Posts filed under ‘Guatemala’
Update from the Field: Trash, Delicious Treats + Community Outreach
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Let’s take a moment to vicariously consume baked goods in Colombia, coffee in Nicaragua, tomatoes in Ukraine, and a traditional meal in Nepal. Once you’re sated, you can read about the dismal state of trash collection in Guatemala, the lives of borrowers in Bolivia, what “mobile” savings really means in Indonesia, and how Kiva’s partner MFIs all around the world are providing life-enhancing services and engaging with the community in meaningful ways.
Continue Reading 18 April 2011 at 00:40 Alexis Ditkowsky 4 comments
Guatemala’s Trash Problem and One Pueblo’s Response
Ice cream wrappers, dirty diapers, plastic bags and rotting fruit have a tendency of stewing together into one the most truly foul concoctions known to man. This, unfortunately, is the recipe I find on most patches of green alongside roads and in the cities of Totonicapan, Guatemala. With little government help, what can the people to do stop this?
Continue Reading 15 April 2011 at 10:00 Gustavo Visalli 3 comments
Update from the Field: Social Quirks, Justin Bieber + Lots of Carbs
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
While it may have been a slower “official” news week than usual, I can assure you that the Fellows are keeping busy. One Fellow spent hours searching fruitlessly for borrowers in the jungle, another has been suffering from serious gastrointestinal issues (aren’t you glad he didn’t post about that?), and the rest of us have been plotting something very special for the end of the week. In the meantime, you can catch up on social quirks in Rwanda, transportation in West Timor, the importance of corn in Guatemala, and the latest from Mongolia all while taking a look at photos from South Africa. Enjoy!
Continue Reading 28 March 2011 at 03:58 Alexis Ditkowsky 6 comments
Corn People: A Staple Food and the Key to Human Creation
If there is one common denominator for the rural homes in the Guatemalan highlands it is the cornfield. Sitting adjacent to most homes, the fields can be seen for miles from any high point overlooking a rural populated region. As we approach the end of the dry season, I watch workers routinely till the soil in preparation for the rains that will help sprout this precious crop.
However, the crop is more than just a food source; it is a key component to the creation myth in the Popol Vuh, the collection of mytho-historical narratives surrounding the creation of Quiché Mayan people.
Continue Reading 24 March 2011 at 15:00 Gustavo Visalli 5 comments
Update from the Field: Fun Facts, Field Visits + Back to Basics
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
For many Fellows, this week was about getting back to basics: the borrowers. In between fun facts about Kiva Fellowships, doing database detective work, and reflecting on the internal dynamics of Kiva’s partner microfinance institutions, Fellows found themselves in the field again and again, much to their delight and often to the delight of borrowers. From Latin America to Africa to the Caucasus to Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe, meet Kiva clients, learn about their businesses, and check out all of the great photos.
Continue Reading 21 March 2011 at 01:53 Alexis Ditkowsky 9 comments
Kiva Fellows by the Numbers
By David McNeill (Sierra Leone) and Adam Cohn (Rwanda), with lots of help from the 14th class of Kiva Fellows
It turns out that one thing Kiva Fellows seem to have in common is a love for data. With that, Kiva Fellows David and Adam polled the current fellows in the field on the costs of various necessities and niceties in their current placements. The numbers, which we humbly title the Kiva Fellows Index, give some good insight into the conditions in the far-flung places we now live and work.
Far from home
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Kiva Fellows are in it for the long haul. On average, we’re 5,745 miles away from home, as the crow flies. The fellows who have trucked the farthest, at least by line of sight, are: Adam Cohn, who crossed 8,892 miles from Seattle, WA to Kigali, Rwanda; Caitlin Ross, who also went to Kigali from her home in Burlingame, CA, for a total of 9,417 miles; and the longest haul goes to Lisa Skowron, who flew 9,519 miles from her home in Chicago, IL to Kupang, Indonesia!
Internet
The first prize for the slowest Internet speed goes to Carlos Cruz in Liberia, with a close second and third for Claudine Emeott in Nepal and David McNeill in Sierra Leone. They experience speeds 10-100 times slower than in the US, making them thankful to the Kiva engineers who make Kiva.org one of the quicker websites to load. At these speeds video chatting is impossible, voice is dodgy if possible at all, and emails aren’t even guaranteed to work. Forget about watching videos on YouTube or listening to Internet radio. Having Internet access is quickly becoming almost as important as having electricity or indoor plumbing.
