Posts filed under ‘Nicaragua’
What are they smoking in Nicaragua?
Every morning in Esteli, Nicaragua, a siren goes off at 6am, calling hundreds of factory workers to start their day, making some of the finest cigars in the world.
Juan Carlos is a Kiva borrower. He grows tobacco for making cigars.
First, the tobacco leaves are fluffed during drying to release heat and moisture.
Then, the leaves are flattened, cleaned, and misted to make them malleable.
Next, the leaves are rolled into a cigar by hand.
The cigars are checked on the "Drawmaster" which is a vacuum, that tests ease of inhalation.
There are over 40 types of cigars, "Torpedoes" being the most formidable, in my opinion.
Cigars are sorted by size, color, and quality.
Boxes are made. Cedar-lined being the best.
The finished product.
To support MiCredito, please join our Lending Team: Amigos de MiCredito
Check out all MiCredito Borrowers on Kiva!
Learn more about MiCredito, a new Kiva Field Partner in Nicaragua, serving urban and rural clients from six branch offices.
-Karen Gray, Kiva Fellow 14, in Nicaragua
Say Cheese For Kiva Student Loans
Outside the town of Esteli in Nicaragua, you can find the Catholic University of Dry Tropic Farming and Livestock (UCATSE). In October 2010, MíCrédito and Kiva disbursed their first student loans there.
These loans allowed the students to put into practice, what they had learned in the classroom. One group of students used their loans ($75 per student at 1.5% interest per month) to make cheese which was sold on campus.
As a Kiva Fellow, I decided to visit the university, meet the students, see the process firsthand, and offer my services as an official taster.
Students in the AgroIndustry Lab, ready to make cheese.
Cheese or queso fresco made at the university.
Cindy, the MiCredito Kiva Coordinator, lent a hand in the cheese-making process by stirring the milk to cool it, before adding the enzyme that would thicken the milk.
Next step, the curdled milk was strained to remove the liquid.
Salt was added, and the cheese mixed until crumbled, then formed into balls.
The finished product is called cuajada.
A slice of cheese is served with rice, beans, and tortillas.
Future student loans are being considered for projects to raise pigs, and to cultivate a high-quality tomato.
To support MiCredito, please join their Lending Team: Amigos de MiCredito
Check out all MiCredito Borrowers on Kiva!
More about MiCredito, a new Kiva Field Partner in Nicaragua, serving urban and rural clients from six branch offices.
-Karen Gray, Kiva Fellow 14, in Nicaragua
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
Last Week in the Field: “Christmas”, Trekking, Adversity + Good Company
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Members of the 14th class of Kiva Fellows have officially hit their stride. While we never know where the next dispatch will come from or what interesting topics the Fellows will cover next, we always know we’ll be transported, entertained, and edified. This past week, topics included “Christmas”, trekking to a remote village (with video!), handling adversity (including a serious car accident and stolen electronics), and enjoying the company of loan officers, borrowers, and community members. Enjoy!
Continue Reading 21 February 2011 at 02:17 Alexis Ditkowsky 12 comments
3 Different Countries, 3 Remarkably Similar Businesses
Since I started my third stint as a Kiva Fellow at Opportunity Fund, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the differences between microfinance in the USA (Opportunity Fund is located in the Bay Area) and microfinance in Central America (I previously worked in Nicaragua and Costa Rica). Then I met Monica, an Opportunity Fund client, and was immediately overwhelmed by how similar her business was to other businesses I saw while I was abroad.
Monica sells shoes at the Berryessa Flea Market in San Jose, California. She is using her loan to buy more merchandise so she can expand her business. Monica is proud of her business and is particularly happy that her business has enabled her to send money to her help support her parents and to pay for her sister’s education in Mexico.
A Weekend Getaway From Managua
By Gabriel Castillo, KF11, Nicaragua
It had been a long week and I had looked forward to getting away for the weekend. The plan was to grab a book and spend a relaxing couple of days at the beach. Soon I would learn, however, that when your work involves development and you are living in a developing country, getting away from work can be somewhat difficult.
