Posts filed under 'Americas'
Zooming in and out on microfinance
By Thomas Gold, KF9 Dominican Republic
For English version, click on “(more…)”, then scroll down.
Après un mois passé dans la succursale de Samanà de mon institution de microfinance Esperanza, me voici, de retour à la capitale Santo Domingo, après une journée entière de voyage. Samanà ne se trouve qu’à un peu moins de 250km de la capitale, mais le manque d’infrastructures routières et le fait qu’une seule compagnie œuvre dans le transport de voyageurs, rendent un voyage des plus banals dans le monde occidental en une épopée d’une journée en République Dominicaine.
Pas facile de se remettre dans le bain du travail de gestion et d’administration, réalisé ici au siège d’Esperanza après avoir en quelque sorte tiré le rideau et été au cœur de l’action, littéralement les manches retroussées et mains dans la boue (la saison des pluies commence à s’annoncer dans les Caraïbes).
Add comment 20 November 2009
‘Tis Someone’s Season To Be Jolly
By Victoria Kabak, KF9, Nicaragua
As the holiday season fast approaches, I imagine many of you back at home are starting to make lists (checking them twice?) of presents or of people you’re going to buy presents for or even of presents you hope someone else gets you. It’s no secret that businesses in the United States – and in other countries – experience a significant uptick in sales in December.
But I’ve learned in the past few weeks that this phenomenon isn’t unique to the United States or to developed countries. Many of the borrowers I’ve met with recently have expressed to me that, even if business is a little slow right now, they’re optimistic for December since it tends to be their best month every year.
This got me thinking about seasonal changes and how different times of the year can impact the businesses of Kiva borrowers in distinct patterns. There are some obvious ways in which seasons and time impact their livelihoods. In addition to Christmastime, for example, those who work in agriculture are affected by when the harvest times for their crops are. Here in Nicaragua, working with Kiva’s field partner AFODENIC, I’ve recently learned from clients that tomato season ended just a few weeks ago and pitahaya season is coming to a close shortly.
However, there are several less obvious impacts that turning the calendar page has on microentrepreneurs’ work. These types of consequences – which are, of course, out of clients’ control – are not ones that had occurred to me before coming to Nicaragua. To share with you what I’ve learned, here are a couple of ways in which the time of year can have either a negative or a positive effect on borrowers and their businesses. (more…)
2 comments 19 November 2009
Coffee: A Love Affair
By Karl Baumgarten, KF9, Costa Rica
4,000,0000 cups per year. 10,958,904 cups per day. 42 beans per cup. 460,273,968 beans per day. And they all have to be picked one by one by one. My fingers hurt just thinking about it. Every cup we make is the culmination of an incredibly involved process that we all should appreciate.
Below is a video of the coffee process at AsoProLa, an organic coffee company which processes coffee from small scale farmers in Altamira, many of whom have micro-loans with FUDECOSUR
7 comments 18 November 2009
Connecting through prayers
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
I’m Jewish, but, before every meal at Manuel’s hous,e we say a prayer thanking Jesus Christ. Manuel is the director of FAPE, the MFI where I work in Guatemala, and I have been staying with him since arriving. He is also a pastor at a B
aptist church. So I was surprised Thursday night when lifting my head, just after our prayer, I spotted a menorah on display. What is this doing here?
Manual caught my gaze. “Oh, a friend gave me that. Do you know what it used for?” he queried.
I attempted to impart what knowledge I had of the menorah: It was a miracle that the oil burned for eight days, but there are nine candles. Channukah was the festival of lights. He listened intently on what I had to say completely fascinated with my every word. His genuine interest in my religion, in hearing my thoughts, was not something I was accustomed to back home. How often do we hang onto every word of someone we barely know?