Weather
Many of us are serving in hot parts of the world without the blessing of air conditioning. The unlucky winners in this category are neighbors in West Africa – Carlos Cruz in Liberia and David McNeill in Sierra Leone. They survive high temperatures in the low 90’s (F) and lows that only get down to the upper 70’s or low 80’s (F). Carlos, we hope you’ve got a fan and electricity to run it like David does (most of the time).
On the other side of the spectrum, Amber Barger is struggling to keep warm in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia where it dips down to -9 (F) at night. David would be happy to trade one of his hot sunny beaches for some of Amber’s ice!
Amber trying to stay warm on her unheated camel ride in Mongolia
Housing
Carlos Cruz got the sweetest deal on rent, with free housing courtesy of his host microfinance institution in Liberia. The runner up is Gustavo Visalli in Totonicapan, Guatemala. He pays only $100/month, and that includes electricity, a flush toilet, and all the black beans and eggs he can eat!
Gustavo cooking up his all-you-can eat buffet in his sweet house in Guatemala
Transportation
There are some definite advantages to working in developing countries. Most of us spend less than $1 getting to work each day riding buses, motorcycles, or other modes of public transportation. For David in Sierra Leone, a ride in the back of a car taxi to a town 2.5 hours away only costs $3.50 (there are four people squished in a seat made for three, though). Stephanie Sibal has the sweetest deal on transportation – her host organization in Phnom Penh, Cambodia provides her a car and driver to bring her in to work in the morning.
With the cost of oil on the rise, we did a quick poll of gas prices where we are serving. The highest price is in South Africa at $5/gallon. If you want the cheapest price, you’ll have to drive to Indonesia ($2.15/gallon) or Kyrgyzstan ($2.73/gallon).
Refreshment
For refreshment, Stephanie Sibal is a definite winner – she only has to pay 15 cents for a Coke served in a plastic baggie! The following people have a four-way tie for the cheapest beer at only $1 a bottle: Stephanie Sibal again (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), John Gwillim (Barranquilla, Colombia), Geeta Uhl (Ayacucho, Peru), and John Farmer (Mexico City, Mexico). For coffee, some people like John Farmer have the luxury of a nearby Starbucks in Mexico City, Adam Cohn can drink 100% local coffee at multiple Bourbon locations in Rwanda, while poor Noreen Giga is still searching for a good cup in Lima, Peru.
Stephanie enjoying her Bag-o-Coke in Cambodia
As you can see, some of life’s necessities are more accessible, while others are prohibitive, for those who relocate to the other side of the globe. If you’d like to look at our full spreadsheet of stats, you can see it here.
Have you found places where a Coke is incredibly expensive, or internet is mind-blowingly slow? Let us know in the comments!
Update from the Field: Carnival, Collaboration + Cheese-Making
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
This past week was all about collaboration: Fellows coordinating across continents to profile entrepreneurs and organizations who believe International Women’s Day should be every day and community members coming together to celebrate Carnival in all of its elaborate glory. We learned about public health in Peru, making cheese and cigars in Nicaragua, the impact of climate change in Bolivia, and the challenges faced by a microcredit saleswoman in Guatemala. Life as a Kiva Fellow is busy as always!
Continue Reading 14 March 2011 at 00:45 Alexis Ditkowsky 8 comments
The Microcredit Saleswoman
by Gustavo Visalli, KF14
A loan officer (center) meets with her clients
One key challenge to spreading microcredit in rural Guatemalan communities is actually finding entrepreneurs who are looking for a loan. In the rural highlands borrowers are not exactly surfing Google in their search for a way to expand their businesses. This makes monthly promotions crucial to finding new clients and keeping the Microfinance Institution (MFI) afloat. (It has also proved challenging to keep up with Kiva lenders; at the end of February all loans were fully funded at one point on Kiva!)
Yolanda, a loan officer in one of ASDIRs rural branch offices, let me tag along one day to experience firsthand how challenging this can be.