Continue Reading 1 July 2010 at 08:35 Gabriel Castillo 3 comments
Casting for the Duplicate
by Gabriel Castillo, KF11 Nicaragua
Many Kiva users may be familiar with the general act of lending through Kiva, but what about the stories that are posted to Kiva’s website? Where’s the action? Where’s the drama? What kind of work goes into providing the content on a Kiva entrepreneur’s profile and who are the players?
Continue Reading 14 June 2010 at 09:30 Gabriel Castillo 2 comments
Out of the Fire, Into Managua
At 6am I was in Guatemala, a few hundred meters from the border with El Salvador. I later crossed the borders into El Salvador and Honduras. It is now 10pm and I have made my way to Nicaragua. My final destination is just under 4 hours from here, in the Nicaraguan Capital of Managua.
It has been 10 days and 3,500 miles since I set out, on motorcycle, from San Francisco, to start my placement as a Kiva Fellow.
Continue Reading 11 May 2010 at 11:00 Gabriel Castillo 6 comments
Mounting Beasts
By Bryan Goldfinger, KF10 Nicaragua
“We’re going to have to mount beasts” was the literal translation of the Spanish email I received explaining why it would be difficult to locate Wilfredo, one of the ten borrowers selected for BV at AFODENIC in Nicaragua. After a little investigation (read: turning to ask the woman with whom I share an office), I was informed that we would most likely need to travel by mule.
The first one of a kind
In the nearly eight months that I have been a Kiva Fellow, I have noticed that an increasingly common response people have when I tell them we fund microfinance institutions is: “that’s great, but aren’t those guys just getting really rich by charging the poor tons of money on their loans?” It seems as though recent press has given microfinance somewhat of a tarnished reputation.
The Many Faces of Microfinance
By Meg Gray, KF10 Costa Rica
One of the benefits of being a Kiva Fellow for more than one placement is getting to see how different MFI’s (microfinance institutions) with very different models all fit under the microfinance umbrella. There is no one-size-fits-all methodology. I just finished up my second full placement as a Kiva Fellow and along the way I also visited a third MFI for a week. For those of you just getting started with microfinance or for those who are interested in seeing the diversity amongst Kiva’s partner’s, I thought a brief rundown of a few MFI models side by side might be interesting. So here I go (ordered chronologically)
Model #1 CEPRODEL (Managua, Nicaragua)- Individual Loans only
One of CEPRODEL's branch office is inside a stall in a main market
From a head office in Managua, CEPRODEL runs 16 branch offices throughout western Nicaragua. All of the loans they offer are individual loans and require formal collateral. The work with a wide range of clients with a portfolio balanced between male/female and urban/rural. In addition to loans, some branch offices offer voluntary small business management trainings when the demand exists for this type of program. CEPRODEL also constructs housing cooperatives throughout the country and is an active leader in Nicaragua when it comes to housing issues. (more…)
The Forest Through the Trees
Several days ago I woke up at 4:30 in the morning because my high-power fan, which I position directly on me, three feet from my bed, had blown my sheet and fitted sheet completely off the mattress (yeah, I was confused too). In order to put an end to the hectic sheet flapping, I switched off the fan. Once I had restored order to my bed, I found a comfortable position and tried to go back to sleep. Then, two things happened that very quickly alerted me to the fact that I had forgotten to turn the fan back on.
Continue Reading 1 March 2010 at 08:19 bgoldfinger 10 comments
How To Make Shoes and Rice With One Flame
A Kiva entrepreneur’s business intertwined with his home and family.
Continue Reading 14 February 2010 at 12:30 Monica Ann Bernadette 9 comments
Kiva Animal Kingdom
At microfinance institution Asociación Arariwa in Cusco, Peru, and now working with Emprender in La Paz, Bolivia, I have met a ton of animals. Being an animal lover and from New York where I rarely see live animals walking around (unless the occasional stray cat or rat or cockroach counts), seeing animals as part of my daily life is a pleasure.
