Posts filed under ‘Togo’
Updates from the Field: Roads, Remittances + the “Little Paris” of Togo
Last week our internationally-scattered Kiva Fellows introduced us to some of the men and women that compose the sixty countries in which Kiva works. From the woman in Cameroon who represents the strength of her nation; to the Phillipino men that must migrate from their country to make a living; to the young men and women of Uganda who show us a glimpse of raw entrepreneurialism and hope. We also see how a nation’s people are brought together, whether by a common and incredible credit culture in Nicaragua, or by the dream for Togolese roads to one day connect people, markets, and credit throughout the country. From roads to remittances, Fellows learn there is more to microfinance than world markets and interest rates, and that human factors are tipping the scales of success for microfinance in all corners of the world.
Continue Reading 27 June 2011 at 02:00 Kate Bennett 7 comments
Paving the Way to the Future (Part 2): Road Construction and Its Effects on Microfinance in Togo
By Kathrin Gerner, KF15, Togo
Lomé is under construction. In fact, all of Togo is under construction. This is what I heard when I first arrived in this small West African country two weeks ago. And it did not take me very long to find out what that meant.
Continue Reading 26 June 2011 at 02:00 Kathrin Gerner 15 comments
Paving the Way to the Future (Part 1): Bad Roads, Transportation Costs and Microfinance in Togo
By Kathrin Gerner, KF15, Togo
It becomes apparent with every new rainfall now that the rain season has started in Togo: Roads are the arteries that carry the lifeblood of the economy. They transport goods, employees and clients, and they provide shelf space for the countless street vendors.
Mostly unpaved, however, the roads of Lomé stand no chance in the face of torrential downpours. With few drains to take the water out of the city and the soil already saturated, they turn into a vast, difficult to navigate network of rivers and lakes. The otherwise vibrant Togolese capital comes to a halt and only starts back with a slow crawl when the rain subsides.
Continue Reading 20 June 2011 at 03:00 Kathrin Gerner 16 comments
I Am Happiest When…
I began writing this blog on a scrap piece of paper just north of the Burkinabé/Ghanaian border. I had spent my morning walking across the border carrying a 40-pound pack and subsequently spending far too much money on a taxi into the nearest town. My Kiva Fellowship had ended a week and a half earlier, and I was sitting in a hot, dirty hotel room with a concrete floor, grimy walls, and inconsistent electricity. I was desperate for entertainment. I had finished the only book I brought on this three-week post-fellowship excursion, my computer was lifeless without the electricity to charge the battery, and my broken iPod seemed to be mocking me with its inaccessible entertainment. I was entirely alone. So, I took some time to process the last four and a half months.
Continue Reading 27 August 2010 at 10:03 taylorakin 4 comments
A Kiva Fellow’s Scrap Book
Today is my last day as a Kiva Fellow. Kiva Fellows Class number 10 (or KF10) took me to Zaporozhye, Ukraine where I worked with Kiva’s field partner HOPE Ukraine; KF11 brought me here to Lomé, Togo, where I work with two different field partners, Microfund Togo and Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social, or WAGES. I can’t think of two countries more different, and I have loved and been challenged by both experiences equally. (more…)
Kiva Makes it Personal
By Leah Gage, Kiva Fellow in Togo
Less than a year ago, Kiva was taken to task by critics for not being as person-to-person (P2P) as it was claiming to be. But I think Kiva’s continued relevance in the field of grassroots development rests precisely on its continued ability to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. There are lots of examples of this; here are three. (more…)
Why should a mom tie her baby to her back in Togo?
By Leah Gage, Kiva Fellow in Togo
All throughout Togo, women use a traditional cloth called a pagne. Pagnes are beautiful, they come in every color and print you can imagine. They’re extremely useful as make-shift blankets, clothing, bags, towels… Yesterday while buying something a woman unwrapped her pagne skirt partway because that’s how she wrapped up her spare change. But perhaps most important for a young working mother is the use of a pagne to wrap her baby to her back.
Why would a young mother wrap her baby to her back?!
Because she can’t afford childcare.
When mom and dad are struggling to put food on the table, or maybe saving for baby’s future school fees, spending money on day care is out of the question (not to mention culturally unacceptable). While she’s out working, mom can keep her baby with her without getting in the way. Whenever the baby needs anything, mom’s right there to take care. When her baby’s hungry, she can feed her. When her baby’s tired, the baby can sleep, nestled closely to her mother’s back. (more…)
Mission (Im)Possible? or Why Kiva Fellows are sorta like James Bond…
By Leah Gage, Kiva Fellow in Togo
Our Mission: Find Monsieur Kokou Abalo, a farmer who lives outside of Agbélouvé, Togo, to this month’s repayment and complete a Kiva interview. Kokou Abalo has a loan from Kiva’s field partner Microfund Togo. He’s also the last borrower on my list with whom I have to do an interview.