ASDIR loan officers must rely on word of mouth and make themselves as accessible as possible to prospective borrowers. We rode a microbus (Yolanda is not a fan of riding on motorbikes) for an hour up and down a rough dirt road. Our goal was to reach and meet with previous clients and inquire about any possible new prospects.
We forgot that we were travelling on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday here in Guatemala. This day involves groups of young boys running around throwing rotten eggs and handfuls of flour at teachers, young girls, and apparently, loan officers and Kiva Fellows:
I was initially surprised that Yolanda offered to take me along on one of these promotional visits (I imagined a loan officer knocking on every door in the neighborhood and dishing out the same sales pitch). However, Yolanda had a very casual and respectful approach with her contacts. Watching her interact with members of Las Canasteras Group was like watching old friends catch up after months of absence. This could be why ASDIR has so many repeat borrowers.
Las Canasteras Group has three previous loans with ASDIR. One group member, Doña Loida Isabel, used her portion of the loan to develop her general goods store and chicken raising business. Her previous loan is 100% repaid, and we spoke about the possibility of the group’s next loan and its use.
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Back home in the U.S., door to door salespeople lose their credibility with me the moment they ring my doorbell. If your product is so amazing, why does it require you to travel to my doorstep for me to hear about it? Rural microloans obviously do not apply to this reasoning because of accessibility. An MFI requires loan officers with the drive of a salesperson in order to stay sustainable. This drive combined with an honest approach to new and existing clients is an art which Yolanda has clearly mastered.
ASDIR’s partnership with Kiva makes ASDIR loans even more accessible to the rural community. It’s the hard work in the field at the beginning of the month that keeps new profiles popping up on Kiva.org.
Gustavo is a Kiva Fellow working with Asociación ASDIR in Totonicapán, Guatemala. He forgot about being covered in flour after a few hours and wondered why he was getting so many strange looks and laughs for the rest of the day.
Take 20 seconds to join the Amigos de ASDIR lending team on Kiva today!
Gustavo’s previous posts:
Update from the Field: Man’s Day, Singing Fellows + Learning How to Count
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
The Fellows will be covering International Women’s Day later this week but let’s take a moment to acknowledge its lesser-known cousin in Kyrgyzstan, “Man’s Day”. And while you’re appreciating culture and history in far-off places, take a trip to Peru and West Timor through photos, visit borrowers in Uganda and Rwanda through video, learn a little something about communicating in South Africa, and catch up on the latest from Liberia, Ghana, and Mexico (home to the “Singing Fellow”).
Continue Reading 7 March 2011 at 00:16 Alexis Ditkowsky 7 comments
Knowing and Understanding, Saber y Entender
by Carlos Cruz Montano KF14
One of my local friends came to me one day… “Mr. Montano I need to talk to you”. Later that day he told me he had to send money to his mother and had other expenses but payday which was still a few days away. We agreed on the terms, half with the current month’s pay and the other half with the following month’s pay; both at the end of the month since that’s when he receives his pay. No big deal, I thought.The first paydate came and went – no payment. He had an explanation and reasoning of how we had agreed for him to pay on the 14th of the month – to his credit he did pay back the first half on that day but this simple incident finally made me understand what three directors at different microfinance institutions (MFIs) had been telling me in one way or another, sometimes borrowers simply do not understand the terms of the loan.
Uno de mis amigos llegó un día muy sonriente y me dijo Señor Montano, necesito hablar con usted. Un rato después me explicó que tenía una pequeña emergencia y debía mandar un poco de dinero a su mamá pero todavía faltaban varios días para el fin de mes (que es cuando recibe su sueldo mensual). Después de platicar llegamos a un acuerdo, yo le iba a prestar el dinero; el haría dos pagos en el último día del mes, es cuando recibe su salario. Pasó el último día del mes como si nada, cuando lo volví a ver le pregunte que había pasado. El me salió con una historia que el había acordado pagarme a mitad de mes. Al final si me pagó pero este pequeño incidente finalmente me hizo enteder lo que tres directores de instituciones de microfinanzas (IMFs) me habian comentado: a veces los clientes simplemente no entienden los términos del contrato.