Continue Reading 2 February 2010 at 06:07 lethalsheethal 6 comments
The Case for Nicaragua
By Victoria Kabak, KF9, Nicaragua
As I finish up my placement as a Kiva Fellow in Nicaragua, there is one question that I didn’t know the answer to when I arrived and that still confounds me three months later. Why isn’t Nicaragua a more “popular” country to lend to on Kiva?
The average time to fund a loan on Kiva to a borrower from AFODENIC, the microfinance institution where I’ve been a Kiva Fellow here in Nicaragua, is 5.65 days, almost 2.5 times the overall average (this information can be found on any partner page, under the “Loan Characteristics on Kiva” heading). Of the first 14 loans to expire without being fully funded in the history of Kiva, six of them were to Nicaraguan borrowers.
Nicaragua is the #1 poorest country in Latin America, with the second lowest per capita income in the entire Western Hemisphere, after Haiti (and a 2009 article in Latin Business Chronicle declared Nicaragua worse-off than Haiti based on figures released by the IMF). Despite its proximity to the happiest country in the world and the similarities the two countries share in terms of tropical climate and natural beauty, a history of political strife and fairly recent revolution – only 30 years ago – has kept Nicaragua (very far away) from enjoying the relative prosperity of its neighbor Costa Rica. As of 2005, the poverty rate in Nicaragua was 48 percent.
On a daily basis in Managua I pass by houses constructed of a combination of metal sheets and cardboard, and I have visited borrowers in houses like this too—homes where curtains are hung to separate rooms because they can’t afford walls. Right outside of the capital many of the roads that Kiva borrowers live on are pure dirt, no gravel (not even what I’d usually refer to at home as a “dirt road”), comprised of rut after rut and strewn with garbage, making them virtually impassable in anything but a pick-up truck. I have met borrowers who work all day making tortillas, which they sell for 1 córdoba each, less than five cents, and borrowers who had to start selling Avon products because their other two jobs weren’t bringing in enough money. I’ve met 13-year-old girls who spend their summer vacation (November-February) trying to sell bracelets for less than $1.50 each at beaches where there isn’t anyone to sell bracelets to. (more…)
The View From Here
By Kelly McKinnon, KF9 Leon, Nicaragua
In my time as a Kiva Fellow I’ve written more than 100 borrower profiles and 40 or so journal updates. When writing profiles one tends to fall into a rhythm, there are words that come up repeatedly, expressions that are almost invariably used, translations that don’t quite work. Often my days are spent trying to deciphering the handwriting of a loan officer with little knowledge of the borrower beyond what is scrawled. Most of the time I look at the back of a computer. It wasn’t exactly the vision I had when I dreamed of joining the ranks of Kiva Fellows.
The less romantic side of being a Kiva Fellow
Bad Roads, Interest Rates, and MFI Sustainability
By Meg Gray, KF9 Nicaragua
One example of a bad road I have faced.
I’ve driven over some pretty terrible roads over the last three months. It doesn’t seem to matter if they’re gravel, paved, dirt, or a mixture of the three. In Nicaragua every road has character and usually this “character” makes it harder to get to CEPRODEL’s clients. Now besides being an inconvenience, why does this matter? It matters because bad roads are just one of many factors that contribute to high operating costs for a microfinance institution (MFI). High operating costs mean higher interest rates are necessary in order for the MFI to be sustainable.
I feel like the conversation about interest rates usually starts and stops with the word “usurious” or “unfair,” when in reality it is much more complex than that. CEPRODEL charges 36% interest on loans to small businesses (rates are lower for some other types of loans) and yet I’ve talked to numerous clients who comment that they like working with CEPRODEL because their interest rates are so low. How could this be? (more…)
More Green Loans Please
By Meg Gray, KF9 Nicaragua
Yarlin proudly shows me the solar panel she purchased with her Kiva loan.