World Cup Reports from Kiva Fellows Around the World
Kiva Fellows share their World Cup experiences from Mongolia, Rwanda, Mexico, Bolivia, Togo, Sri Lanka, Chile and Kyrgyzstan
Continue Reading 29 June 2010 at 22:56 Kevin Henderson 3 comments
The Red Notebook and the Glue That Holds the Whole Story Together
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo
Sleep-deprived and over-heated, I sat in front of the fan in the loan officers’ room. I had been waiting for a loan officer at the WAGES branch office in Hédzranawoé for over an hour and sat unmoving as the room buzzed with activity all around me. Loan officers ran in and out, clients sat down and stood up, phones rang and calls were made, passbooks opened and closed, pencils scratched paper, sweat stained foreheads. I looked at the loan officer sitting across the desk opposite me. Adam is one of the kindest people I have met since my time here at WAGES, and I have had the opportunity to visit clients with him on several occasions. He is gentle, quiet, smiles easily and works extremely hard. I watched him flip through papers and carefully write the names of clients on a yellow post-it. With every name, he would “tsk tsk,” exclaim a high-pitched “ah” sound of frustration, and shake his head.
Continue Reading 3 April 2010 at 09:07 taylorakin 2 comments
“Do You Know How To Run?”
On Thursday March 4th, the second Togolese presidential elections were held since the death of President Eyadéma Gnassingbé in 2005. After 38 years of uninterrupted rule, his son Faure assumed the presidency. Shortly thereafter, he held superfluous elections that resulted in a “democratic” confirmation of his leadership. The country erupted in civil unrest under the pretense of false electoral results, and hundreds were killed in the resulting violence.
Faure’s campaign posters dominate the billboards throughout Lomé
That first election of the post-Eyadéma era certainly set a precedent for fear. I quickly lost count of all the WAGES clients who reported a lack of demand for their products as a result of the elections. Countless others articulated a desire to take out another loan, but were waiting for the outcome of the elections before seeking additional credit. They did not want to be held financially responsible for defaults as a result of political instability.
Continue Reading 15 March 2010 at 08:39 taylorakin 6 comments
The Case of the Faceless Lender
Last week, I spent two mornings making the rounds of six WAGES branch offices that participate in Kiva. Accompanied by the Kiva Coordinator, I met with loan officers and branch directors to refresh their memories on the importance of transparency, clarity of photos, and detailed profile information. Most of all, I wanted to give Kiva a human face. While Kiva lenders are well aware of the person-to-person (P2P) connections Kiva aims to establish, the direction of this gaze is often one-sided. Kiva lenders are informed of the employment, location, and even marital status of the entrepreneurs they help. Yet, from the ground looking up, it is easy to see Kiva as a faceless, impersonal backer behind their partner MFIs. Kiva is often simply thought of as an organization that lends money to MFIs, which allows the MFIs to lend to their clients. While this idea is not inaccurate, it is certainly incomplete. I was disturbed by the thought that P2P connections were created between lenders and borrowers, but not between borrowers and lenders.
Continue Reading 20 February 2010 at 08:31 taylorakin 19 comments
Begging – A Sign of Development?
Whether at home or abroad no one likes to see people begging for money. In the countries where most Kiva Fellows come from it’s a sad sign of social dysfunction and a failure to provide adequate opportunities for everyone. But in the developing world could it actually be a sign of progress? After all, if a country can support begging, then it must be generating income beyond mere subsistence.
Continue Reading 15 February 2010 at 09:43 Nick Malouin 8 comments
Looking at Microfinance Through Rose-Coloured Glasses
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo
There is a lot of hype surrounding microfinance. For some, microfinance is an effective tool used to promote large-scale poverty alleviation. For others, it is simply considered a way for moderately poor individuals to better their own situations. If you’re reading this blog, you likely fit somewhere on this spectrum of belief that microfinance does at least some good. While the degree to which microfinance impacts the lives of the poor is often debated, the hype remains fairly constant. But can microfinance really live up to the publicity that precedes it?
A (rare) smiling Kiva entrepreneur, Teko Kongo. Coming soon to Kiva.org!
I must admit that I too was a victim of this hype. I naively thought that my work as a Kiva Fellow would include listening to many heart-wrenching, life-changing stories of success and failure as a result of, or despite the efforts of microfinance. My friends at home often joked that I was off to “save the world.” (more…)
“Il faut profiter, ein?”
This is as close as I can get to looking Togolese!
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo
It’s amazing how identity can be so malleable. In a matter of hours, a person can be transformed from local to foreigner, fluent to fumbling, familiar to fascinating, and even from black to white. Anyone who has ever travelled even just a couple hours outside their hometown has experienced this shift. The change in identity may happen to varying degrees, but its unpredictability remains a constant.
In the past, I have often travelled to locations where my skin colour has conveniently allowed me to blend in. The mix of my Jamaican and British heritage has provided me with a variety of clever masks. I may appear to be Ecuadorian, Spanish, and even Moroccan depending on my location. Since my arrival in Lomé, however, I have done anything but blend in. (more…)
When the Road Ends…
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo
Picture yourself on a bike riding along a beach. Nice image, isn’t it?
A typical main street in Lome
Now, swap the bike for a motorcycle fishtailing in the sand and replace the crashing waves with revving engines and honking cars. Add dust in your eyes, the smell of exhaust in your nose, and about 30 degrees of heat and you’ve come close to the daily journey of a loan officer in Lomé, Togo.
I know I’m not the first to blog about the difficult trails a loan officer must travel every day. However, many of the blog posts that have come before have been set in rural areas. Lomé, on the other hand, is the capital city of Togo, and home to over 700,000 people. It is an industrial center, a trade center, a travel center, and pretty much the central city in this small country. (more…)
A Small Fish in a Small Pond
Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social (WAGES). My host MFI for the next 4 months.