Update from the Field: Videos, Epic Commutes + Going Beyond Microfinance
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Another week, another incredible range of dispatches from around the world. Several Fellows told their stories with video and pictures while others took time to reflect on the state of microfinance as a global industry and in their respective countries. And what would a week in the field be without getting to know a few borrowers? Plus, scroll to the end of the post for pictures you may have missed the first time around.
Continue Reading 28 February 2011 at 00:38 Alexis Ditkowsky 10 comments
The Highland Commute
by Gustavo Visalli, KF14, Guatemala
Commutes are a part of life. In college I lived in a town with more bikes than people, so I had a relaxing bike ride to class every day. Back home in San Francisco I had the pleasure of reading about my World Series Champion Giants on the train to work. Easy transport increases our range. This allows us to access more resources with little effort (even those of us without cars).
Daily travel is not so simple here in Guatemala. It is a significant barrier for many looking for access to resources such as food markets or financial services. To keep microfinance accessible to the rural communities, MFIs like ASDIR must travel to the client for visits and loan interviews. Fellow KF14 member Nila’s breakdown of one MFI expenses show that staff travel expense is second only to staff salaries. That’s a lot of client visits!
Allow me to illustrate the difficulty of car-less travel here in Guatemala by giving a taste of my evening commute:
First is the Sardine Act: the microbus to the main road. At a $0.12 fare, drivers will pack in as many passengers as is illegally allowable. In a 10 seat minivan, I have counted an estimated 22 high school kids and one full sized Gustavo. It is not uncommon for us to spill out onto the top and side steps of the van. On a road full of mostly ignored speed bumps, this makes for a very interesting ride.
Add 22 students and one Gustavo to get the full image.
Next comes the highway shoulder hike, which I briefly mention in my previous post. This is pretty self-explanatory. As you can see, there isn’t much of a shoulder. I have found that pickup trucks in particular are not shy about keeping things uncomfortably close.
After a hike through the nightly market in town, it’s time for the main event:
“El Carnicero” is the final boss. I call it the butcher because I pass the municipal slaughterhouse before facing this monster hill. Elder Guatemalan women seem to be able to conquer this beast on a daily basis without losing too much breath. My sea-level lungs are not quite at that point.
Medium distance travel is a burden for many rural residents in Guatemala. It often takes hours and is rarely as comfortable as a cushioned train seat. This limits many residents to the shops, services, and resources of their surrounding area. Limited resources equals limited development, which is something ASDIR and other social organizations are working to change here.
As for my daily commute: bring on the carnicero. I’ll be back on the train reading about the Giants soon enough.
Gustavo is a Kiva Fellow working with Asociación ASDIR in Nimasac, Guatemala. Check out the brand new ASDIR Lending Team on the Kiva website.
Community Vigilantism Keeps Toto Tranquil
By Gustavo Visalli, KF14, Guatemala
“Esto no es Guate, ni Xela. Aquí las calles son seguras. (This is not like Guatemala City, or even Xela. The streets here are safe).” My wonderful host in the village of Cojxac is reassuring me of the safety of the streets at night. It is my first month as a Kiva Fellow in the region of Totonicapán (aka Toto), Guatemala. I secretly doubt my host’s words as I nod, since the ominous streets outside seem like the perfect place for a good old fashioned mugging. These prejudicial thoughts first came up as my chicken bus screeched into town. I then planned to spend many long nights safe at home re-reading my copy of The Hobbit. Ah, the crazy nightlife of a Kiva Fellow.
However, my host continued to explain that the community has a strong presence in the region. A thief, he recounted, recently stole an old woman’s bag on the main road. Alert neighbors blew their whistles and the thief was quickly apprehended. They shaved his head, displayed him to the town and warned him that he had 12 hours to gather his belongings and leave, never to return.
- Banners reading “Vecinos Organizados Contra la Delincuencia (Neighbors Organized Against Delinquency)” hang across the main road. My first thoughts were that this community had an unusually enthusiastic public concern regarding loan delinquency, but I soon learned otherwise. Delinquency = crime, not loan delinquency, in this case.
