Saahkem Dorothy Muyang. 1954 - 2009.

By Dennis A. Espinoza, KF9, Grounded and Holistic Approach for People’s Empowerment (GHAPE) in Bamenda, Cameroon

I was working at my desk when Kenneth, my roommate and GHAPE loan officer, answered his phone and heard that ten year GHAPE member and Kiva borrower, Saahkem Dorothy Muyang, had passed away after a bout with diabetes.

Just glancing at Dorothy’s picture and noticing her beaming smile gives you an impression of who she was.  She had a big heart, a deep love for her family and was very involved in her community.  Needless to say, her passing was a significant loss to a lot of people around here.  She was well loved and I wish I would’ve had an opportunity to meet her in person.

As I took my bucket shower at 4:30am the morning of the funeral, I was a bit concerned that I hadn’t brought the proper clothes.  Black wasn’t a color I was planning on wearing much in this heat.  Fortunately, I dug deep and found a black polo at the bottom of my luggage to go with some black slacks and black shoes.

When I arrived I noticed I stood out.  I wasn’t the only one in colorless attire but we were in the minority.  Those closest to Dorothy weren’t wearing black. They weren’t even wearing dark colors.

Her church community wore bright yellow and white.  Fellow members of her fish frying community wore green, yellow, white and purple.

Her GHAPE community wore their blue, yellow and white GHAPE dresses.

Like a military uniform or a flag draped across a soldier’s casket, Dorothy’s GHAPE outfit was a defining article that remained with her throughout the entire ceremony.  Each of the individuals in her GHAPE lending group did also.

GHAPE rarely has to declare a bad debt.  The nature of the lending circle makes it so that all members’ loans are properly supported by peers and it seems to work well.  One of the few instances when GHAPE does declare a bad debt is in the event of a borrower’s death.  When a borrower passes away GHAPE forgives the loan and provides the deceased’s family with a bereavement contribution for the funeral and burial expenses.  The financial contribution is a gesture that makes a big difference in a place that doesn’t have the luxury of life insurance, but it is the least of what GHAPE does.

Throughout my short time in the field I’ve learned that GHAPE, and most of Kiva’s field partners, are so much more than a loan.  The fact really hit me when I saw four of GHAPE’s ten loan officers, GHAPE’s program director and a GHAPE board member consoling Dorothy’s family’s during the service and funeral.  Besides being a bit concerned of how the others were holding down the fort, I was amazed.

I sometimes wonder if the old personal financial advising firms took a cue from an MFI when they ran ads depicting a financial advisor speaking at the wedding of one of his client’s sons.  While I have yet to personally experience that level of involvement from any of my banks, it is exactly what many of Kiva’s partners do for their clients.  They know each borrower’s name, they have their account numbers memorized, they share in the joy of a birth, they celebrate their successes and they cry during their funerals.

So it seemed fitting that, instead of mourning in solemn dark attire, most of Dorothy’s friends demonstrated and celebrated the community they shared with her through their clothing and their songs.  They didn’t wear black.  They didn’t wear their Sunday best.  They displayed how they knew her best and what brought them together.  Watching Dorothy’s lending group stand together alongside GHAPE employees made it apparent that being a GHAPE member may be based on a loan but it means so much more.  It means standing in solidarity during a loss.  More importantly, it means standing united and supporting each other throughout life.

I think I need to find a new bank.

Support GHAPE and GHAPE’s borrowers by lending (search GHAPE) and joining GHAPE’s lending team.

By Nick Malouin, KF9, Togo

There’s something about traveling at high speeds in Africa that allows the mind to open up and do its best thinking. Maybe with the pot holes and daily frustrations left behind the brain can finally concentrate on something else. I had such an experience on a recent weekend trip to Lomé. Traveling at 60km/h, I had two hours to take in the beautiful scenery between Kpalimé and Lomé. The villages, usually a cacophony of noise and activity, had the brief illusion of serenity.

I started thinking about earlier that day when I met a client selling motor oil on the side of the road. His stand had looked like every other motor oil stand in Kpalimé and you might think for a second that it was part of a chain. The fact is though with only certain inputs available (wood boards) and zero money to invest, all merchant stands, whether selling vegetables, pagne or motor oil, look exactly the same. I started wondering if a little training could go a long way; if a quick lesson on product differentiation, branding and marketing strategy, along with financial planning, could turn this motor oil stand into the next Jiffy Lube. 

Nassirou Ouro-Couloum, Kiva Client

Before I had time to finish that thought I heard a loud POP! Remembering that I was still on the road I looked around and wondered what had happened. Although not a car expert, I had a pretty good feeling we had just gotten a flat tire. I looked around for confirmation and got it from the other passengers but not the driver. For a second it looked like he was going to try and make the second half of the trip on three wheels.

A flat tire in Togo, as in many developing countries, is not a big deal. The highways are scattered with cars pulled over in the ditch with various ailments. In fact, I was even glad the event had happened for one quick and interesting observation – every car that passed us offered to help. Once the tire had been fixed (with such help) and we were back on the open road I tried to think why this would happen here and not back home. I came up with three answers. Firstly, when cars can only travel 60 km/h you have more time to see someone in trouble, realize they need help and stop. Sometimes that’s not possible, or too dangerous, on faster roads. Secondly, when everyone has had their car broken down you can empathize with them more easily because you’ve been in that situation yourself. Since Togo is a small country you might actually be stuck one day yourself and see that person driving down the highway. The last reason, and one that may reveal something about the fabric of society here, is that the Togolese do not view or interact with strangers the same way North Americans do. It’s not uncommon for Togolese to say hi or “Ca va?” to complete strangers on the street whereas, on the other extreme, Westerners have been taught not to even talk to strangers growing up. To be fair, that’s not to say all strangers are treated well in Togo – if you’re walking down the road you better get out of the way because the oncoming car won’t. In either case, if my car broke down I’d much rather be here than Toronto.

Interested in lending to Togolese entrepreneurs like Nassirou Ouro-Couloum (seen above)? Please click here!

Ilmari Soininen

KF9  UIMCEC  Dakar, Senegal

Topping up one’s phone credit is never a problem in Dakar – on every street corner you will find one, or usually three or four young men hawking the same exact Orange Telecom cards. They offer the exact same cards, in the exact same spot, at the exact same time. Peanut vendors are equally ubiquitous, often stationed only a feet away from each other, selling the same peanuts, in the same 50 Franc increments.

These vendors often rarely have many other avenues for generating income. Many come from the countryside, where subsistence farming is usually the one and only option. They prefer the hustle and bustle of the city. They prefer the 500, 1000 or even 2000 CFCA (between US$ 1-4) they can make a day. Who can blame them.

But when you add up all of the thousands of phonecard, peanut (cigarette, tissue, fruit …) vendors, you begin to see why this country, and indeed many of its neighbors, are still so poor.  With so many young, able bodied workers devoting long hours every single day to hawking the same commodity items, it seems like a 0, or at best 0.0001, sum game. It is hard to argue that each additional hawker is reacting to increasing demand. The same amount of phonecards would be sold with one guy per street corner instead of four.

Further up the food chain, the story seems the same. Looking through the stack of loans at a local branch, every single loan application the loan officer read-off was for a small-scale merchant. Many were selling the same exact Malian fabrics, Guinean fruit or Chinese mobile phone accessories as the boutique one hundred feet away.

These merchants often do see an increased income thanks to micro-loans. Many go on to invest these gains in the health and education of their children, or in building a home or diversifying their business. All very positive for both social and economic development. And there is the intrinsic value of participating in the formal financial sector – supporting the integral institutions of a functioning economy. But at the end of the day, the amount of added value to the economy from simply selling an (imported) good hits a peak quite quickly.

We are often caught up on the success of micro-lending on the individual micro level, but how does it add up in the aggregate? Is financing vendors of commodity items adding to the well being of the community and nation as a whole? Is the pie actually growing or is it just being sliced up into more and more pieces? Does micro-finance really have the power to propel an entire country out of poverty?

I invite your ideas and comments – these are tough questions, and ones to which I’m sure Kiva fellows and lenders can offer good insight.

Why not make your next Kiva loan to UIMCEC? We currently have two loans from the Dakar area. Check ‘em out  UIMCEC borrowers

Rebecca Corey, KF9 Tanzania

The first time I got shoved out of the way in a mad rush to the dala-dala bus, my friend Victor said to me, “This is the local local lifestyle, pole sana–I’m very sorry.” The next time he said it was when the electricity went out and I was reading in the living room. “This is the local local, pole dada–sorry sister.” Then again when I had Malaria: “The Tanzania local local, pole sana, pole sana.” In the streets, when Tanzanians are shouting to me, “Mchina, mchina!” Chinese person, chinese person! : “They are local local, they cannot tell you are Korean. Pole.” And every time, he smiles his big smile, apologetic, almost wistful, partly amused, always sincere.

I have also started to think to myself, “local local,” several times each day. We haven’t had water for the past eight days because of a broken water pump, so we fetch bucketfuls from next door. Tanzania is suffering from a major power crisis, so electricity is rationed. Ours goes out for a full day once every three days. I get up at five every morning to catch the dala-dala before the major traffic jams so I can get to work by eight. I see one bus that says on the back, “Don’t Hide, Just Pay,” another claims “Jesus is Power,” and a third “Blootooth On.” “Local local,” I think.