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo
As I sat in Charles de Gaulle airport waiting for my flight to Lomé, I had already begun to feel out of place. My hair was carelessly sitting around my shoulders, I was wearing old yoga pants and a new pair of Converse, and I was munching on my mother’s half-squished Christmas cake. I looked around me at the crowd gathering to board the plane. Everyone was impeccably dressed. Among the women, there was not a single natural hairstyle in sight. Instead, my eyes were met with a wide array of weaves, wigs, and complex braids. They were primarily wearing dresses or skirts with stylish high heel shoes. The men were almost all wearing nicely pressed collared shirts, dress pants, and shiny dress shoes. The men greeted each other with a hand shake and a quick finger snap, and they all spoke in such quick French, I could hardly understand them. I suddenly felt very small.
Togo is an extremely small country with an area of just under 57,000 sq km. Despite its tiny size, Togo is home to 5.1 million people who speak 4 different languages, belong to 3 different religions and variety of ethnic backgrounds. The streets are packed with people selling cell phones, bags of water, cosmetics, and fruit. Motorcycles and cars compete for spots on the road and the honking never stops. Men “psssst” at women and cell phones ring endlessly. It may be a small pond, but it’s definitely an intimidating one.
As I sat in the terminal eating my cake, my insecurity was interrupted with a “Bon Appétit!” I looked up to see a kind-looking man with a smile stretched across his face. Even from that small gesture, I suddenly felt more at ease. (more…)
On the Road
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
“Not Real Men…”
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.”
(more…)
Tuning Out and Coming To…in a Chicken Coop
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).
How I Got Here
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.
Kiva Lenders Have Needs, Too
By Abby Gray, KF6 Togo and KF7 Senegal
Jacques, WAGES' Kiva Coordinator, and a colleague taking a boat to visit a Kiva client in a rural area.
Meet Jacques. He’s the Kiva Coordinator at WAGES, a microfinance institution (MFI) based in Togo, West Africa. Every day, a loan officer hand-delivers a stack of borrower information forms and a USB chip full of photos. Jacques has trained the officers how to fill out the forms, use digital cameras, and get borrowers to smile and display their merchandise proudly for pictures.
Jacques formats the pictures, writes the information into paragraphs, and uploads everything to Kiva’s website. Then, during the loan cycle, he reports repayments manually and visits borrowers to collect a progress update and take yet another picture.
The work is inefficient, tedious, and time-consuming.
But it’s worth it. (more…)
Power to the People
By Abby Gray, KF6 Togo and KF7 Senegal
How a Kiva Fellow Alumna’s non-profit organization, SunPower Afrique, is shedding light on MFIs in West Africa
“Beep,” complained my laptop, unhappy about its sudden switch to battery power. The fan above me whirred gently to a stop, no longer drying the beads of sweat incessantly forming on my forehead. “Page can not be displayed,” grumbled Firefox. My internet connection was gone, along with any hope I had of uploading my stack of borrower profiles to the Kiva website.
I walked out into the hallway and found the employees of my Senegalese microfinance institution slowly leaking out of their offices as well. We pulled up chairs in a circle, sat down, and prepared to sweatily twiddle our thumbs until the power gods had mercy on us, whether in ten minutes or ten hours.
An employee at FECECAV, a Togolese MFI, tracking loan repayments by hand. Many of FECECAV's branches operate without electicity.
Power cuts are a regular occurrence in West Africa, as in most parts of the developing world. Production and distribution of electricity are unable to meet demand, causing frequent rolling blackouts and interrupted service. For MFIs (and many other businesses), this means countless manpower hours lost, high overhead costs, low employee morale, a short shelf-life for office equipment and other low efficiencies in daily operations. These consequences are even more debilitating for MFIs who work with Kiva – the Kiva partnership depends on technology and internet connectivity to successfully fund loans for enterprising clients. Gasoline-powered generators, the obvious alternative, represent a significant up-front investment and are extremely costly to run and maintain.
So, what can be done to provide MFIs with a reliable source of power??
Enter Kira Costanza, the courageous Kiva Fellow Alumna, galloping in on her trusty steed named Solar Power!
Microfinance through New-York-Colored Glasses
By Abby Gray, KF6/7, Togo & Senegal (now in New York)
In Dakar, this ad provoked vandals to rebel against the culturally inappropriate image. In New York, it wouldn't get a second glance.
If you have to deal with culture shock after 8 months of living in West Africa, New York is one of the most dramatic places to do it. On one hand, the vibrancy and energy of pedestrian-filled, trafficky New York streets isn’t all that different from the dusty “rues” of Dakar. Colorful fruit carts still grace the sidewalks, and overhearing conversations in foreign languages is a daily occurrence. On the other hand, skyscrapers and giant billboards of half-naked models are everywhere, as are exorbitant price tags on everything from purses to sushi dinners.
Having completed my official Kiva duties, I am now doing research at the Financial Access Initiative (FAI), a microfinance think-tank of sorts. It’s a consortium of researchers from NYU, Harvard, Yale, and Innovations for Poverty Action, focused on expanding access to quality financial services for low-income individuals. (more…)
Signing Off from Senegal
My memories of the last eight months away from home are a jumbled mass of color, freedom, fear, patience, frustration, and energy – raw, shifting memories that have not yet arranged themselves into neat, packageable stories that I can pull from the shelf at parties when I get home.