A lack of police presence sparked this community vigilantism. Of course, the question arises: How far can or should these community groups take this street justice? Is the victim of vigilantism always guilty of a crime? These are questions beyond the scope of this post. However we look at it, the intensely tight knit community identity fascinates me. This small scale organization has minimized criminal activity in the streets, and this group mentality is widespread throughout the region. Can most of us say the same for the communities in which we live?
Asociación ASDIR, a Kiva field partner in the region, is built upon this cohesion. Rural communal banks of 4-20 members are regular ASDIR borrowers. Utilizing the strength and financial security of cooperating group members, these entrepreneurs join together for loans which support their various developing working projects. Las Mujeres Emprendedoras Santa Ana (The Enterprising Women’s Group of Santa Ana) is a wonderful example.
If a neighborhood can come together to protect one another from criminals, it can certainly develop strong projects which help develop the community as a whole. ASDIR and Kiva help make this happen. With such a strong community identity, working together out of poverty is a goal that Kiva, ASDIR, and Kiva lenders are happy to support (want to lend?). Toto is a community built on respect for your fellow compañero, and I look forward to becoming a part of it in the coming months.
Gustavo is a Kiva Fellow working with Asociación ASDIR in Nimasac, Guatemala. He has become an expert in a new extreme sport: highway shoulder hiking, and is excited to live and work in the Guatemala highlands.
Bringing you more than just credit
By Eric Burdullis, KF12, FAPE, Guatemala
I have written a lot about the auxiliary services offered by microfinance institutions in Guatemala. One blog, Going the Distance, reflected ASDIR´s additional services from insurance to bill pay, and my last blog, Good Medicine, spoke a little about FAPE´s new medical services program. Why do you care? As other Kiva Fellows have stated, microfinance is not the silver bullet that will knock out poverty, it is merely the start. This being said, it will be microcredit coupled with access to basic services such as health, insurance, savings, and education that alleviates poverty, not just microcredit alone.
Continue Reading 11 October 2010 at 08:00 Eric Burdullis 1 comment
Good Medicine
By Eric Burdullis, KF12, FAPE, Guatemala.
For most, take your medicine! conjures up negative images of spoonfuls of cherry cough syrup or days spent in bed with the flu. For the clients of one microfinance institution, FAPE, based out of Guatemala City, Guatemala, it is something much sweeter. FAPE recently teamed up with the Canadian Government and an NGO “Gems of Hope” to provide low cost medicine and medical consultations to its clients as well as free health education.
How it works. A Gems of Hope team arrives to the village bank meetings with FAPE´s loan officer. After loan repayments are collected, one member of the Gems of Hope team does a presentation specifically targeted to women.
Continue Reading 6 October 2010 at 08:00 Eric Burdullis 6 comments
Going Above and Beyond
By: Eric Burdullis, KF12, ASDIR
I was impressed. When I first stepped into ASDIR´s office, I was confronted with half a dozen banners listing the details of all the services they offer. The first banner was for Seguros Columna: an insurance agency that ASDIR pays for to offer life insurance to its clients (essentially, if a client dies, ASDIR cancels the loan: a great service for the family of someone in poverty). A second and third advertised a service to send and receive remittances through Western Union and Sigue. A fourth advertised saving services through G & T Continental (microfinance institutions can´t accept savings legally here in Guatemala). The fifth advertised payment by check as well as bill pay for water and electricity, and the sixth advertised prepaid cell phones. All this on top of a wide variety of loan products from small Q1000 loans to women with only the idea of a business within village banks to Q70,000 loans to medium sized businesses; from loans being used to improve housing to emergency loans for personal consumption.
Continue Reading 9 September 2010 at 21:30 Eric Burdullis 3 comments
Tough Conversations
By Eric Burdullis, KF12, FAPE/ASDIR, Guatemala
I started this blog on a scrap of paper during a group visit. I started writing because, well, I felt uncomfortable. I wasn´t quite sure what my place in the conversation should be or even what my facial expressions should be. And this wasn´t the first visit I felt uncomfortable on that day.
I wanted to give Kiva lenders updates, journal postings, on a couple of lenders that had fallen behind in their payments…way behind. And now, the loan officer, the operations manager and I were at their homes or their places of business trying to figure out why this had happened, and how they could get back on track with their payments.