I myself am becoming more and more local local. I bought a kanga the other day, a long sheet of patterned fabric that is cut in half and worn around the waist and draped or wrapped over the shoulders. I sleep in it and wear it around the house. I’m also starting to think and speak in Tanzanian English. I have started to say things like, “this here pen” and “I live some few miles away.” When I want to say “etc.,” or “and so on,” it’s “and this, this, this.” When saying that someone went on and on (as in blah, blah blah), it’s “he said, ‘You are wrong,’ and what, what, what.” One of my favorites is “I feel to relax,” or “I feel to go to the store.” And not only have I started to speak like this, these phrases make perfect sense to me, have a charm and character of their own.

My Swahili is improving, too. This past week I went into the field to interview two Kiva clients who were filmed about five months ago for a documentary for BBC World. The film crew is returning soon to shoot follow-up segments on the same borrowers. With help from Rita, the Kiva Coordinator, I was able to ask a majority of the questions about Atuna and Neema’s businesses. While I don’t want to give away details of what will be in the film, I will say that I was humbled and inspired by both of these women. They are shrewd business owners, caring mothers, and true bread-winners. When one endeavor doesn’t work out–cassava crops fail, it’s too hard to turn a profit running a pharmacy–they adapt, start new businesses, continue without a thought of giving up. They, too, are local local.

At a Rotary event last weekend, a kind Rotarian expressed shock and dismay that I take the dala-dalas to get around. He suggested hiring a private car. At work, my co-workers have urged me not to move in with a Tanzanian family, and instead to “get a nice apartment for mzungu.” I even got an email today from the U.S. Embassy warning foreigners against living in unguarded homes and taking taxis and dala-dalas for transport because they are “frequently overcrowded, poorly maintained, a common site of petty theft, and [their] operation is generally unsafe.”

I don’t want to be reckless or unappreciative to those who are looking out for me–but here’s the honest truth: I love the local local. It’s not always easy, and much of the time it’s very hard. I’m on the edge of exhaustion, I’m sunburnt and hungry, but I am also supremely happy. I can get a mango or an avocado for 50 cents at the Mombasa market down the street. I can fight my way onto a dala-dala like any Tanzanian, and I’ve come to enjoy the nearly four hours I spend a day on those “overcrowded, poorly-maintained” vessels because they give me time to think, to listen, to watch, to become daily more a part of the world around me. Children shouting “Hello-madam-how-are-you-I-am-fine!” in one breath, sleeping outside on the porch during an afternoon rain, eating in the dark at one of the many small canteens around the city, perfecting the bucket shower, taking clean clothes down from the line, this is the local local. Friendliness, generosity, grit, patience, hope. These are the local local.

I am learning hard lessons the easy way. That is, I am doing something I love, that I believe in, and for that reason it is worth every moment of sweaty, dust-caked fatigue, of anger at the world’s injustices, of fear that change is hard to come by. I’m living for a while a faint imitation of what millions live every day, for their entire lives. And what I’ve found is that poverty is cruel, but human dignity, ingenuity, and heart are persistent, unafraid. This gives me hope, conviction, and a fierce pride in how strong people can be despite their circumstances. So here’s to that strength. Here’s to the local local.

*********

Rebecca Corey is a Kiva Fellow in Dar es Salaam with Tujijenge Tanzania, Ltd. See Tujijenge’s currently fundraising loans here, and join the Tujijenge lending team! Also, remember that the holiday season is coming up, and Kiva.org gift certificates make wonderful presents!

Me and the other Africa-based Kiva Fellows (photo provided by John Briggs)

By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo

In the months of preparation leading up to my Kiva Fellowship in Lomé, Togo I have had plenty of opportunity to practice my take on the taxicab test – a concise explanation of Kiva’s mission and the work of a Kiva Fellow. Upon completing my training at Kiva Headquarters in San Francisco, I felt confident in my ability to accurately explain Kiva’s approach to microfinance to a relatively neutral audience. More often than not, I encountered the disinterested but common eyes-glazed-over look immediately following the words “non-profit.” To be sure, anyone who has ever gone to the developing world to do anything other than build schools has faced this problem.

While we learned the many ways in which to defend Kiva, there was one area where our taxicab test fell short: defending our host countries. It had not really occurred to me that I would be put in the position of having to justify a five-month trip to the continent of Africa. Yet, I rarely got beyond “I’m going to Togo” before being hit with a surprising amount of ignorance, miseducation, and prejudice.

At first, the most common responses seemed innocent enough. They generally fell along the lines of cautionary warnings like “be careful,” “watch out for the lions,” and “it’s not safe there like it is here.” At other times, comedy was the vessel through which this prejudice was revealed. One co-worker recently asked me when I leave “for the jungle to visit Tarzan” despite my repeated explanations that I’ll be based in a bustling capital city.  Finally, there are the truly shocking remarks. About a week ago, a co-worker warned me to “be careful in Africa because the people there are like animals, not real men.”

I was horrified. And worst of all, I was rendered speechless. As a student of International Development Studies, I spent the last four years learning to take the African continent’s diversity of history, language, politics, and culture for granted. I had also learned to question colonial accounts of these diverse nations and expose any hidden biases. Yet, this prejudice encountered in my workplace was nowhere near subtle. Instead, it was so blatant that I had no idea how to even begin to respond.

To be sure, the prejudiced comments I encountered are certainly not limited to Africa. Before embarking on an independent trip to Ecuador 3 years ago, one friend of the family deemed it fit to summarize my 6-week experience as nothing more than “squatting in a bush.” Even my family in England is quick to label the entire North American continent as having one identity.

Yet, the ignorance towards Africa has certainly been astounding. Most commonly, Africa is reduced and homogenized into a single geographic region where specificities do not exist. As a result, my trip to Togo is consistently referred to as my trip to “Africa.” (Nevermind the fact that this one continent is home to 57 independent countries!)  Moreover, this homogenization is often coupled with a negative descriptor – poor, underdeveloped, dangerous, tribal, etc.

Africa is somehow…different.

While these comments may primarily reflect the specific views of a few colleagues, this single story of Africa – one of danger and underdevelopment – persists in a broader context.  In her lecture on Ted.com, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie discusses this concept of the single story in greater detail. She argues that we are consistently exposed to many versions of one single story that is meant to serve as an accurate description of the entire continent. While this story may take several shapes (an AIDS orphan on an infomercial, a tyrant dictator on the news, or an imprisoned diamond-miner in a Leonardo DiCaprio movie), the overaching theme is always one of sadness, turmoil, death, and struggle. As Adichie clarifies, many interpretations of this single story are true, but they do not tell the wholestory. As an alternative, we need to be exposed to a variety of African stories – good and bad and all true.

Despite these frustrations, I try to stay positive. I do my best to focus on the few co-workers who will listen long enough for me to explain microfinance, and the friends who are genuinely interested in the work I will be doing. Sometimes, all it takes is the simple response “Oh! That sounds cool” to brighten my day. While I’ve certainly had to alter the taxicab-test to incorporate a justification of travelling to West Africa, it has definitely given me some perspective. It is important to remember that my audience will rarely be neutral. Instead, many people have very strong opinions about what it means to be poor, how banks should work, and what Africa is like. The preparation for this Fellowship alone has presented me with challenges both intellectual and emotional, yet I look forward to the experiences I will have once I truly am in “Africa.”

Taylor Akin is  a member of KF9 who will be working with Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social (WAGES) in Lomé, Togo. To lend to a WAGES entrepreneur, click here. To learn more about WAGES, please click here.

By Maia Pelleg, KF9, Kenya Agency for the Development of Enterprise and Technology (KADET)

This video was filmed in response to the following interaction I had with a borrower group outside of Nairobi, Kenya…

“Habari. Nina itwa Maia,” I practice saying as I walk into my first group meeting of the day. A KADET credit officer named Gachi,and I are visiting Kiva borrowers living in Kamae, a slum-like area filled with tin huts and roads littered with garbage and roaming animals. Almost all Kiva borrowers here lack formal education and exposure to English, and I wanted to make sure that I could at least introduce myself in their language. I take my seat on a long sturdy bench and face a group of 12 borrowers sitting in four straight rows before me. With perfect posture, the borrowers stare earnestly at Gachi, waiting for an explanation as to why a mzungu (white person) is joining their meeting.

A round of introductions begins, translated by Gachi, and I learn that the group’s name is Kihatu, meaning broom. When they hear their group name announced to me, every single borrower’s face breaks into a proud grin. Until now, the groups I have met have names that translate to English words like lion, opportunity, and faith. Puzzled by this self-designated title, I ask for insight into this choice. A willowy woman with a strong, clear voice responds and Gachi translates, “This is the first loan cycle for all of us in this group,” she says, “and each of us is looking to sweep away the problems of our past and the problems of luck. We are no longer going to depend on luck, but on ourselves.”

The symbolism behind this word selection moves me, and I’m eager to learn more about this community. However, my excitement to engage with these individuals is met with wariness and even hostility as Gachi describes what Kiva is and why I’m here.  Voices rise as rapid Swahili dialogue fires between group members and Gachi. I try to wait patiently for a pause in the conversation to ask Gachi to explain what is going on. Although I do not know most of the cultural norms here, I have learned that heated discussion is rare among Kenyans, and that this is an unusual scene playing out before me. Thinking that perhaps I can help Gachi explain Kiva’s role in a constructive way and emphasize that becoming a Kiva borrower is completely optional (while still being able to remain a KADET borrower), I finally interrupt.

I’m told that the group, led by a particular woman seated in the third row, objects to the idea of having their photos taken for Kiva borrower profiles. Historically, this community has been a target area for aid workers and NGOs. Unfortunately, despite posing for pictures in front of their homes and allowing their children to be photographed in their streets, the Kihatu group has not reaped any of the benefits promised by camera-toting journalists and aid workers. Instead, what money has trickled in has gone to squatters, those individuals who roam the streets and sleep on piles of dirt. The Kihatu borrowers have been considered above the need for these donations, even though they lack appropriate nutrition and their homes are unsound, one-room tin structures. There is a consensus in the group that somewhere, someone (even a reporter or newspaper) has profited from the photos of their families, and they are angry at what they see as a violation of their rights.