As a Kiva lender, I wistfully search the “green loans” category every time I go to relend my funds on Kiva.org.
Sadly, I feel like I almost always get the “no loans found” response. This is too bad for many reasons. Green loans, such as solar panels, fruit trees, or water filtration systems, have such a profound (and sustainable) impact on the borrower’s life while also helping the environment at-large. CEPRODEL, my MFI, for instance, has a reforestation program where clients receive a loan to buy a mixture of trees to plant along riverbeds on their property.This protects the river from erosion caused be deforestation in the area and in the long term, the fruit trees will also provide food for the borrower’s families.
CEPRODEL client, Yarlin Moreno, is another example of a green loan. She used her Kiva loan to buy a solar panel for her house. Before the solar panel, her family did not have electricity. Her family lives so remotely that their whole community is off the power grid and her daughter, literally, walks almost 4 miles to school each day. (more…)
Do You Like Soup?
By Kelly McKinnon, KF9 Leon, Nicaragua
The question is posed casually, but as all heads in the room turn to await my response, I sense that this is not a simple question. Ummm, I stammer. Rapidly wracking my brain for cultural cues or anecdotes I’ve heard on the importance of soup in Nicaragua. Nothing, I’ve got nothing. So I stall a bit more, Soup? You are asking me if I like soup? (more…)
Childbearing at a Young Age in Nicaragua–At What Price?
By Victoria Kabak, KF9, Nicaragua
I try not to play favorites, but this week I met my favorite borrower. The borrowers I’ve liked the most so far have been those who are particularly friendly, have particularly interesting things to say, or give me food. Kenia fell into that first category, and I really enjoyed talking both to her and her younger sister-in-law, who helps Kenia make the 60 lunches she puts together every day for a nearby business. Not only did the rest of her family not look at me as if I’m an alien – which I’ve actually almost gotten used to by now! – but they were very friendly as well.
Kenia and I are the same age, and I felt like we connected. I was sad to say goodbye to her and to think about the fact that I will most likely never see her again. I promised I’d make a print of the photo I took of her and her sister-in-law and get it to her loan officer to bring it to her. But there was one thing (well, probably many things but one most obvious thing) that we didn’t have in common. At 22 years old, Kenia has a 2.5-year-old son. James is adorable and smiley and lively, and he definitely added to the positive experience I had meeting Kenia for the journal entry I wrote. But I found myself thinking back to 2.5 years ago. At the end of my sophomore year of college, when Kenia and I were both 20, Kenia was having a baby. If I had had a child when Kenia did, I would have had a baby to care for all throughout my junior and senior years.
Kenia, left, and her sister-in-law standing in front of the area in their home where they make the lunches they sell
Kenia is by no means the first borrower I’ve met who had one or more children at a young age. Whether it was five years ago or 20 years ago, many women borrowers I’ve been fortunate to meet here in Nicaragua began having children when they were in their very early 20s or younger. Meeting borrowers, I have also encountered a couple of pregnant teenage girls. One was a borrower’s daughter; another, a friend of the borrower’s son. (more…)
¿Quién Causa Tanta Alegría?
By Kelly McKinnon, KF9 Leon Nicaragua
¿Quién Causa Tanta Alegría?
¡La Concepción de María!
An exuberant young man, who I was to later understand is the Priest who hosts a Grand Purísima celebration (attended by former presidents, the bishop, the mayor and a five piece brass band), rattled off the schedule of events of the day’s celebration of La Purísima: (more…)
Three Interesting Borrowers
By Victoria Kabak, KF9, Nicaragua
Last week I met three borrowers who struck me as particularly interesting, each for a different reason. All three have been thought-provoking and have stuck with me over the course of the week. In their own way, each of the three represented a unique experience for me. Even though I’d been here for over eight weeks, Gregoria, Gloria, and Maria each presented something new, so I want to introduce you to these three women, whose loans are disbursed through the microfinance institution where I’m a Kiva Fellow, Kiva’s field partner AFODENIC.