Watching Obama's Inauguration Speech on the Togolese Roadside
I have tested my sense of self against new backgrounds, ripped away the familiar context of home to hold my idea of “Abby” up to bright new lights. I have sometimes been ashamed of my reactions to new stimuli, and sometimes proud. Catching myself swearing under my breath at street children who asked a little too aggressively for money was not my finest moment; insisting that the Kiva Coordinator not fudge the dates to make loans eligible for Kiva’s website redeemed me.
I have learned about how microfinance operates on a day-to-day basis and about the difficulty of managing work and relationships across distances and cultures. Telling an MFI employee she did not have the IT competency necessary to be the Kiva Coordinator and watching her eyes tear up was my first real introduction to the uncomfortable realities of managing people. These challenges of human nature, of judgment, failure and success, cross all cultural boundaries.
Sunset Behind a Baobab, the National Symbol of Senegal
I have changed in many ways. After struggling for months with my pocket French dictionary, and then, this morning, listening to myself rattle off yet another training in French on sending journal updates to Kiva lenders, I felt like I had tangible proof of how I’ve grown since September. Other ways I’ve grown are less easy to put a finger on, and most will continue to be elusive for many months to come.
Le Colonel
Three years ago, the streets I drive on today in downtown Lomé were ablaze with burning tires and barricades, as civilians protested the contested results of the presidential election. Gnassingbé Eyadéma, the longest ruling leader in Africa (second in the world only to Fidel Castro) had died on February 5, 2005. Two months later, an election pronounced his son, Faure Gnassingbé, the winner, defeating an opposition coalition of six parties.
More than 100 people were wounded in the violence after Faure Gnassingbé was declared the victor of Togo's presidential elections in 2005. (Photo: NYT)
Though the elections were monitored by an outside organization and proclaimed legitimate, some “abnormalities” were cited. According to the New York Times: “In one discrepancy, in the northern prefecture of Kozah, 218,786 people were shown to have voted for Mr. Gnassingbé. Government statistics show the entire population of Kozah as being 156,000.”
A 6-year-old boy killed by stray bullets as the militia raided houses, looking for opposition supporters. (Photo: NYT)
Protesters were shot by the military, innocent bystanders were caught in the crossfire, and nothing ever changed with the election results.
Now, almost four years later, aside from the occasional garbage fire and petty crime, the streets are generally peaceful. The evidence of the period of human rights violations has been reduced to the occasional passing remark, and international sanctions have recently been lifted.
Due to my living situation, however, I personally have a constant, subtle, and morally unsettling reminder of the atrocities.
Before coming to Togo, I met a nice Togolese guy who was volunteering at a soup kitchen with me in New York. We became friends, and when I found out that Kiva was sending me to Togo, he offered to let me stay with his family in Lomé.
I didn’t know that living with his family would make my time in Togo the most rewarding, comfortable and fulfilling travel experience I’ve ever had.
I also didn’t know that his father was the head of the branch of the Togolese military that protects President Gnassingbé.
This is the same President Gnassingbé who is accused of rigging elections, brazenly disrespecting the sanctity of democracy, and commanding a military that allegedly murdered opposition supporters in their own homes in one of the worst human rights violations in modern West African history.
“Le Colonel,” as everyone calls my homestay father, is a strong, serious and often stern man, yet it is clear that the universal respect that the entire household (and neighborhood) has for him goes deeper than his rank. He is strict with his two teenage daughters – they are never allowed to go out, except to go to school or buy something in the neighborhood – but he has explained to me that it is because he wants them to finish their education successfully, without distractions.
His niece, Brenam, lives with us as well. She is 24 (like me), and she has a one-year-old daughter that is the cutest child alive. When she found out she was pregnant two years ago, her father kicked her out of the house. With nowhere to go, she turned to the Colonel, and he took her in. He now pays for Brenam’s continuing education – she is studying finance – for her food and shelter, and for a maid to look after her daughter. Without the Colonel’s generosity, what could Brenam have done as a single mother with no family support? I shudder to think.
It was not easy to decide to write this blog post. With everything the Colonel has done for me, and all the time I have spent in his household, I must admit that I feel an allegiance to him and his family. I love them, and I feel as though I am betraying them in some way by writing this post. However, in the end I have more of an allegiance to the truth, to the dissemination of information and cross-cultural understanding, than to most other things.
I don’t know what the Colonel’s role was in the violence of 2005. Perhaps he was a leading perpetrator, confidently and without hesitation ordering the deaths of innocent people in the same way he orders another bottle of water from the boys who work at the house. But maybe he was a rock that kept the waves of violence from washing away the entire country. Maybe he felt the same compassion for the victims of the clash, the children killed by stray bullets, as he did for his young pregnant niece, and maybe he did his best to protect them amidst extreme political pressure and military commitments.
In the spirit of the American justice system, I ask you all please to reserve judgment on the Colonel. The generosity he has shown me and the way his family has welcomed me as one of their own has allowed me to focus my energy and attention on my work for Kiva, knowing that I have a safe, comfortable place to come home to at night.
I will never know what kind of man the Colonel was in the tragedy of 2005. All I can know for sure is that he loves his daughters enough to be strict with them, he loved Brenam enough to take her in when she had nothing, and he was kind enough to share his home and his family with a helpless American stranger. And for those things he has earned my respect and gratitude.
***
I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6/7, serving three months in Lome, Togo, and three more in Thies, Senegal. Please check out my current MFI, IMCEC, and see all of their fundraising loans here!