Shortly thereafter, he shared with me what my name meant to him. (more…)
2 comments 18 November 2009
Kiva Update from PBS Frontline World
Suzy Marinkovich, KF8 Peru & KF9 Bolivia
One of the most exciting things about being a Kiva Fellow is the opportunity to tell the untold stories of those so remote, so rural, and so ignored by the media. When there are six billion humans sprinkled across the world, the media has the unenviable task of (more…)
1 comment 18 November 2009
El Mercado Central: A Day Visiting Kiva Clients
By Meg Gray, KF9 Nicaragua
How to describe one of the markets in Nicaragua? It’s hard and there really isn’t anything like them in the States to compare to. When I visited the Mercado Central in Chinandega, a small city that serves as a supply hub for the farms surrounding it, the heat was stifling. A few aisles are well lit with a sprinkling of fluorescent bulbs, while others are dark and cave-like. At the same time, the whole building is bursting with colors, smells, and noises. Every aisle is packed with people and very few aisles are wide enough for more than two people to walk side by side. And did I mention it’s hot. Chinandega has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the hottest places in Nicaragua. My guidebook accurately describes it as feeling like a rotisserie chicken the moment you leave the AC behind. In the end I decided, it was too hard to describe my day visiting clients in the Mercado Central. I decided it would be more fun and easier to try to figure out my video editing software and give you guys a taste of what my day was like. So here goes my first attempt at making a video…
Meg Gray is currently a Kiva Fellow in Nicaragua, where she is working with Kiva’s field partner CEPRODEL. Support a loan to a CEPRODEL entrepreneur or introduce a friend to Kiva with a gift certificate.
6 comments 17 November 2009
Funky Cheese
By Zal Bilimoria, KF9, Ecuador
Ecuadorian cheese tastes a bit different if one is not accustomed to eating it. Cheese is not necessarily the most common ingredient in local fare, as the staple for most meals is rice, plantains and beans served with beef, chicken or some other type of meat. However, it’s unmistakeable when you take that first bite of pizza, pasta or ham and cheese sandwich…especially if it hasn’t been refrigerated properly due to the energy crisis sweeping the country.
Mote (Corn) with Egg and Cheese
This is typically the dry season for much of Ecuador, but for the past two years, it has rained just enough to support the energy demands of the country, which hinge on the Paute hydroelectric dam south of Cuenca. Unfortunately, the presidential administration and the energy department decided to forgo plans to build additional hydroelectric installations and bet Ecuador’s future on their belief that rain would come once again for a third year in a row. However, here in Cuenca just 100 miles north of the dam, clear blue skies and record high temperatures suggest that pending rainfall is but a dream. Paute needs to operate at roughly 70% efficiency in order to satisfy domestic demand; at the present time, the most it can muster is 35%.
4 comments 16 November 2009
A welcomed visitor in Guatemala, but just a visitor
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
I am the visitor. I am from Kiva. I am Jeremias. This has been my introduction for my first days in Guatemala.
Tueseday, we went to San Martin. It is a two hour drive from Guatemala City: thankfully it was Marco and not me who was driving so I could observe the scenery as we passed through beautiful rolling hills covered in forests. In the distance we could see small peaks, and each one was covered in trees.
Once we arrived, we were greeted by Bertha Carmelina Tohon, who just finished fundraising on Kiva. She gave 
us a warm welcome and insisted that we have tea before we leave her comedor (eatery). She not shy to share her life story. I quickly learned that her kids attending college, one studying psychology and the other chemistry. I learned that she thought the Guatemalan school system did not teach the children anything practical, and that she has a typing school where kids learn using typewriters. I learned that she was hard working: “There is time to rest when you die,” she said.
But not all of our visits on this day would be this happy. (more…)
5 comments 14 November 2009
Why Me?: A Post about Bolivian Women
By Suzy Marinkovich, KF8 Peru & KF9 Bolivia
Twisted twining vining metal unrhythmic untamed unkempt and in comes the dust sweat and sticking to me tires thumping each rock unsettled plastic bag squeezed empty tossed out the window just a drop of papaya juice leaps back clings to the dirty car door parting from the white stretch of plastic mangling on wire scraps whose posture, never organized (more…)
17 comments 10 November 2009
So, what is a “community bank”?
By Julia Kastner, KF9 Mexico
When Kiva first started, all of its loans were to individuals. Borrower A asked for X dollars and voila! Person A got a Kiva loan. Over time, however, Kiva’s been working with more and more MFIs, and the number of different types of loans and lending models has been increasing.
Watch a meeting of a community bank (a.k.a. UDE):
As Kiva explains:
“In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a group of individuals bound by a group guarantee. Under this arrangement, each member of the group supports one another and is responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults.”
So, how is an UDE different from other group loans? Why is an UDE helpful? And how does it work?
These are the questions I’ve been asking folks here at FRAC for the last two months, and this is what I’ve learned…
4 comments 10 November 2009
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