The woman in the third row, Lucy, also questions why Kiva works through KADET instead of just giving (not loaning) money directly to her.

Through Gachi, I join the conversation and tell them that Kiva lenders do not view them as vulnerable victims in need of hand outs. “Instead,” I say turning to Lucy, “lenders view you as a business partner, capable of engaging in a financial relationship based on respect and for the purpose of providing you with opportunity.”

I explain how Kiva works, but Lucy is so used to western aid workers parachuting in to “save” people in Kenya, that it is hard for her to grasp the concept of accepting a loan from people in the United States (or other western countries) that she must repay. She views all mzungus as rich, and therefore is angry that we would ask someone who is much poorer, like her, to pay it back. In Lucy’s experience, this is simply not the ruling precedent for how a relationship with the west functions.

My next approach is to explain to the group who are Kiva lenders. I’m grateful that I remembered to print out a few lender profiles from Kiva’s website. I hold them up, giving them three different faces to attach to the concept of lenders. “Lenders and borrowers are equal partners; this is not a benefactor relationship. These individuals that you see here are some of Kiva’s lenders. Your loans are not funded by just one of these individuals, but by a group of people who have banded together to invest in you. Contrary to your belief, they may not have much money to spare, but by grouping together they are able to support your business and empower you to improve your life.”

I wait while Gachi translates in his soft, calm voice. When he finishes, I add, “The purpose of taking your photograph and interviewing you for a borrower profile is to facilitate this connection and to create understanding. By providing a view into your life and work, lenders are likely to choose to invest in your business.”

I reach into my bag and extract a thin photo album covered in a plastic coating that depicts a map of the world. Passing it to Lucy, I say, “This shouldn’t be a one-sided mirror into your lives. In here you will find pictures of my family, friends, boyfriend and favorite places in my home town. This is what my life is like in the United States. And this is my job, working with KADET to create greater access to funding for micro-entrepreneurs.

Finally, I want to re-emphasize that being on Kiva’s website is your choice. If you do not feel comfortable signing the waiver, then please do not.”

When Gachi has completed the translation of my words, two women actually stand, walk to the front of the room and wrap their thin arms around me in a strong embrace. For Kenyans, people to whom formality and courtesy are extremely important, this is a big gesture. “Asanti sana kwa kazi njema,” they say. Thank you for your good work.

I’m proud that I was able to reach through to them, and extremely touched at the appreciation they’ve shown for a conversation that took less than 30 minutes. Insecurity can stem from ignorance, and these people have not had the education that would equip them with the ability to fully understand how their loans work. They are used to being taken advantage of, and I am so happy to have the chance to dispel their doubts by providing information. The power of transparency cannot be underestimated.

The murmurs settle and Gachi goes around the room, asking every individual how they feel, if there are any lingering questions, and if they are willing to become a Kiva borrower. Susan needs time to think about it. John says that my presence has given Kiva validity in his mind and is appreciative that Kiva will help him receive a loan; he agrees to be photographed and interviewed for Kiva’s website that afternoon. Turning to Susan and those that have not yet responded, John uses big hand gestures as he speaks, trying to convince them to become Kiva borrowers. “We are lucky to have the opportunity to receive a loan from KADET,” he says, “by becoming Kiva borrowers, we bring the possibility of loans to more people. The money KADET may have allocated to us can now be given to someone else. We help our neighbors by being on Kiva.”

This is a message they all seem to hear. Mary, Matthew, Naomi, Paul and five others, even Lucy, their fearless leader, agree to become Kiva borrowers. Susan changes her mind and asks if she can be photographed first.

I’m touched by John’s message of community and his desire to provide opportunity for others. This is the spirit of Kiva and why I am here working as a volunteer. To see this sentiment echoed in a place where access to electricity, running water and sanitation is minimal is extremely moving.

After we’ve visited our day’s worth of borrowers, Gachi and I catch three different matatus before arriving back at the KADET branch office. During our trip back, I’m able to reflect on the day and am thankful that our morning group challenged Kiva’s role in their lives, and with it, my assumptions. I naively expected all borrowers to be grateful to Kiva for providing access to capital. I didn’t take into account skepticism towards the west that has brewed from past experiences or the expectation of donations and an inability to immediately grasp the concept of a business partnership. It’s also given me a lot to think about on another level, in terms of what the mechanism should be for assisting less fortunate communities. In a country that lacks the infrastructure, or in which corrupt systems exist, how do we reach those like the Kihatu group in a constructive way?

Finally, the morning’s discussion reinforced the responsibility I have as a Kiva fellow to portray these individuals with the dignity and respect they deserve. Photos that circulate of emaciated African children and downtrodden workers, what some at Kiva call “poverty pornography,” fuel the image of Africans as helpless, dependent victims rather than as diverse, capable people with unlimited potential. No one hears this message more than Africans themselves. I am working hard to combat established expectations of relationships with the  West. I believe Kiva loans and partnerships are a big step in the right direction.

To learn more about KADET, Ltd and its borrowers, click here. To become a Friend of KADET (KADET’s lending team), click here to join.

********************************************************

Some of the Kihatu group borrowers with their businesses:

Naomi Wambui with one of her three cows

Though Naomi is unsure of how to sign her name, opting for three small dots on the paper, she is excited to be a Kiva borrower. Her loan is for 10,000 KSh (~$130) with which she will diversify her income by opening a fruit stand. Naomi used to borrow with another MFI, but switched to KADET after a loan officer disappeared with the group’s money, including their savings. Encouraged by others in the Kihatu group, Naomi decided to give micro-credit another try. She doesn’t know her age and can’t remember the name of where she comes from, but she does know how to keep a passbook and make her repayments. Naomi says she is proud to provide food for her children.

We find Lucy standing in front of her used clothing business, 12 or 13 blouses carefully laid out on a piece of worn, woven straw. As Gachi interviews her in Swahili, Lucy takes hold of my hand and squeezes several times. Lucy announces to Gachi that I am hard-working, just like her daughter, and therefore she wants to hug me. She insists on taking eight different photos together, and giggles when she sees herself in playback mode on my digital camera.

In one of Lucy's embraces

Lucy’s loan is for KSh15,000 (~$200) and with it she will purchase more stock to sell. Although this is Lucy’s first loan with KADET, we learn that she had previously borrowed from another MFI but that her group was crippled by the hospital bills of two members and their inability to repay.

Julius Mwaugi with his taxi

Julius’ taxi is a red motorbike with peeling paint and cracked seats. Julius has a big grin on his face during the entire Kiva interview. His loan is for KSh20,000 (~$265), which he will use to purchase merchandise for a secondary business and pay for limited insurance. With his profits, Julius says he will purchase comprehensive insurance, which will cover his vehicle and all parties in the incident of a crash.

Mary mostly sells charcoal, and once in a while vegetables if she can afford to stock them. Mary’s kiosk is made from wood and tin, with burlap walls. A large jug labeled “sulfuric acid” sits next to the charcoal. When I ask why she has sulfuric acid, Gachi laughs and tells me it’s a container for water. It has never been cleaned. Mary’s loan is for KSh10,000 (~$130), which she will use to purchase potatoes and additional charcoal to meet customer demand.

Mary Wambui, in front of her charcoal kiosk

Peter Mashariah, inside his butchery shop

Across town, we find Peter’s butchery. The thick, pungent smell of blood and fresh meat hit my nostrils the moment we walk through the narrow door. A partial carcass hangs from a hook in the window. On the counter sits a scale and a glass aquarium, which holds three small pieces of raw meat. The instant we step inside, it starts pouring rain outside. The noise is amplified by the tin roof over our heads, making it difficult to hear what Peter is saying (not that I understand anyway). Peter’s loan is for KSh15,000 (~$200), which he will use to renovate the butchery. His top priorities are improving the broken tiled floor and installing an appropriate enclosure for where the meat hangs. One day, Peter says, he hopes to buy live animals to slaughter and sell to retailers. By the time we leave Peter’s shop, the rain has completely stopped falling.

With John in front of his stew and sausage pot.

A five-minute walk down the main dirt road and we come to John’s butchery. A slightly muted version of the thick odor present in Peter’s shop lingers. Flies swarm, landing on my head, notebook, jacket and hands. This space is larger than I expected, and three men sit inside chatting. John wears an orange and white mesh jersey and sucks on a toothpick during the interview.

With warm eyes and a bright smile, John is charming–even in a language I don’t understand. This is John’s 11^th year in business; he buys cattle and sells the individual pieces to retail butchers (like Peter’s).  John takes the parts of the cow that he is unable to sell (intestines, heart, lungs, feet, etc) and creates a stew and sausages, selling lunch and dinner on the street. The loan he seeks is for KSh40,000 (~$535), with which he will expand his meat supply coverage. When it is time to photograph John in front of his business, he is giddy. He runs across the street to find a butcher’s coat, slicks his hair back and poses.

By Jennifer Gong, KF9 Tanzania

YOSEFO has come a long way.  In 1997, it humbly opened its doors to 50 clients, for a total loan portfolio size of $5000.  However, with unwavering determination, it has succesfully expanded into 14 different communities around Dar es Salaam and has opened offices in Ifakara, Zanzibar, Kilwa and Tanga.  Today, YOSEFO can proudly claim to serve over 11,000 active clients and has seen its loan portfolio increase to $1.5m. This is definitely something to celebrate about, and celebrate we did!  To mark 12 successful years of serving Tanzania, my MFI decided to organize YOSEFO Day 2009.  

