared experiences. From daily hassles to minor victories, work-related questions to poverty alleviation philosophizing, talking to people who could truly understand the work we’d been pouring ourselves into was incredibly therapeutic. If you connected with fellows at karaoke, the conference room, or the comfy sofas at Kiva headquarters, do what you can to stay in touch—and even better, take a long weekend to regroup. You’ll need it.
Much love,
Nabomita, Zack, and Julie
- Nabomita, Zack, and Julie (KF5) in Mombasa, Kenya
Making the most of Medex
As I wrote in my last blog entry, my weekend’s planned excursions included a climb up the tallest statue of Jesus in the world (disappointing—turns out he’s closed on Sundays) and a hike in nearby Tunari national park. It also included an unplanned visit to the Clinica Belga Boliviana, the fanciest-sounding hospital in my Lonely Planet guidebook. I had learned the hard way that angry dogs really do bite you in the butt, just like countless cartoon mailmen. I told the clinic’s emergency room attendant that I’d been attacked by a wild dog in the woods and wanted a rabies shot. “Sure, take a seat,” he told me. I winced—talk about adding insult to injury.
Feeling his pain
After 30 minutes or so, a doctor called me in. I told her what had happened: I was hiking in a national park, minding my own business and enjoying my Saturday afternoon, when four dogs started barking at me then attacked me out of nowhere, one of them managing to rip out a small chunk of my bum. I expected to be applauded for having the good sense to go get my rabies shot immediately after having been bitten by a strange dog in the woods, but instead the doctor just clucked her tongue.
“You know, the best thing to do in these situations is to control the dog. Could you go find this dog?”
I was confused, not sure if she was actually asking me to go out alone in search of the potentially rabid dog, who was roaming free in a national park some 45 minutes away, probably gloating over the tiny piece of a gringa’s butt he had won earlier that day. I told her I really wasn’t comfortable capturing the dog and bringing him back to the clinic for observation. The doctor sighed again, and tried to convince me that this vaccine would be a hassle:
“It’s expensive… you’ll have to come back 5 times… you might get jaundice… you really don’t think you could find this dog?”
I was starting to feel kind of silly and spoiled. Why had my parents never taught me any useful skills, like animal trapping? Thirteen years of violin lessons weren’t doing me much good right now. But, as spoiled as I felt, I was determined to get my shots. After having written a report on rabies for Mrs. Cornwall’s 9th grade health class, I had definitively decided that I did not want to die from rabies.
After some poking and prodding, the on-duty doctor finally called the dog-bite-specialist-doctor at home. I caught some whispered snippets of their conversation:
“Hello, Doctor? So sorry to call you at home… foreign girl here… wild dog in the woods… told her to control it, but… doesn’t want to go find it…. I know… I know… Yes, OK, thank you doctor.”
She turned to me. “All right, show me the wound.”
Finally, I thought. I tried to moon the doctor as respectfully as possible and hopped onto the stretcher. Just as she started to clean up the bloody mess, a call went out over the PA system: the doctor was needed to attend to a patient arriving by ambulance. I was left, alone and exposed on a stretcher, for what felt like an eternity (but was probably 30 minutes). Various hospital personnel wandered in and out of the room, seemingly oblivious to my delicate situation as a half-naked, potentially rabid foreigner. Well, at least this will make a decent blog entry when it’s all over, I thought to myself. Not quite Jessica-getting-malaria-in-Nigeria-good, but decent.
Things turned out my way in the end—the good doctor returned, bandaged my bum, gave me my first of five rabies shots, and sent me on my way with just a slight limp and some holes in my pants (and my butt) to show for my afternoon adventure. Now I’m following the locals’ (and T.R.’s) advice to always use Big Stick Diplomacy. Not my favorite foreign policy in U.S. history, but it sure does the trick with Bolivian dogs.
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