The Power of Music: Crossing the Border into Togo
Abozu with Abby and I of "Why I can't give Abozu my Camera" blog fame
I spent the weekend in Lomé, Togo with Abby Gray, another Kiva fellow at WAGES. Wages is basically like Alide in a few years: larger, and with a deeper relationship with Kiva. To get to Togo, I had to cross the border from Benin to Togo alone, which was just a little bit more harrowing and stressful than was necessary between two small, relatively stable countries. I decided to go to Togo on the spur of the moment. Spontaneity: definitely a new quality for me. At 2 pm on Friday I left the office. I should have left at 12:30. In Africa, one should absolutely get to their destination before dark. It is not just convenience, but safety. Abby once crossed the border into Togo from Ghana at night. Chaos ensued at the border after a man was hit by a truck. They put him in the car to drive him to the hospital, then returned almost immediately as he was already dead. There are no traffic laws or lanes: huge trucks, smaller cars and taxis, motos, darting sellers plying their wares, and border crossers all vie for command of the center of the road. The result is anarchical.
There were a few options for crossing the border from Benin to Togo: a bus, a bush taxi, or a private car. Ideally I would know someone with a private car going to Togo that weekend, but as I did not, this left the bus or bush taxi. A taxi seemed safer because there are less people, and buses are known for a high rate of theft.
I found the bush taxis waiting by the Jericho Post office. Right away they tried to charge me over twice the usual price, but I bargained it down. I sat in the car while the brother of the driver stuck his head through the permanently open window and harassed me. None of the men, including the driver, paid any attention. He wouldn’t leave me alone, so I finally got out of the vehicle and contemplated going home completely. Not exactly an auspicious start, but I decided to stick it out. I was sitting in the front seat and the driver asked me if I wanted to “pris 2 places” or pay for two seats. I didn’t want to, until I found out that full capacity in a bush taxi is not 4 passengers, but 7 passengers: 5 in back and 2 in front. I paid for 2 seats (about $8).
There weren’t any other women, and I felt very nervous. The drive was slow and I could feel every bone in my body vibrating with apprehension and a little bit of fear. Was this smart? Getting into a car with five men alone? Near the edge of Cotonou, we picked up another passenger: a woman. I was relieved. There were now 5 in the back, and I could feel the guy behind me stick his elbow into the back of my seat to try to get some traction as we were thrown around on the potholed roads. The heat and dust were intense. I was soaked in sweat from the ride and my face was covered with a thin layer of red dust.
About two hours later we bumped into the actual border. Everyone else got out, and the driver kicked me out of the car because none of the other passengers were going on to Togo. He found me another taxi driver headed to Togo. I appeared to be the only passenger, but he didn’t want me to get out until we got up to the actual border. I suppose he thought I had no idea where I was going (which was true) and also didn’t want to lose a passenger. He kept asking me if I was married (I lied and said yes) and whether or not I would go out with him. Then, he tried to drive through the actual border when he should have let me walk and get passport checked. As soon as he drove through, the patrol became very angry and opened my car door and pulled me out of the car, not roughly, but just forcefully enough that my Beninois cell phone fell out of my hand and I lost it.
The driver accompanied me to passport control. I realized I didn’t know the exact address, just the neighborhood, of the place I was living at in Cotonou, or the area I was going to in Lome. Addresses in Africa are much more fluid. Finally the driver supplied, “Grand Marche?” or big market, which is the main market of Lome. The customs officer wrote it down on the form.
The driver left and I went to see the visa officer. The visa officer did what almost every Beninois man, married or single, does to a foreign girl: relentlessly hits on them. As he asked me pertinent questions, he kept up a constant commentary of impertinent questions – “You don’t know where you’re staying? At my place?” and “I will marry you even if you have two sisters to take care of.” I couldn’t believe the border officer was hitting on me now, wasn’t he supposed to be a law officer? I was so tired and having trouble understanding him. I felt like crying, but realizing it wouldn’t help, I instead looked gamely at him and said, “I have two sisters, and they’re very expensive.”
I walked across the no man’s land, searching for the driver, but couldn’t find him for a good 10 minutes. When I finally found him, he led me to a dirt road behind a few houses. Were we actually going to a car? I was starting to feel a little irrational. Several men followed us, all pointing at me and saying “yavo.” By this time I had just realized my phone was gone, but it was on the other side of the border. Everyone was staring at me. The “flee” instincts in my brain were already engaged, but where to? Not to the visa officer. I told the driver I would pay for two seats.
“But every place is already taken!” he announced, sounding scandalized.
Five men got in the back. The driver, myself, and a younger guy climbed into the front. The car was dead silent, and I could feel the tension radiating up my legs. The guy next to me and I were ignoring each other although we were ear to ear. As the driver downshifted into my left thigh, I wondered if the stupidest thing I had ever done, or the most interesting.
Then the driver put a tape in. The music played in tinny spurts. I could make out English, French, and what was probably Mina. Everyone began to sing along to the reggae tunes, some of it Nigerian English. The music segued into love songs. The men sang along softly in Mina, and a nice breeze came through the window as we sped through southeastern Togo. I began to notice the graceful coconut trees on either side of the road, the actual cleanliness of the environment, a pretty lake. It sort of looked like the Caribbean, and as everyone continued to sing, I began to relax, or as much as I could in my current cramped position. I smiled goofily to myself, laughing at my previous fears. Definitely the most interesting thing I have ever done.