The purpose of the celebration was not only about rejoicing, it was also about recognition.   It was about acknowledging the outstanding clients and staff members that have played a significant role in making the past dozen years successful.   Recognition is important because the sweat and tears of both clients and staff often go unnoticed. Furthermore, the showcasing of successful stories will hopefully create a competitive spirit that will drive everyone to strive for more.  

Here are some highlights of YOSEFO Day 2009…

Best Borrower - Deogratius Likunga

Mr. Likunga is one of YOSEFO’s  earliest clients.  His group applied for their first loan in 1997.  Due to his excellent repayment history, he was eventually able to graduate from the group lending method to the individual lending method.  His loan sizes are much larger than the average YOSEFO client, yet he still maintains a spotless repayment record.   And his dedication to being a terrifc client has paid off, his hardware business is doing better than ever.

Best Entrepreneur – Anold Peter Kavishe

Anold left Moshi to come to Dar es Salaam to work as a servant boy.  But by age 19, his entrepreneurial spirit told him to strike it on his own.  In 1998, he took out his first loan with YOSEFO.  Anold now owns a few businesses, including a retail store and a wholesale store.  Furthermore, he is able to employ 17 workers and thus create jobs for others in his community.

Best Credit Officer – Ashama

The job of a credit officer is painstakingly difficult, each day he or she needs to spend hours in the communities.  Ashama is the only officer to cover two communities (Kitunda and Mazizini).  With 554 clients to see each week, she has gone above and beyond to serve everyone.

The award ceremony showcased the amazing possibilities of microfinance as well as the hard work needed to transform those possibilities into realities.  Above all, it was a chance for every shareholder – management, officers, clients, board of directors and partners – to come together and get revitalized for many more great years ahead.

by Stephanie Meyer, KF9, Sierra Leone

I eat at Kumba’s at least three times a week. I’ve always been the type that likes to have my “regular spots” – my coffee shop, my bar, my newsstand. I like to think of Kumba’s as my lunch spot. It doesn’t hurt that everything is so homey. There are only three tables, so people tend to share and chat. By the time I had made three visits, I was granted to privilege of walking through the door to “Eh! Step-nie!” followed by enquiries after the folks I usually eat with and their whereabouts. The food is tasty and it’s fast, and on very rare occasions when she knows I’m coming, there’s onion stew (my favorite so far). About a week ago, I popped my head into my Kiva Coordinator’s office to let him know I was off for “apotho lunch” (me and my weak American stomach eat lunch about an hour before everyone else in the office). He asked where I was going, and I told him Kumba’s for Cassava Leaf. “Kumba?” he asked, “You know, she is a client”. (check out her current profile here)

I did NOT know that, and it excited me a great deal. I’ve been fortunate in my ability to have meetings with a large number of clients since my arrival in Makeni, but I often feel a bit rushed and impersonal. The need to communicate through a translator, though essential for my Krio- and Temne- speaking clients, can seem like a wall. Sometimes I suspect I’m getting the lip service answers of “to invest in my business” or “yes, microfinance has been wonderful for me” to my questions, because borrowers can be so startled and awed by my unannounced appearance in their place of business, snapping my camera and spouting my questionable Krio. I like to think, however, that Kumba and I have become pals in my time here. I look forward to seeing her in the afternoons. When I ask her “Eh ma, ow de day?” I’m really curious about how her day has been so far, and what she’s been up to. She seems to feel the same way. I mentioned to my coordinator that I would love to interview Kumba for a blog.

At the beginning, he was clearly a bit skeptical. Turns out Kumba has been interviewed before. Some while back (it can be very difficult to pin down exact dates and times here…) a reporter from Scotland visited Makeni to research a human-interest piece on microfinance, and he chose to focus on Kumba. From the sounds of things, she was promised everything but the kitchen sink: donor money would flow in, her restaurant would become famous, etc. etc. (bear in mind I get all this third-hand, but tsk tsk, reporter man). As is often the case in such scenarios, the man returned home, probably wrote a beautiful and moving story about a woman’s struggle against the odds, and Kumba never heard a word again. One can understand why she would be a bit reluctant to sign up for round two.

Determined to at least try, I stopped by the restaurant for lunch yesterday, and started talking to her about SMT and my work at Kiva. I mentioned that I would love to write a story about her for lenders to read. Her smile didn’t waver, so I pushed forward. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of my predecessor, I tried almost too hard to be honest with Kumba: this will not mean any extra money for you or any extra funding. Most of the people who read this will probably never visit Sierra Leone, so there will not be any additional business. It won’t affect your ability to get new SMT or Kiva loans in the future positively or negatively. After I painted this rosy picture of my post, Kumba waited for a moment, then just grinned, nodded and said “s’okay. Now?”. I felt a little flutter knowing that, even though it meant nothing for her personally, Kumba would still do me this favor. We ARE friends!

Turns out Kumba has taken out three loans through SMT so far (she is currently paying back her third). Before opening the restaurant, she worked at two different hotel/restaurants in town, but was unhappy in her inability to manage her own work and hours, and a bit disappointed in her, ahem, erratic paycheck schedule. She opened the restaurant 1 year and 8 months ago (the exact date and the quickness with which she was able to give it to me are testaments to how much this date meant to her). With her first loan, she purchased general supplies: food, drinks, cooking gear. The second went to upgrading her kitchen and getting more pots, pans, and utensils, in order to service new customers. It is the most recent loan, however, about which Kumba seems most proud. In addition to even more general supplies such as food and cooking gear, she purchased new tables and chairs so her customers could sit comfortably. She surrounded the wood-frame building in mosquito netting to keep the majority of bugs out of everyone’s food. She even got some tablecloths and posters for the wall (which, I have to say, really do make the ambiance). She’s even considering a music system to keep people entertained while they eat. Now, rather than working for unreliable managers, who demand too much, don’t allow sick time (missing a day of work due to illness is cause for dismissal at most jobs in Sierra Leone), and rarely pay wages, Kumba is her own boss, and even has a small staff to manage herself. She is clearly proud of her restaurant and her accomplishments, and I like to think of her as an “empowered woman” (though this is a super-American term, I think) who has some control over her life and her future.

I know sometimes it can be easy to see the down-side to microfinance, and the burden it places on people. Sometimes we all wish there was another way, or a better way, to make sustainable change for the working poor in developing nations. I agree that dialogue needs to be kept open: it’s the only way more ideas will be generated. I also recognize that for many, microfinance is not all peaches-and-cream, and that it can even make life worse. When I start to get down on it though, it’s nice to go to Kumba’s, grab some onion stew, and bask in the proud glow of a woman who used a small loan to seize control, and create a new future for herself.

Want to learn more about SMT or lend to other clients like Kumba? Click here

by Rachel Brooks, KF9, Kenya

My favorite Kiva field partner before I started my fellowship was Kisimu Medical & Education Trust, here in Kenya. At K-MET, microfinance is a smaller part of a community-based health organization. They offer loans to providers (many of them volunteers) so that they can maintain or improve their clinics and services. And they have these wonderfully innovative programs to help women and improve reproductive health.

But as much as programs like these make me go weak at the knees, I’ve also really come around to loving what the scope and focus of a big MFI can offer. Big is beautiful.

Faulu's Director holds the BIG certificate

Faulu Kenya has more than 90 outlets across the country, over 1000 staff members, and a fairly large headquarters. They are laser-focussed on providing financial services to low-income people, with over 250,000 clients. They want to reach a million clients by 2011.

In a country that is as bountiful and still so poverty-stricken as Kenya, a million clients starts to seem like a good start. Each day, though I get very encouraged by the stories I read about and hear from individual clients, something will drag me back down to Earth. I’ll get a good view of Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, or read that children are dying of something as ancient as cholera in Mukuru, or watch starving Masai cattle shepherded into the city to nibble on brown grass by the airport. Then I’m very glad for Faulu’s big ambitions.

An MFI like Faulu also has the resources to offer really critical training. Before borrowers can take their first loan, they complete a full two day seminar. They pay Kes. 400 (about $5) and they get probably the only training they’ll ever receive on business management, record keeping, customer care, group relations, how to save, and defining a vision for the future. In short, information that could really make your business a success so that you can provide for yourself and your family.

But probably the biggest boon for Faulu is that they are Kenya’s first Deposit Taking Micro-Finance Company under Kenya’s Micro-Finance Act. This just means they can offer savings accounts and re-lend the money. In Kenya ninety percent of the population hides their money under the mattress (and other secret places I can’t reveal), so being able to open an account with Kes. 200 (about $2.50) and earn up to 4-6% interest is important. In interviews, clients have consistently reaffirmed how vital simple access to savings has been to them.

Organizations like K-MET and MFIs like Faulu both make tremendous contributions and Kiva gives them some of the attention they deserve. CLICK HERE to see more examples of the work Kiva field partners do.

Rachel Brooks is a Kiva Fellow working for Faulu Kenya in Nairobi. Don’t hesitate to join the Friends of Faulu Kenya Lending Team.

by Jed Goldstein, KF9, Uganda

After a 10 hr bus journey to Kihihi from Kampala on bumpy dirt roads, it was Aaron Coplands Rodeo ballet that began to play in my mind as I stepped off the bus and began to explore the town that lay before me. Kihihi is the modern Ugandan version of the wild American west that Copland so effectively captures in his compositions. As I explored a bit, I could not help but compare the roars of dirtbikes rolling down the muddy thoroughfare to the click-clock sound made by a horse’s hooves. The expansiveness of the terrain, combined with the rolling, lush hills and the breathtaking vistas, still unspoiled by mini-malls and super sized wal-marts, is really a sight to be seen.