Continue Reading 28 August 2010 at 07:22 Eric Burdullis 10 comments
Where there is Poverty: Broken Windows and Armed Robbery
By Eric Burdullis, KF12, FAPE, Guatemala City, Guatemala.
…But today, we stopped at a gas station so my ride could run to the ATM before work. Locking my door, I hid my camera and backpack out of sight and the two of us walked into the station. Two minutes later, when we walked out from the store, my heart dropped. Shattered glass is strewn in the spot next to ours. I secretly hope it´s not our car but know that it is. Running to the car, my door was unlocked and I already knew the rest. My backpack, with both my cameras (one my baby D90), my laptop and all my Kiva work vanished into thin air.
Continue Reading 14 August 2010 at 07:00 Eric Burdullis 13 comments
The Best Story
By: Eric Burdullis, KF12, Guatemala
“Again it might have been the American tendency to travel. One goes, not so much to see but to tell afterward” John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley. As a Kiva Fellow, I travel differently. I have too. Instead of trying to throw myself into those great stories that I could tell over and over to friends—about the times when I sipped mate with Argentine gauchos on the Pampa or hiked Machu Picchu in the pouring rain, I am looking for a different story.
Continue Reading 5 August 2010 at 07:00 Eric Burdullis 8 comments
Natural Disasters in Developing Countries – Tropical Storm Agatha
By Matt Raimondi, KF11, Honduras
Tropical Storm Agatha is the first tropical storm of the 2010 Hurricane season and while relatively weak, it is a disturbing reminder of how catastrophic even the weak storms can be for a developing country.
Ignorance is bliss?
By Carlos Cruz Montaño, KF10 Guatemala
Have you read cartoons before understanding what they really meant? Ignorance is bliss from Calvin & Hobbes is definitely one of those cartoons for me. I worked as a design engineer before and in many occasions I thought I was asking a yes/no question but it never turned out to be that simple. You have to approach problems knowing the basic principles, look carefully at the details, make decisions and learn from your mistakes. As an engineer, the product of my work was an object and I needed technical knowledge; as a Kiva Fellow, I work on a process that involves many within an organization and I need to know the surrounding issues and understand the environment they are working in.
More Signatures & Less Fingerprints
Going through borrower files I found finger prints in the signature line of many documents but didn’t think much about it until I went to the field to actually meet borrowers…
Al revisar expedientes de asociados (clientes) encontré varios documentos con huellas digitales en lugar de firmas. No le puse más atención hasta que salí de la oficina a conocer clientes…
Who really cares about Kiva loans? The difference between Kiva and MFI loans
There’s differing opinions and many comments on the default protection policy where partners will no longer be able to guarantee Kiva loans (see posts by Claude Mansell and Nicky Goh), many of you Kiva Lenders are worried this move will greatly affect your portfolio and that MFIs will not care as much about delinquency and default in Kiva loans, but I ask… are you alone?
Continue Reading 27 February 2010 at 10:00 Carlos 5 comments
5′-6″ (1.65m) Tall or Short?
As a kid growing up, and now at 5’-6” tall I’ve always been on the short side, among friends, classmates, teammates, you name it! As I walk around town and meet people in my new town, I noticed I’m actually a tall person around here. Never thought being a Kiva Fellow would make me tall… anyways, what is interesting is that it depends on your reference point.
Continue Reading 11 February 2010 at 15:59 Carlos 22 comments
Giving hope and commitment
One of my lasts tasks as a Kiva Fellow was to do a journal update an incarcerated Kiva entrepreneur.
Kiva’s field partner in Guatemala City, FAPE, has a program where they give women in jail trainings and a loan for their businesses while incarcerated. About one year ago, FAPE initiated this program in the jail in Guatemala City, four of the women were Kiva clients. Training programs were given. Loans were being repaid, and the women were even putting money away in savings. The program was a success. In late Summer of 2009, two things happened: the women were moved from the jail to the correctional facility and FAPE changed directors.
Continue Reading 9 February 2010 at 06:00 Jeremy Lapedis 5 comments
Moriré con las botas puestas (I’ll die with my boots on)
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
A violinist and pianist set the ambiance along with a slide show of pictures. Everyone attended FAPE’s 25th anniversary celebration: the board of directors, the general assembly, representatives from FAPE’s international partners (I was Kiva’s representative), and FAPE’s director, accountant, and lawyer. Moriré con las botas puestas. That’s what FAPE’s vice president of the board of directors said while giving an award to the president of the board.