Gregoria
Each time I talk with a client in order to write a journal update to send to his or her lenders, I ask toward the end of the conversation, “What are your goals or dreams for the future?” I think this question reflects somewhat western notions, and I don’t always get the most exciting answers, even if they’re still very valid goals (and sometimes I get blank stares). Many borrowers say simply “seguir adelante,” to carry on or to move forward (as Julie discussed in an earlier post). Another response I frequently get is to grow or to improve their business in general.
Last week I met Gregoria, who sells a range of goods from her home, including clothes, soda, fresh fruit juices, nacatamales, ice cream, and soup. As always, I asked her the question about her long-term goals. Gregoria told me she would like to “llegar a trabajar con mi mismo dinero”–to be able to work with her own money, rather than borrowing money. She was the first borrower to express this aim to me, and to be honest I was thrilled by it. I have felt frustrated at times when I ask borrowers if they’re going to take out another loan after their current one and both borrowers and loan officers have responded as though it is the most obvious and inevitable thing in the world–of course they will take out another loan. Isn’t a big part of the point of microfinance to break the cycle of poverty, to make these borrowers’ businesses and lives sustainable on their own? Gregoria reminded me that yes, this is the point, and the fact that she had this drive made me believe it’s possible. I don’t think I’m quite ready to move from idealist to pragmatist. (more…)
It’s Not Christmas
By Kelly McKinnon, KF9, León, Nicaragua
It’s not Christmas.
90 degree days and the glow of the Nicaraguan sunlight and my celebration of Thanksgiving in the reception of a medical clinic where I was diagnosed with a stomach bacteria, (Oh the irony!) somehow make the holiday season seem far away.
And yet, I didn’t think it was Friday either. After checking my calendar, twice, I now recognize that my coworkers are not trying to trick me. And neither is the rest of Nicaragua.
Signs of the (rapidly) approaching holiday have been springing up around León and surprising me left and right.
Pineapple, Plantains, Pitahaya…Oh My!
By Victoria Kabak, KF9, Nicaragua
Since arriving in Nicaragua for my Kiva Fellowship about two months ago, my time here has been marked by a range of new experiences. I have become surprisingly adept at pouring juice from a plastic bag into a glass. I am intimately familiar with the smell of burning garbage, the most common way trash is disposed of here in Managua. I have perfected (and passed on) the art of wagging my finger to tell a taxi driver that I don’t want to get in when he already has another passenger. And for the first time, I’ve gotten to see how some foods that I consume on a daily basis grow.
AFODENIC, the microfinance institution where I’m working as a Kiva Fellow, has a branch office in Ticuantepe, a municipality in the department of Managua, about 20 or 30 minutes outside of the city. There, AFODENIC makes loans to borrowers who work in agriculture. One loan officer works in Ticuantepe, and he is uniquely qualified to work with these particular clients, since he studied agricultural engineering. Just from spending one morning with him, I could tell that his role extends beyond the typical function of a loan officer, as he provided off-the-cuff advice to the borrowers I was meeting for journal updates.
As I mentioned, my experience in Ticuantepe was also interesting because I got to see many crops I’d never seen before: rice, beans, pineapple, pitahaya, plantains, and coffee beans. Some of these crops were definitely not what I expected – I had no idea that pineapples just sort of spring out of plants in the ground that hardly look as though they can support the weight of one pineapple, let alone many – so I thought I’d share my pictures of these crops with you. If you’ve never seen them before either, I hope you enjoy checking out what these foods look like at the beginning, long before they reach your supermarket or your plate. Click “more” to see the photos! (more…)
Microfinance, Migration, and a Constant Stream of Remittances (Part 3 of 3 of the Remittance Series)
By Meg Gray, KF9 Nicaragua
This is Part 3 of 3 in a series of blogs discussing remittances that were inspired by a recent UN Human Development Report on migration. As you will see from our posts, there are many perspectives to look at and the issue is by no means simple. I encourage you to read Part 1 posted by Rob from Kyrgyzstan and Part 2 posted by Agnes from Samoa earlier today.