Kihihi is a small town that lies about 500km Southwest of Kampala. For most of the 1990’s little commerce took place there because of various rebel movements that left the place terribly volatile and unstable. In recent years though, the rebel groups have laid down their arms and the town is now ripe for development. Kihihi has the good fortune of being located between two national parks here in Uganda, one of them featuring climbing lions and the other the majestic Rwenzori Mountain range; additionally its close proximity to the Congo means that the town has the potential to become a major center of trade in Southwestern Uganda. For this reason, Pearl Microfinance, has positioned itself with a branch office in the town to offer financial services to the expanding merchant population here.

Business trips are not simply for enjoyment though and while I was eager to explore  Kihihi, there was work that had to be done. I was given by the Kiva coordinator here at the main-office, Grace, a specific task to perform once I had arrived. My mission was to introduce the office employees in Kihihi to Kiva.org and explain the processes and procedures required to post a loan to the Kiva website. Essentially, what we are trying to do here at Pearl is decentralize our Kiva operations to the branch level. This in turn, will allow for a greater volume of postings on the website and potentially, if things go smoothly, Pearl’s monthly fundraising limit being increased.

So after a brief look around, I stumbled into Kihihi’s Pearl office and was offered warm greetings from all of the local staff members. Again, the “you are welcome’s” were plentiful. With sweaty palms, pretty much sweaty everything in fact, I began the presentation that I had prepared right away. I was a bit nervous about communication barriers—most people do speak English here, but at the same time it is not the first language of many— so I made every effort to speak slowly, clearly and not to over-complicate matters. Everything went quite well and throughout the presentation I could tell the loan officers were engaged because they kept on asking questions, a demonstration to me that they understood what was going on.

After the presentation was complete it was time for the final examination. I alerted the Kihihi staff that I was no longer Jed Goldstein as far as they were concerned, but rather would be playing the fictionalized role of Moses Mwami a local fish seller in town who is looking for a loan (I guess those college acting classes do come in handy sometimes). I then instructed them to ask me the questions found on Pearl’s Kiva questionnaire and to take my picture—all the tasks needed to post a profile on the Kiva website. They passed with flying colors, which meant that it was time for me to go back to Kampala.

The Kihihi team and I take some time to pose for a quick picture

After so much travel time to and from Kihihi on overloaded buses and dangerous dirt roads, I kissed the ground once I finally arrived back in Kampala and then curled into bed for much needed rest. Mission accomplished.

By Gavin Sword KF9 Rwanda

I know this is not the first time that I’ve mentioned that my children are Rwandan.  We adopted Savilla and Christian in 2006 when they were both babies. Our girl turns 4 this month while our boy is a few months past 4.  They are the cutest, most adorable little people one could ever hope to know.  They are loving and friendly, kind to each other and to the people they meet.  Part of the reason I wanted to come to Rwanda as a Kiva Fellow was so that they could have the opportunity to spend time in the country of their birth.  To give them a chance to learn the language, make Rwandan friends and live in a land of people who look just like them (not the case in our current home, Vancouver, Canada). Our thinking was not that they would necessarily fully remember the experience, but that it could inform their identity and give them a sense of belonging.  Well, this was the idea anyway.

For our part, my wife and I have been making an effort to immerse the children in the culture. We enrolled them in a local preschool, we chose to ‘home stay’, meaning, we live in the lovely guesthouse of a (delightful) Rwandan family in their large and comfortable compound on the outskirts of Kigali.  This family has 3 children, ages 6, 12  and 13 who are now on school break and love to spend time with our little ones.  Their two older cousins act as babysitters for us, and we are encouraging them all to speak Kinyarwanda with our children.

To their credit, our kids have really made an effort to learn the language (as much or more than I have so far!), which delights everyone they meet.  And they are making friends, but even though they have made new friends in Rwanda and they are undoubtedly Rwandan by birth, they are still viewed differently.  It is not a friendship like one would experience in the West – it is hard to describe.  The fact is that they have many ‘friends’; they are very popular because they are different, though they look the same. In some sense, I sometimes fear they are more like curiosities–amusing to the other children.  They don’t really blend in – I have encouraged them to stop assuming other kids know all about the Jonas Brothers.

My point is we no longer have ‘Rwandan’ children–even at just four years old, they are Westerners now.  To me this feels sad, but short of moving here for good, I can’t see how to change it.  Then again, we’ve only been here one month and who knows what another 2 months will bring.  Though, if I told them that we could fly home tomorrow they would jump with glee – of that I’m certain.

So this is the real truth.  After (just) one month, this profound life-changing experience for our children is not happening like we expected or planned or hoped.  Drat! At times it feels like we are managing their impressions of this experience, which feels a bit forced/awkward.

As much as we try to convey that Rwanda is not better or worse than Vancouver, New York, or Naples, Florida (our previous hometowns) they aren’t buying it.  These are very sweet, candid, perceptive and loving children.  Being immersed in such a now-foreign land for them has amplified their ongoing, unfiltered commentary, asking questions that are at times adorable and others cringe-worthy beyond the normal bounds that most parents expect to endure.  And as parents we are doing our best to offer real answers but sometimes it’s just not easy.  Allow me to list a few below.

Why are there so many bugs here?  Why do the buses travel packed with people like that?  Why aren’t they using forks and knives?  Why does he/she smell so bad?   What happened to his face/leg/arms?  This place is filthy, isn’t it?  Where are those kids’ parents?  Why aren’t they wearing clothes?. Why is there no TV?  Why does the power always go out?  Why is everyone staring at you (Dad)?  Why do people live in such small houses?  I don’t like the smell of this place.  (When beggars run up to our car)– What are they trying to give us?  Why is our house (which is HUGE by Rwandan standards) so small?  Why is the bedding so scratchy?  My pillow is too thin.  Why do we have a guard at our house?  Why does he live outside in a hut? And why is our fence so high?  Why do fences have pieces (shards) of glass on the top of them?  Why is there no hot water for baths?  Why can’t we drink the water?  Why doesn’t anyone have any good toys to play with?  Why do people carry things on their heads?  (They love this skill and are practicing it daily with random, unbreakable, household objects) I don’t like all the mosquitoes, why so many?  (Walking is a big part of the culture here and any distance beyond half a kilometer, our children begin to behave like it’s a death march)  Why is it so far? My legs are too tired, you have to carry me!  (Which seems a bit cushy given that many kids their age and younger are walking FAR greater distances.)   Why is the money so dirty?  Why are the roads so bumpy?  Why do you and mommy want to live here?  When do we go home?  We don’t really like it in Rwanda.

We tried to enroll them in Karate the last two weeks (a bit ambitious at 3 and 4 when the average age was 7 or so). They hated it.  They lacked the ‘discipline’ of the Rwandan children who do as they are told without a break (for 2 hours!).  This did not work so well with little Christian and Savilla, after the novelty of the new karate uniforms wore off (30 minutes or so, they were quite ready to leave and cried until I came to get them).  So, now, I am looking for a soccer group for them to join of their own ages and think that might be a better solution.  Fewer drills, more free form. Also, I am tending to think that the expatriate community may be an easier one to blend with even though it feels like a cop-out or missed opportunity to engage in the Rwandese culture.  But at this point I just want them to have a good time and positive memories.  For me, living in Rwanda isn’t easy either and having the constant questions and unintended criticisms to thoughtfully respond to is exhausting.  Work at my MFI is a cakewalk compared to handling the kids in this culture. It’s hard enough to have many of their thoughts in my own head, never mind voiced within earshot of other locals who are often mightily intrigued by whatever response we offer.

Was it a mistake bringing them here?  Should we have waited till they were older and let it be their decision to come back here and not ours?  Am I just not answering their questions well enough or maybe being too honest?  Perhaps 3 months is not long enough for them to really immerse themselves in Rwandan life – or way too long for their first visit and just a two-week trip would have sufficed?  Have we raised entitled, wimpy North American kids already!?  I surely hope not.

As an aside, we recently returned to the austere but loving orphanage where we got our children, and it was a deeply moving experience.  Not so much for our children–they were happy to be the stars of the show among hundreds of kids. They handed out candies and treats and enjoyed the attention. On the wall of the room full of cribs was a photo of our family, sent from a happy Christmas in Florida, collaged with other photos of families of adopted children abroad.  A symbol of hope for those still there, though we learned that out of 140 children only 6 were slated for adoption this year.  For my wife and I, it was a moment that will take time to process.  Maybe that is the whole point of this, we are trying to process and understand this experience for our children.  They are just being kids, asking lots of questions/making comments.  If we just relax a bit more, it mightn’t be such a big deal. Rwanda will always be a part of their life even though this experience is not unfolding quite the way we expected.  As they say in Kinyarwanda; Ibyiza biri imbere – ntugire ikibazo.  Roughly translated into English it means; No need to worry – everything is going to be just fine”

So I’ll end with a little story. As I mentioned, we live in the guesthouse of a Rwandan family. The little boy, six-year-old Jimmy, is very fond of our four-year-old Christian.   Jimmy is learning to speak and write English and last night he made a big deal about coming over to give Christian a note-card he had written to him that read:

Dearest Christian,

How nice that you are here.

You and I will never be friends.

God Bless, Jimmy

Christian, of course, was thrilled when I read it to him (slightly corrected).

How nice that we are here, indeed.

Please consider a loan to an entrepreneur funded by Vision Finance Company in Rwanda – if there are no loans listed on the site for funding, please check back again in a day or so and we will have uploaded more inspiring stories.   We are short staffed and working as hard as we can to get as many worthy people funded as possible.