While the vice president continued, I sat in my suit waiting to receive Kiva’s award. I couldn’t help but thinking how lavish this celebration was. How none of the loan officers had been invited to the ceremony. How there was hardly a mention of entrepreneurs aside from the pictures. How we were patting ourselves on the back, almost forgetting the people on the ground–the reason we were in microfinance in the first place. (more…)
How to write a borrower profile
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
This morning, I went to do some borrower profiles. The things that you see on Kiva’s website when you want to make a loan, those are borrower profiles. The picture, the description of the person and his or her business are really the meat of the profile (especially if they are selling animal products). Well, from people far away from the scenes, it might be simple enough what you want to see: a smiling person, with his or her business in the background, a description of family life, of business history, of what use the loan will be, and of hopes and dreams. All this in three paragraphs. What would your profile look like? I made one for myself, and it’s at the bottom of this post.
So as you maybe are starting to see, writing the profiles are not as simple as they may seem on the website. (more…)
A Kiva Christmas Party
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
At the office of FAPE, we had our Christmas party. Tents we set up outside, presents were put on the table. All in all, when looking at it, it reminded me of a graduation party. The weather was 60 and sunny, and spirits were high. And to put the icing on the cake (literally and figuratively) we had Bertha Carmelina– a Kiva entrepreneur who runs a restaurant–cooking our food for us. But before the food came out, there were all sorts of activities that reminded me a of a talent show. (more…)
A day in the life of a loan officer
Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
On Wednesday I traveled with Aura, a loan officer. My main goal was to get some signatures from Kiva borrowers so that we could use their photos in a press release. What I ended up getting, along with the signatures, was a glimpse into Aura’s life
Since getting the signatures required us to go a little village called Cruz Blanca (White Cross), where Aura’s lives, I asked if I could see her house. She in turn suggested that we just eat lunch there. Her house had several rooms, but the floor was a base of concrete. Aura shared her cluttered house with her mother, her two brothers, and her daughter. Comparing this to the clean and comfortable casa where I have been staying, with the director of my MFI, showed the disparity that exists within people who work for the same organization. It seemed the loan officer lived in the same conditions as Kiva entrepreneurs. And sure enough, this is how Aura became a loan officer: She got a loan from FAPE, paid it back, and they were looking for someone to work in her area, so she took the job.
Her mother happened to be a Kiva entrepreneur. So I did a journal update on her, taking a video of her explaining to me how she made the very colorful, very beautiful artisanal cloths. While filming, Aura’s four-year-old daughter, and four-year-old niece looked in awe.
Globalization, Culture, and Kiva
Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
I spent thanksgiving in Costa Rica with four other Kiva Fellows who are placed in Central America. Before going, the Guatemalans who I had spoken with about my trip mentioned two things: Costa Rica is safer than Guatemala, but it has less of it’s own culture. Having spent only five days in Costa Rica, I can hardly make any judgments about Costa Rica’s culture (however you define culture, be it ideas, materials, art, family values, government etc.), but I can confidently confirm that Costa Rica is safer than Guatemala: walking down the street feels more comfortable, people aren’t afraid to ride buses, and you can drink the tap water. One thing did feel the same as Guatemala: the pervasive placement of American chain restaurants.
The security in Costa Rica is something that I am sure most Guatemalans would love to have. How did Costa Rica get to be so safe? I am sure that not having a civil war for a third of a century (Guatemalan Civil War) and multiple public works projects that bring electricity and clean water to all have helped. But the economic stability that Costa Rica has been able to find in the tourism industry must also be included in an analysis as to why Costa Rica is safer. And with this high level of tourism that Guatemala has yet to be able to harness, comes an exchanging and adopting of cultures. It is from the apparent adoption of so many foreign customs that the Guatemalans whom I spoke with derived their idea that Costa Rica had no culture of its own.
My intent of this post is not to evaluate Costa Rica’s culture, about which I know next to nothing, but rather it is to ask what is the destination of the rich Mayan culture that exists in Guatemala? (more…)