The best moment during my weekend involved another round of music. Abby’s homestay brothers decided to teach Abby and I how to dance Togolese-style. They took Abby’s computer outside. One of the young men began to swirl his arms and jump around like a duck. “The Chinese duck dance!” he trumpeted. They put on Togolese music: hip hop, tribal tunes, reggae. We tried to move like they did. I recognized a song from the taxi ride. We hopped around on one foot, and we taught them the slap-hands game and shadowboxed. We sweated a lot, and finally formed a four-person dance train and jumped up and down the hallway of the outdoor courtyard, singing and panting as we tried to keep up with the beat. The rest of the family stared at us from below as they washed the house and we danced up and down the stairs like a bunch of hooligans. There it was again: the power of music.
Sarah Lawson is a KF6 Kiva Fellow in Cotonou, Benin with the NGO Alide.
One of our dance teachers
Finding a Gray Area
By now, the living room with blue velvet couches really does feel like home. My Togolese family members who welcome me when I walk in the house are happy to see me. They call me ta-ta, then we slap hands with a finger-snap at the end (the Togolese really love that snap – I wonder who did it first, us or them?). The adorable 1-year old, Leona, runs up with her nose crinkled in a big smile, no longer wide-eyed in fear as she was when she first saw this bizarre-looking stranger. Then I drop off my bag in my room and they either come and visit me or I go hang out with them in the kitchen.
Meheza, my homestay sister, in the kitchen with a crab
By now, I’m used to the food, I’m used to the heat, I’m used to the dusty streets and the backs of motorcycles, to cars breaking down, and police with white gloves directing masses of lawless traffic. I’m used to children staring and waving, I’m used to the loud R Kelly music blasted all over the place, to beautiful sunsets, endless summer, and the sound of palm trees blowing outside my window. I’m also used to people asking me to buy things at stoplights; I’m used to asking people to repeat every single thing they say, I’m used to the smell of urine and rotting something-or-other. Life in Togo is no longer a huge chaotic spectacle for me – it has become the quotidian reality, it has become what is normal.
(Well, relatively normal. The other day a huge crowd was gathered around a lake because someone had been murdered and thrown in the water to give the murderers good fortune in the New Year. No matter how long I live in Africa, that will not be normal.)
One of the hardest things for me to get used to was having white friends here. For the first two weeks, I was “alone.” I saw only Togolese people, ate only Togolese food, spoke only French. Then, one Sunday, I met up with some friends that the last Kiva Fellow put me in touch with. My driver dropped me off at their house, and suddenly I was with three white people, speaking English. One good thing is that you make fast friends when you’re in a place like Togo, because there are an extremely limited number of white people. We’re all essentially automatic friends (whether we like it or not…it’s a very small little world here).
So, off we went in a junky jeep to the beach. We walked into a resort kind of place – nothing fancy by normal standards, but just to see more than 2 white people in one place was literally shocking to me. We got a little cabana with lounge chairs and sat down with some beers. I was very conflicted. I was so relieved to be comfortable in that way again, but I also felt like a traitor to the reality of Togo, pampering myself in this elite beach spot full of people who probably each have more money than like fifty average Togolese people combined. We ate lobster and swam, and it felt wonderful, but also like cheating.
I’ve had many days and nights like that since then – house parties, poolside wine afternoons, nights dancing and drinking like we’re in New York. It’s hard to explain how it makes me feel, but I’ll try. I think humans can cope with a lot of things that are very difficult – being in wars, climbing mountains, raising children as a single parent, whatever the challenge may be. I do think it’s important to take breaks when doing these things, but sometimes taking a break makes the challenge more difficult. You’re climbing up the mountain, eyes on the goal, in the zone, coping with what comes, and all of a sudden someone offers you an ice cream cone and a nap in the shade. After your treat, you wake up and remember where you are – in the middle of climbing a mountain. Crap. Gotta finish climbing this mountain.
Beers and spaghetti with coworkers
Make sense? That was what it was like every single time I came back from hanging out with white people and was plunged back into the French-speaking, yam-paste-eating Togolese world. And it was equally difficult to adjust when I was plunged into the white person world. For example, one night I went out with four Togolese coworkers to a bar after work. We had a hilarious time – sat outside and drank big beers, ate big plates of spaghetti, told big jokes in French and had big laughs. They went home, dropping me off at a wine and cheese bar with white friends. As I walked inside the quiet, expensive wine and cheese bar, I thought, with a little spike of anger, “Why the hell are we pretending we aren’t in Togo? Why are we pretending this wine and cheese and soft music crap is real life??” My friends started making fun of the stupid things that uneducated Togolese people believe. These friends love Togolese people, but they’ve been here long enough to get jaded. So anyway, I was annoyed, but kept my mouth shut and drank wine, and gradually slipped into white-people-mentality, and then I was completely fine.
Leona, the Cutest Child in Togo
Thankfully, I think I’ve found my rhythm here, and come to love both the white people and the Togolese people that I am so lucky to have around me. When I leave the house to see my ex-pat friends, I’m excited to see them. When I get home, I am proud to live with such a wonderful Togolese family and to feel so comfortable with them. It is incredible how much this house and the people in it feel like home.
I got to bring some of my Togolese friends to a party at an American friend’s house last weekend. They had an awesome time, and as we danced and drank and laughed, the black and white merged to form a big, happy, multi-colored, multi-cultural party, and I felt like a wall within me had been painlessly dissolved.