Also, you could join the VFC Lending Team which is a small but growing group of individuals committed to allocating their interest free – karma rich cash to the inspiring entrepreneurs of Rwanda.   Or, if you’re new to Kiva – why not join today!

PS – Gavin is beginning to meet with clients in the field and wanting to share the connection of being a fellow entrepreneur he is having a devil of a time explaining that he sells motorized shades.

By Ibrahim Oumarr Jalloh, Kiva Coordinator, Salone Microfinance Trust, Sierra Leone

There is a lot of wealth at the top of a palm-tree.  Many would like to reap the benefits it possesses.

The palm-wine taper wants the palm-wine, the palm-oil producer wants the palm-oil, the mats designers and broom makers want the palm-leaves – even the snakes and rats want to feed from the palm fruits.

There are no rules about who is allowed to try to climb and reach the top of the palm tree to get what they want, but it is clear, because of the difficulty of getting to the top, that adhering to the policies of the palm-tree is crucial to success.  There should be no thoughts about possible cunning ways to get to the top – one needs to begin from below and then work to the top.  When one reaches there, one can reap whatever benefit there is.

A get-rich-quick-at-all-cost syndrome has taken grip on the thinking and behaviors of many in my community, so much so that many are being led to deeper poverty.  This get-rich-quick syndrome is especially prevalent on the poor of the poorest.  These ones who inherited poverty, the ones who were born and found nothing in their name and the ones who dwelled with this reality throughout their early youthful ages.

The parents of these ones, only thinking of where the next meal would come from, had no time to think of how to give any form of formal education or technical skills to their children.  Instead, the children were used as a child laborers.  They spent their time selling peanuts, water or plastic bags here and there to supplement the family’s daily food allowance.

I want to follow the path of one of these children to show how their lack of patience leads them to be unable to reap the benefits of the top of the palm tree.

At a late age, a wave of realization struck a young man who was born into the kind of poverty described above.  He said to himself “no, this situation is deplorable, I must fight poverty, I must not remain poor.”

He decided to take up trading – this being the only skill his parents gave him.  After sometime, he noticed that at his age, when he compared himself with the capital he owned, he had not achieved what he wanted.  “Oh” he cried, “business has not been growing the way I had wanted it to – capital is too small and yet I want a business commensurate with my age.  How unfriendly is world of business!”

Then, like a dream come true, he heard of micro-finance institutions.  He heard that they had come to help the economically active poor and he knew he fell in this pool. “This is the right time to match-up with other business people, to get a business that matches-up with his age” he told himself.  I must go and get this loan, he thought.

But alas, micro-finance institutions like the palm-tree have imposed policies that limited this guy’s speed to accessing the loan.

“Man, you have to belong to a group in order to access this loan. Man, the loan amount you will receive from us is only dependant on your current business size,” the people at the microfinance institution told him.  These policies seemed very unreasonable to this guy – since he had wanted to do away with poverty now and here.

“The initial loan size of $ 100 is too small, I want to buy this and that, if I am able to get this and that I will be able to make this and that profit”, he cried to himself. Without grace, wisdom and contentment, he began to think of cunning ways to the top of the palm-tree.

Similar to this client is the Loan Officer.  He too was born poor and had lived and dined with poverty for donkey years. But fortunately for him, unlike the client, he was able to get some formal education.  Now, he can read and write, and can speak some little English.  He had hated his life-long-companion (poverty) for far too long and had wanted so desperately to part with him.

The Top

But alas, the palm-tree insists that there are no short cuts to the top. Without grace, wisdom and contentment with whatever little salary he was receiving, this Loan Officer began to try figure out cunning ways to get to the top of the palm-tree as quickly as possible.

It is often said, two like things will always attract each other.

Each micro-finance institution, like any religion or dogma, has rules and policies to keep its followers on the right path.  Any deviation, thinking of oneself to be cleverer then the rules, will lead one astray. Some of these rules are: be part of a group of at least *a certain varied number of* members; group members must know each other VERY WELL; group members must not be RELATED to each other; your loan size is dependant on your business capital; and the list goes on and on.

But in this case, the client begged to the Loan Officer to overlook some of these rules, and the Loan Officer supported him. “That loan size is very small for me” said the client, “and what will be my commission?” asked the Loan Officer.  In the end, they struck a deal and the rules were bent or readjusted to meet the client’s comfort.  The MFI remained ignorant about this alliance that had been formed in the field.  Eventually, a bad loan was disbursed.

Repayment remained good for the first five months, but soon delinquency began to show up and eventually even a loan default showed. In some cases, like this one, the clients’ family members will have to repay the loan and in other cases, client will have to runaway. When Loan Officer is found guilty of such a corrupt practice, he is fired and sometimes ended-up in police cells. The “get rich quick at all cost syndromes” has at last brought them greater poverty.

When this happens at micro-finance institutions, micro-finance as a tool to reducing poverty is questioned.  Delinquency and default cases will always be the end result of this unholy alliance by the Loan Officer and the client.  But unfortunately, it is micro-finance that is questioned and not the route causes to the delinquency or default case.

Micro-finance institutions can be of a great blessing to any community they finds themselves in, if the clients are honest to themselves and are willing to adhere to the policies of the MFI.  And, it is even more important, that the MFI adheres to micro-finance best practices.

Most of our clients are hungry, illiterate and ignorant. They are attracted to the top of the palm-tree and they want to get there at all cost and at a go. Loan Officers must be wise and strong enough against all temptations (bribes and gifts) not to feed them with more than they can chew.

To both the client and Loan Officer I say, “POVERTY”, especially chronic poverty “can not be bull dozed – you must climb the palm tree!”

Make a loan to a borrower from a organization committed to helping people reach the top!

By Gavin Sword, KF9 Rwanda

It is true that internationally, Rwanda is most known for the horrific events of 1994; a genocide that claimed the lives of more than 800,000 of its people.   There is no satisfactory way to comprehend what happened here.  Yet as a testament to the human spirit – life in Rwanda carries on.  The people I have encountered are not dwelling on the past – they are focused on the future.  Like people everywhere, they are intent on improving their circumstances, bettering themselves, connecting with others and enjoying life as best they can.  As a people, they are proud of their country, whatever its past, and the strides made to move on from that dark era in Rwanda’s history are nothing short of awe-inspiring.

Rwandans I have met seem excited about their country’s new role as an emerging star of Africa and a model for peace and prosperity after enduring unspeakably difficult challenges.  Wouldn’t it be nice if Rwanda becomes a shining example of reconciliation for countries around the world facing deeply ingrained, seemingly intractable issues where violence and conflict have been ‘inevitable’?

Last night, my wife and I attended a reggae dance with a local Rwandan band and many in the crowd were moved to tears when they performed a rendition of Bob Marley’s “No Woman no Cry” with the lyrics adapted in a profound and moving way.  I’ve included a portion of them below;

“Good friends we have had, oh good friends we’ve lost along the way

In this bright future you can’t forget your past

So dry your tears I say…

My fear is my only courage , so I’ve got to push on thru.

And hear me say to you…

No more gen-o-cide

No more gen-o-cide

Hey little darlin, say don’t’ shed no tears;

No more gen-o-cide….

Everything’s gonna be alright

Everything’s gonna be alright

Everything’s gonna be alright now”

Rwanda is not perfect and there are layers of healing that still must occur; this is evident even to a newcomer like myself.  So, yes, there is still much work to be done.  But as with anything in life, it is not so much where we are, but how far we have come and even more importantly where we are going.  And thinking this way makes me believe that Rwanda may just become that shining example of ‘impossible’ reconciliation, peace and healing.

By Jessica Chervin, KF9 Togo

Yesterday evening, West Africa made me giddy.

I have been in Togo for almost five months, and in West Africa for almost nine.  Here, my senses are never neutral.  The most lovely moments are tempered by inconvenience.  My daily moto rides to and from Microfund are at once thrilling and relaxing, but the soot and smell of burning garbage, the potholes that make Lome’s boulevards feel like urban mogul fields, and the passage by open landfills smack in the middle of the capital, tinge the experience with unpleasantness.  Sensory and experiential overload and deprivation are not mutually exclusive.  On those moto rides, I am equally attuned to what my heightened senses do not perceive: safety, calm, balance, and the ability to breathe deeply.  The expatriate experience in West Africa is one of inescapable contrast.  Everything is more colorful, too spicy, impossibly beautiful, unbearably filthy—but never quite normal.  If one reacts every time to each of these stimuli, one is quickly exhausted.  So, with time, in order to complete the marathon, one has to find a sustainable cruising speed, some semblance of equilibrium in a world that is anything but balanced—or, for that matter, equal.

Tchilabalo in his coop (for the grown hens. The chicks were kept separately across the way).

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself once more on the back of a moto, in cruising mode.  Hyacinthe, the head credit officer at Microfund’s Noukafou branch, and I were out doing borrower verification visits.  It was the end of the day, and I was zonked.  The bumper-to-bumper moto traffic getting out of downtown Lome had fried my nerves, and as our moto finally sped forward towards Agoe, I tuned out—well, almost.  As we whizzed passed goats and buvettes on dusty, unpaved road, I was, for the first time, struck not by how different everything was (I come from New York—enough said), but by how normal this scenery, this reality, has become to me.  So much so, in fact,  that when Hyacinthe and I arrived at the client’s business, whose view was obscured by a large cinder block wall, and I smelled what I might previously have identified as a distinctly foul odor, my olfactory reaction was relatively neutral and I thought simply, matter-of-factly, “oh, he must raise livestock”.

But the 2000 chickens I saw as Tchilabalo Gbagalou led me past the wall caught me off guard.  The unanticipated coop snapped me right out of West African autopilot mode catapulted me into a fit of giggles.  I wasn’t expecting to meet a Kiva borrower who, unlike so many other microfinance clients that I’ve met, is a college student (Tchilabalo studies math, chemistry, and physics at the University of Lome)—this fact inspired tremendous admiration.  And I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear that this loan has enabled Tchilabalo and his two partners to realize a staggering 150000 CFA per week (about 340 USD, at the current exchange rate in a country where the per capita GDP is roughly 1700 USD annually) in profits—this simply boggled my mind.  Dare I say it: the synergy of these things just thrilled me.  It stirred me to write.

What produced this effect?  I couldn’t cite novelty, as surely this was not the first time I’d seen a chicken (although admittedly, chicken coops are inextricably linked to “Napoleon Dynamite”, in my mind, and I’m pretty sure that’s what inspired the laughter).  So what drew me from cruise control?

The answer (after considerable reflection): the magnificence of the circumstances that landed me in that chicken coop in Togo, the magnificence of the chicken coop’s existence at all.  Eager to build their own success, Tchilabalo Gbagalou and his friends formed a plan.  Understanding the increasing need for the provision of financial services to the people of Togo, Joseph Akogo established Microfund.  Envisioning a way in which they could harness the power of the internet to give people like Tchilabalo access to capital markets, a dream team in San Francisco built Kiva.  And finally, lenders from all corners of the Earth lent a hand.  The stunning particulars of the story can disappear behind demands of the daily grind, be it North American or West African, but the connections and initiative are extraordinary, and the chicken coop, dazzling.

Yesterday, it all made me giddy.

Jessica Chervin is currently serving out her third placement as a Kiva Fellow in West Africa at Microfund Togo in Lome, Togo, after placements at Soro Yiriwaso in Bamako, Mali, and at FECECAV in Kpalimé, Togo. Click here to view currently fundraising loans at Microfund Togo.

Since arriving in Togo last week, a lot of my colleagues at FECECAV have asked how I actually got from Toronto to Kpalimé. Luckily, ten minutes into my trip I pulled out my trusty flip cam, which every Kiva Fellow has been given (thank you Flip!), and started shooting. The following 3-minute video is a condensed version of my trip, the full 16 hours of footage is available upon request.

By Anne Hector, KF9 Kenya

When last I posted (http://tiny.cc/pl68v), I was preparing to plunge into Nairobi traffic with the redoubtable intern, Mary Chege, to visit  the Kitengela branch to gather up loans and work with the lending officers on Kiva postings.

Kitengela is a small town of approximately 8000 located one hour southeast of Nairobi.  Once Mary and I successfully navigated our way there, one of SMEP’s local loan officers, Winnie Mwiti, took us out for the day on her usual rounds.  I had never been to a group borrower meeting and nor met a micro-finance client, so this was a big day.

Our first stop was the Ondisore Group loan meeting in the market.  It was blazingly hot and the meeting was held in a small corrugated tin hut.  While I was concerned about willingly stepping into an oven, it was surprisingly cool inside and a quiet business atmosphere prevailed.  Borrowing groups, for those of you who don’t know, are the backbone of microfinance.  A terrific innovation developed by Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank and Bolivia’s BancoSol., the group guarantees the loans of every member.  What that really means is that if a member defaults on his/her loan for whatever reason, the group has to pay back the outstanding amount.  As you might imagine, the group takes selection of its members very, very seriously, and in this way, the credit risk assessment normally performed by a bank is outsourced to the community.

Groups typically meet once a week, and everyone makes their payment in cash.  Pictured above are Jael Ombange and Wanjiku Wangui (head of the Ondisore  group) recording each and every payment by the 10 members attending.  This is one serious meeting.  Some joking around, but everyone is cognizant of the risks involved, and a no nonsense attitude prevails.  The arrival of the Kiva mzungu (lily white me) created some stir and they all agreed to have their photos taken for the website, but then it was back to business.

We next moved on to the Kilume Wealth Creation Self Help group meeting.  Vice Chairman of the group, Francis Ndungu, cordially invited us to come see his workshop.  Somehow I had the impression that micro-borrowers lived at far more precarious economic levels than is the case of the SMEP clients we visited.  While their lives certainly have challenges, many are established small business people and very proud of their enterprises.  When asked if they minded having their pictures on the internet, they tend to look surprised, pleased and then check to see how they looked for their upcoming 15 minutes.  Our Vice Chair, Francis, is a metal fabricator and upholster, and he shown here in his shop with a metal grill he created.  You have got to admire that blue blazer with gold buttons and white shirt… the man looked sharp and he knew it.

Final stop was a loan interview with a tuk tuk operator from the same group.  The matatus, buses, taxis and tuk tuks all gather at a depot in the center of town, and the tuk tuks tend to flock together.  The three-wheel vehicles, lend themselves well to customization to attract passengers and express the true soul of the operator.  Pictured left is one particularly outstanding vehicle owned by John Kimani.

All in all, a great day in the field.  It turns out that Kitengela’s biggest problem posting Kiva loans is emailing the photos to headquarters.  Internet connection is at dial-up speed and this has caused a complete breakdown.  It all sounds so easy back in the Bay Area… but getting loans posted in remote parts of the world takes enormous dedication by the staff.  We determined that flash drives send back and forth by the Wells Fargo courier will solve the issue.

For Mary and I, it is on to Thika, a colonial town NE of Nairobi.  In the meantime, please consider joining Kiva if you are not already a member (http://tiny.cc/aD7N2) and funding a loan (http://tiny.cc/ZjeZQ).

by Rachel Brooks, KF9, Kenya

Faulu Kenya, where I recently began as a Fellow, has a full-time Kiva Coordinator, Zachary Muriithi. He’s a busy guy. He works long hours at Faulu, manages his several small farms, helps run a home for 24 orphans, and preaches on Sunday. He has old and new friends wherever we go and has become an active user of Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress.

Still, Pastor Zach was excited for our first big task: completing a borrower verification process. We randomly picked ten of Faulu’s Kiva borrowers for a mini-audit and then appeared unannounced at their businesses to confirm their profile details. We really might as well have dropped a bag of marbles onto a map of Nairobi because the ten businesses could not have been farther apart but it was worth it.

The reason I became a lender on Kiva, and then a volunteer editor, and now a Fellow is mostly because I liked each borrower’s story so much. I also thought microfinance had a way of cutting through a lot of difficulties to make a way where there is a will. So even trudging through Nairobi’s endless dust, I so enjoyed meeting each of these borrowers and hearing their stories in person. I’d feared that Zach and I would seem a bit like the secret police as we asked to confirm people’s identities and have a look-see at their loan booklets but instead we kept getting offered Fanta.

We spent three days on foot, matatu, and bodaboda, to reach all but our last borrower. Dominic Mutunga had used his fourth and most recent loan to purchase a motorbike to expand his taxi service in the Masai Village area of Nairobi. When we tried to visit him we learned that he’d been in an accident in Machokos (about an hour outside of town) and had badly broken his hand. So to Machokos Hospital we went!

It might seem a little strange that someone would welcome a visit from their microfinance institution, including a stranger from Kiva, after surgery. But Dominic was very heartened to see Pastor Zach, who is, of course, an old friend as well as his original loan officer. Most Faulu borrowers also just feel that strongly about their loans. He told us that his bike was not damaged beyond repair but that he may, unfortunately, face a long recovery. Slim resources at the hospital delayed his surgery for over a week and that caused complications. Thankfully, his wife is managing to support the family of five through a food kiosk created through earlier loans.

Incidentally, on the way from Faulu’s branch office in Machakos to the hospital, we were convinced to stop and see the only local attraction. Folks insisted that there is a curve in the road where cars drive themselves uphill while in neutral, and so it did! Apparently water will also roll uphill. I found the stretch in the road to be only slightly uphill. Pastor Zach felt the demonstration bordered on miraculous. You can judge for yourself.

Rachel Brooks is a Kiva Fellow working for Faulu Kenya in Nairobi. If you’ve never made a loan on Kiva, have a look at some of these profiles from Faulu and other partners.

By Jenny E. Kim, Sierra Leone

My taxi driver Sharif is a 001– he eats 0 breakfast, 0 lunch, and 1 dinner.  First started by university students in Freetown, classmates used the labeling system to identify those who were able to share meals and those who could not.  The system is a reminder that in Sierra Leone access to basics necessities are limited.  Food, clean water, roads, and electricity are all challenges.  As the local currency continues its downward trajectory, in no other way does the average Sierra Leonean feel the economic pressures more than he does with food.

Above is a picture of a billboard located in one of Freetown’s busiest intersections, Congo Cross Junction.  Sierra Leoneans call their country affectionately by the name “Salone”

One meal a day is common.  Each meal here represents a weighty financial decision.  For Sharif, the charcoal used to cook the staple, rice, is as much of a financial consideration as the food itself.  He cooks on charcoal because he cannot afford to buy the single gas burner.  The needed gas refills are a luxury beyond his imagining.  So the forests here are stripped in part to supply the charcoal that Sharif and those like him need to feed themselves.  As for rice, the price has almost doubled within a year.  In January, a 50 kg bag of rice that fed a family of four for a month cost Le 70,000 or roughly $25.  That same bag of rice today is twice that amount in local currency (between Le 130,000 to Le 150,000). The steep 33% devaluation of the currency from Le 3,000 to Le 4,000 against the U.S. dollar contributed to and exacerbated an already tenuous situation.  With no commensurate adjustment in income, the most desperate have resorted to purchasing scrappage—spoiled rice.