Both sides of my life here in Togo – the black side and the white side – bring out different aspects of me, present different challenges and different opportunities to learn and grow. I think there is at least one time every single day here that I am struck by how incredibly blessed I am – to be here, to be this happy, to have food, clothing, comfort, and to be surrounded by so many wonderful people, both white and black. When this feeling comes, I often look to the clear, blue, palm tree-lined sky and think about the big earth that it surrounds, the places I’ve been and the people I love, and the miracle of everything.
What a wonderful world!
***
I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6, serving three months in Lome, Togo, and three more in Dakar, Senegal. Please check out my current MFI, WAGES, and see all of their fundraising loans here!
How Your Loan Affects an MFI: Behind the Scenes of Microfinance
Most people reading this blog already agree that microfinance is a promising way to help people work their way out of poverty in a dignified manner. I agree, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here in Togo. It is heartwarming, and we should be inspired by it. But we should also be critical of it, to keep ourselves honest and to make sure it’s really having the effect we hope it is. In this post I will outline one of the biggest challenges facing the world of microfinance – becoming sustainable despite high administrative costs – and how Kiva and the Kiva Fellows contribute to a solution.
It is very difficult for Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to target the poorest of the poor while maintaining some level of sustainability, or cost-effectiveness. There are many variables that affect the sustainability equation and make lending to the poor particularly difficult – increased risk, access to lending capital, regulatory environments, and administrative costs, to name a few. Administrative costs are arguably the biggest obstacle to the microfinance movement. The poorer a client is, the smaller their loan will be, and the smaller the potential interest revenue will be for the MFI. However, no matter what the size of the loan is, an MFI employee needs to spend a certain amount of time meeting the borrower, visiting their business, checking their legitimacy, and processing paperwork – and, as we all know, time is money. So, the smaller the loan, the smaller the profit margin for the MFI. Kind of obvious, but crucial to understanding the workings of an MFI (and crucial to understanding why microfinance interest rates often range from 15%-80%).
So, where does Kiva fit in? Through the generous contributions of its lenders, Kiva provides interest-free capital to partner MFIs, thus increasing their ability to target poor clients. In my opinion, and the opinion of many experts in the field, the eventual goal of MFIs should be to end any dependence on this type of subsidized funding by covering all costs with interest income, because only sustainable, independent MFIs can provide the poor with permanent access to financial services. However, as Kiva’s partners work toward this goal, the interest-free capital provided by Kiva lenders serves as a vital stepping-stone toward financial self-sufficiency.
Unfortunately, there is an additional administrative expense associated with the Kiva relationship. As you might imagine, it takes a good deal of time to gather all the necessary information for new business posts and journal updates, then to send the information to the Kiva site and report repayments. This process needs to be as streamlined as possible to maximize the MFI’s returns on their – and your – investment.
Enter the Kiva Fellow.
A Kiva Fellow, entering. This could be any of us, in our natural habitat (on the back of a loan officer's moto).
When a Fellow arrives on the job, there are a few specific things he is supposed to accomplish during his 1 to 3 month stint at a partner MFI. These things are:
- Verify borrower data. The most basic and essential function of a Kiva Fellow is to ensure that an MFI and its borrowers exist, and that the loans posted on the Kiva site are accurate in every way.
- Write journal updates and new business descriptions. Kiva Fellows help with the general workload of managing the Kiva relationship.
- Blog and spread the word. Kiva Fellows are meeting lenders and getting their hands dirty, and are able to share a more visceral experience of what it means to be Kiva.
- Help with process improvements and templates. Though this step is often less visible, it is the only “sustainable” mark a Kiva Fellow can leave on an MFI, and ties directly into the cost-effectiveness equation.
At our week-long training at the Kiva headquarters in San Francisco, we become experts on the Kiva/partner process. Upon arrival in-country, we learn how our MFI carries out this process, and we look for opportunities to make things more efficient. Sometimes we might train loan officers on how to take better photos of their borrowers, thus improving the quality of new business posts and hopefully getting their loans funded faster. Or, we might see that the work is being split between 10 different field offices in an inefficient way, and help our MFI centralize the process. I’m currently trying to convince my MFI to implement a sort of mini-commission plan for journal updates per loan officer, since they’re having trouble meeting their deadlines right now (in my previous life, I was a compensation consultant). These are just examples of the types of changes a Fellow might try to implement at their MFI. It can be a frustrating process, and one that takes a lot of initiative, but in my opinion it represents a Kiva Fellow’s greatest opportunity to truly instigate progress.
Microfinance is more than just promising – it already has changed the lives of many poor people. But, there is still a great need for innovation to improve the efficiency of the sector and its ability to empower the poor, and I am humbled by the opportunity to contribute to that goal.
***
I apologize that this post has been quite dry – no heartwarming stories or funny anecdotes – but I think understanding this subject is crucial to understanding how Kiva, the MFIs, the Kiva Fellows, and YOU, the Kiva lenders, contribute to the success of small business owners in a sustainable way.
I’m going to get that word tattooed on my forehead.
In case anyone made it all the way through, here’s a funny anecdote and a picture to boot.
I went into the kitchen the other day and opened the freezer to look for a bottle of water. Instead, I found a wild animal, jumping out at my face! Well, it didn’t really jump, because it was frozen (since it was in the freezer). But it was a wild animal, and it was gross. I ran and got Abozu (see my previous post – Why I Can’t Give Abozu My Camera) to ask him what it was. “Un renard.” He said. I ran to my French-English dictionary (I was doing a lot of running – it’s not every day you get attacked by a mysterious frozen animal) and found that “renard” means “fox.” If you take a look at this picture, you’ll understand why I was a bit skeptical:
"Fox"
Hm…that doesn’t look like a fox.
The next night, as my homestay sisters were roasting the ENTIRE ANIMAL over the fire, I asked again what it was, and they explained that it was an “agouti.” I ran (again) for my dictionary, but “agouti” is apparently not important enough to be included in the 300,000 words in my dictionary. Thanks to Wikipedia, I found out the next day that an agouti (same word in English!) is a relative of the guinea pig, and sometimes called a “bush rat.” How delicious-sounding!
I ate it that night, and it wasn’t bad – kind of like a weird mix between beef and chicken, if you can imagine that. (But it wasn’t that good, either.)
At least I’ve managed to avoid trying dog meat so far. (Yes, I’ve been offered.)
***
I am a Kiva Fellow, Class of KF6, serving three months in Lome, Togo, and three more in Dakar, Senegal. Please check out my current MFI, WAGES, and see all of their fundraising loans here!
Why I Can’t Give Abozu My Camera
This is my first post from the field, and, unfortunately, I’m not writing to share an inspiring microfinance success story or even a heartwarming cross-cultural anecdote, as I was hoping I would be. I am writing to tell about a conversation that threw an uncomfortably bright spotlight directly on the basis of my being here in Africa, and the basis of Kiva’s mission itself.
I am stationed in Togo, a tiny West African country that ranks the 13th poorest in the world, with a GDP per capita in 2007 of $167. I am living with a Togolese family, and there is a 26-year old guy named Abozu who works in the house, cleaning, bringing me my breakfast, and doing lots of other things. He works very hard and we’ve gotten to know each other over the week that I’ve been here.
We were sitting on a bench outside the house this afternoon, and I had my camera with me. Here’s a picture of the two of us:
So, after showing him how to use the camera, he asked me if I was going to buy him one when I got back to the United States. I said no, it’s too expensive. What followed was a long discussion about the difference between charity and microfinance, and why I am not willing to give him things that could help his life even though I say I want to help people in poor countries. He said, “Isn’t Togo a poor country?”
I said yes, then tried to explain why I don’t think charity is the real solution to poverty. I said, “First of all, if I give someone money, he will spend it, and nothing in his life will really change.” (Keep in mind, this entire conversation is in French, which I am nowhere near fluent in.)
He replied, “But if you give me this camera, I can take pictures of people and sell them their pictures, and make money.”
He had a point – this was, after all, one of the first microfinance projects – Muhammed Yunus gave some Bangladeshi villagers a cell phone, and they charged their neighbors money to use it. So I said, “Yes, that would work. But you would have to repay me for the camera once you earned enough money.”
He asked me how much the camera cost, and I told him $200. He said, “What if I paid you $100?”
Aggh. At this point I was a bit frustrated by the bluntness of his questions, but we were getting to the core of the debate that has been raging in my heart and mind for years. I said, “No, $100 wouldn’t be enough, because it has to be based on capitalism, not charity.” I tried other arguments, too – that I want to help create change on a grander scale, not just for him; that I want poor people to be independent, not reliant on people who have more money; that I could give away all my money and the world wouldn’t really be much different; that if I give him my computer, I’ll have nothing to give to the Senegalese people during my next Kiva Fellowship; but, mostly, that capitalism is the world, and the only foundation on which one can erect any type of change that won’t blow away in the wind. (All in French…not easy.)
I suppose it’s not surprising that he persisted. He pointed out that the Togolese family I’m living with has given me lots of things – housing, food, a cell phone, transportation. It’s true. I tried to respond that they gave me those things because I’m here trying to help their country. But it made me think – even though I’m not giving money to people directly, I’ve spent a ton of money to come here, and I’ve also given up a lot in my life: my very well-paying job in New York, my apartment, my comfort, my family and friends. All of that is charity…how is it different from me giving Abozu my camera?
To be honest, I’m not totally sure. I feel deep down that it is different – I’m trying to plant the seeds of something that I hope will grow to be bigger than anything I could accomplish by giving away my money. It all comes back to our favorite word, sustainability. But try explaining that to a 26-year old Togolese man who makes $700 a year and just wants to be able to provide for the family that he doesn’t have yet – and in French.
So, he kept pressing, asking what I was going to give him as a souvenir when I left – a motorbike? A computer? A bicycle? “Why can’t you give me a loan?” he asked.
“You don’t have a business,” I said.
“What if I put a little table out and start selling things, like them?” he asked, pointing at two women across the street.
“I’m not a microfinance organization,” I tried to explain. “I don’t have everything that’s necessary to give a loan – but that’s why I’m working with an organization that does.”
I started to get kind of upset, but he didn’t notice. If only he understood that the question he kept asking me, face-to-face, over and over, was a question that has made me cry many times, that keeps me up at night, and that I am hoping to God that microfinance can at least attempt to answer:
“How can you help me?”
***
Post-note: I left the conversation kind of abruptly, because I thought I might start to cry. While I was writing this in my room, Abozu came and found me and apologized, said that it was just curiosity that made him ask all those questions. Then I really did start crying, and I asked him if he understood the difference between charity and microfinance. He said that he understands now…but, then again, guys will say anything to make a girl stop crying.
Then he promised to make me an omelet for breakfast tomorrow.
Is that charity?
I guess, according to my philosophy, I owe him an omelet. Plus interest.