“A Sierra Leonean doesn’t consider it a meal unless there is rice, and lots of it,” my colleagues tell me.  Chances are if you order local food, whatever appears will be served with a small bucket-sized mound of rice.  Eat in Sierra Leone and it’s a challenge to avoid it.  Before WWII Sierra Leone had plenty of rice.  The country which is wet and humid with nutrient rich soil, has always been considered ideal for rice growing.  Rice abounded.  But today, although the landscape remains the same, Sierra Leone has become a rice dependent nation importing over 30% of its annual consumption from countries like China and India.  Some blame the shift on the diamond trade, claiming that farmers abandoned the rice fields in a rush to the diamond mines.  Others claim that rice farmers have yet to recover from the cataclysmic destruction of rice fields wrought by the rebels during the war.  Food experts speak of essential equipment, higher yielding rice seed variants, and other factors needed to produce the staple.  Whatever the root causes or long term solutions, the fact remains that today Sierra Leone cannot feed itself.

When I arrived in Freetown, I was confused about meal times.  That first week I sat around watching for signs of a mass office exodus to lunch.  I waited until 3 pm before making a move.  It wasn’t until the second week that I caught on that food issues in Sierra Leone were complicated.  Perhaps lunch time was a notion I had stubbornly brought with me from the U.S.  Here, the notion seemed vague.  When I temporarily stopped taking lunch, a colleague noticed and commented that I was now a 101.

Lend to entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone here:  http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=148&status=All&sortBy=New+to+Old

By Jennifer Gong, KF9 Tanzania

My name is Jen Gong and I will be spending a few months at YOSEFO, a Kiva field partner in Tanzania.  I arrived in Dar Es Salaam about 2 weeks ago and here is my first entry…

the YOSEFO CREW!

There is something enchanting about Tanzania.  Most travelers would say the charm is in landscape.  And without a doubt there is much to behold here.  I have not yet wadded in the turquoise waters of Zanzibar, climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro or spotted the exotic creatures of the Serengeti, but flying into Dar Es Salaam itself was a treat.  I wish I took a photo of how the tin roofs sparkled like stars against the blue Indian Ocean. 

But for those who have spent a little more time here and immersed themselves in the local culture, they will claim the charm is in the people.   Tanzanians are colorful, diverse and warm.  When my coworkers held a meeting to discuss about the upcoming marriage celebration of one of the credit officers, I was asked to be involved because they said “<I am> now a part of the YOSEFO family”.  My host family of three sisters, treat me like their own dada (sister in Swahili), and have been generously teaching me Swahili and Tanzanian cooking.

Nevertheless, the country suffers from the same woes of similar developing nations.  Because Tanzania depends on hydroelectric power, recent droughts have caused both water rationing and power outages to occur.  Infrastructure has not kept up to pace with the burgeoning population and has led to extremely bad traffic during rush hours.  And the abject poverty in which some communities live can be heart wrenching.

I have just started meeting clients in the field and have been observing Kiva processes at YOSEFO.  I hope to bring everyone more stories about the impact of Kiva loans on both clients and MFI.  In the mean time, please enjoy some pictures of this charming place!

 Credit officer Emmanuel collecting money in the Mbagala Community:

Client “Mama” Showing off her Vegetable Stall in Charambe District (and Me):

Kiva Lender, Ed Skoch, and I listening to credit officer Lazaro explaining the collection process at Buguruni Community

By Rebecca Corey, KF9 Tanzania

After my first day interacting with Kiva borrowers I was exhausted but exhilarated. It was slow work, waiting while the money for the loans was counted out and matched with each client’s loan record booklet, paperwork was filled out, treasurer and secretary books were gathered. Outside the Tujijenge branch office in the heart of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, members of loan groups languished in the sun, clothes bright against the dusty ground. I glanced out of the window from time to time to watch them and try to guess what each group had named itself.

At Tujijenge Tanzania, most of the loans are given to groups. Each group consists of 15-40 members, who are split into sub-groups of 5-7, whose members act as guarantors of each others loans. For many poor borrowers, the group’s guarantee is the only collateral they can offer. The social pressure from the group is a major deterrent to delinquency and default, along with the hope for future loans. After a group is approved by Tujijenge, they have one month of business and microfinance training by loan officers. At this time, their information and photos are collected, they elect group leaders, a secretary, and treasurer, and they get to choose a name. Many of them convey a sense of national pride (like “Kilimanjaro” or “Mungu Ibariki Tanzania”–God bless Tanzania), but as you can imagine, these names go fast. So there are also groups like “red rose,” “lion,” and “peace.” Soon, even names like these are gone. So groups pop up named “flag” or “Bob Marley” or “Ferarri”. One of my favorite groups was called “Parachichi,” which means “avocado” in Kiswahili. I loved this little bit of trivia so much that I included it in the business profile for the group on Kiva.org. The other group we worked with that day called itself “Sigara.” I didn’t have time to ask what this meant, but leaving work that day I asked a friend. “Ah, yes, sigara! It means ‘cigarette.’” I recalled my interview with the elected leader of Sigara group, a tall and slender woman with large eyes who held her child in the lap of her green dress as she told me about her shop, her monthly profits, her hours, and saving for her children’s education. I wondered if it was her idea to name the group ‘Cigarette.’

I remember laughing the first time I heard a pop song on the radio with the refrain “Malaria, malaria, ohhh, malaria.” The grim, the dirty, the ordinary, seemed out of place in a hit song, just as the name “cigarette” seems such an odd choice for a group of entrepreneurs using enterprise as a way out of poverty. But what I am learning daily is that it is in our greatest pursuits that the rough-and-tumble of daily life is most relevant. The abstractions I want to paint in broad strokes across life and work in Tanzania would whitewash away the raw, rich, bursting colors, textures, smells, and truths of this place. The ordinary avocado, the cigarette… why should I disdain them? And why should I laugh to hear a pop song about Malaria?

For the first week of my time here in Dar es Salaam, I went through culture-shock lite. At first, I felt like I had finally come home. Back to the country that had carved a place in my heart when I volunteered in Bagamoyo, Tanzania in 2007 as an undergraduate. Then came the ache and pang of realizing that Dar es Salaam is not Bagamoyo, a sleepy historical beach town with one paved road. It is not where I will spend days with children curled in my lap or twisting my hair. It is not where I will go to the beach every day for two hours of swimming. It is where I will work and study and jam myself into buses and choke on dust and smoke, and sweat it out with no ocean breeze. I began to notice faces in the crowds around me that looked familiar. That one looks like Omari. That one looks like Sophie. That one looks like Abduri, Yona, Warda… The beauties of Bagamoyo, my students, my children, but grown up and hardened, selling water for 20 cents a bottle between speeding buses that have no regard for life or trudging down the highway with one hundred pounds of grain on his shoulders, or digging a ditch, or even waiting outside at Tujijenge for 2 hours to receive a 50 dollar loan to buy some more cassava for a small vegetable stand. Even this was not the dream I had for those children. And I saw their faces everywhere.

I didn’t want to admit it, I don’t want to still, but I wasn’t prepared for the sadness that settled around my shoulders and in the pit of my stomach like a stone. I know microfinance is only one tool out of many to alleviate poverty. I know it is a slow-rolling stone. I know development itself is incremental and unwieldy. But isn’t it easy to desire passionately a better world right now? Who suffers from a fever and relaxes knowing it will break eventually? Who looks at an open wound and doesn’t want it closed immediately? But not only did I balk at the idea of slow change… I looked around and didn’t see potential for any change at all. And it had to get worse before it could get any better.

After my third day at work, I came down with an extremely high fever. The next day I went to the small clinic near our house and it was confirmed. Malaria. And not just one malaria, they told me. “Two Malaria”. “I don’t understand.” “You have two malaria. Two parasites.” I struggled to understand. Finally, I got it. Not one, but two strains of malaria. At once. Just my luck. Last week passed in a haze of fevers and chills, exhaustion, tears, rants, swallowing pills, rejecting food, and, most of all, sleeping. I have never felt so completely incapable of movement. Every muscle in my body refused to move. I would stare at a glass of water a foot away and not be able to convince my hand to reach for it. I am ashamed, but I wanted to give up. I wanted to pack my things, take a taxi to the airport, and just go home.

But I didn’t. And now I’m better. I wake up to the sound of the dawn call to prayer. I ride the buses to work with children going to school in their uniforms, and people going to work. Today, a little boy asked to wear my red sunglasses. He put them on, grinned sheepishly, then gave them back to me quickly, his laugh so bright and pure and sweet. Jimmy Kunjombe, the director of the school in Bagamoyo, visited me when I was sick and he was in town for a medical treatment. He told me about everyone there… his wife and son, the neighbors, the kids at school. Most of the students I worked with have graduated primary school and are now off in first or second grade. He reports that they are doing well in school and making good grades. When I greet the borrowers at Tujijenge, I say, “Shikamoni,” my respects… They accept them and grin at the strange visitor in front of them, always delighted that I know a little Kiswahili. They joke among themselves, “Ah, this Chinese person knows Kiswahili! Why? Why would she come here and talk to us?” Then their thoughts leave me, and they become business people again. They concentrate on their loans, counting the money to make sure it is all there, signing papers, reading the loan contract aloud to one another. Sometimes I draw a spot of ink onto a client’s thumb so she can “sign” for his money. I want to answer their question: Why would I come here to talk to them? Because their bravery is of the most noble and humble sort. They work and endure, without expecting an instant fix. “Get-rich-quick” is not an option. They know tomorrow and the next day and the next may not be any easier than today, but they persevere. They battle through Malaria, and worse. They are business people, entrepreneurs, innovators. They are working for their children, for all children to come.

Tujijenge Tanzania, Ltd. is a microfinance institution based in Dar es Salaam Tanzania. To see their currently fundraising loans, please click here!