Aurelia is one of many CEPRODEL clients I have met who aspires to work abroad someday.
“Half of Nicaragua lives in Costa Rica,” said one of my coworkers at CEPRODEL when I asked him about remittances, “Everyone has someone sending them money.” This is an exaggeration of course, but his statement does hint at the tremendous importance remittances and migration play in Nicaragua’s economy. Roughly 10% of Nicaragua’s population abroad is living abroad with 48% of this group living in Latin America and 44% living in North America. More than 400,000 Nicaraguans live in Costa Rica alone, accounting for more than 10% of Costa Rica’s population. With a significant portion of its population abroad it is no wonder that remittances account for 12.9% of Nicaragua’s GDP. The significant number of people moving back and forth between Nicaragua and Costa Rica in particular hints at the complexity of migration and remittance flows. It isn’t just developing countries sending people to developed countries. It is much more complicated than that. As if to mirror this complexity, while working at CEPRODEL, I keep coming across clients, programs, and stories that demonstrate elements of this convoluted theme.
On my first visit to CEPRODEL’s branch office in Nagarote, I handed branch manager Miguel Calderón a list of Kiva borrowers that I wanted to visit. Looking at the list, Miguel slowly shook his head and said, “You can’t meet Juana. She left. She went to Costa Rica to look for work.” (more…)
‘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…)
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.
US Embassy Alerts a.k.a. Things to Worry About
By Meg Gray, KF9 Nicaragua
It rained all weekend in Managua. It rained because of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Ida, which hit Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast on Thursday. You may have heard about Ida because your saw it on the news or read about it in the paper. Or maybe, like me, you learned about it via an alert from the US Embassy in Nicaragua. In my mind, Embassy Alerts are code for “things to start worrying about if you aren’t already.” Written in a calm, informative tone, the alerts are as alarming as they are pertinent. In my five weeks in Nicaragua, I have received alerts on three topics:
1. Tropical Storm (soon-to-be Hurricane) Ida
2. Mobs Attacking the US Embassy
3. Dengue Fever Outbreak
(more…)
A Slice of the Pie
By Victoria Kabak, KF9, Nicaragua
Before I left for my placement as a Kiva Fellow in Nicaragua, I was browsing my microfinance institution’s web site, trying to see what I could learn from it and to familiarize myself with the organization, AFODENIC, a bit more. I clicked on a link in the left sidebar called “Fuentes de Financiamiento,” or “Sources of Funding.” After the page loaded, I realized that, subconsciously and perhaps naïvely, I had been expecting to see a particular logo we know so well, that comforting, familiar green logo, with its leafy K and its curvy A.
Instead, the large pie graph on the page was labeled with the unfamiliar, non-green, non-leafy logos of three other funders. The smallest piece of that pie provides AFODENIC with funding equivalent to 4 times the amount of its monthly limit on Kiva–the largest, 57.5 times AFODENIC’s monthly limit.
There are a few important points to note at the outset. First, I can’t vouch for how recent these numbers are. Second, because the limits on Kiva are monthly, an MFI can receives up to 12 times that amount of funding in a given year. In fact, when I looked at the numbers on AFODENIC’s partner page on Kiva, the dollar amount of loans that AFODENIC has funded through Kiva is more than what the institution has received from two of the three other funders that were on this web page. But in any case, Kiva wasn’t on the page and my first thought was, “I guess Kiva isn’t one of its biggest sources of funding.”
Walking Lessons
By Kelly McKinnon, KF9 Leon Nicaragua
I fell off the sidewalk tonight. It was bound to happen.
The sidewalks here are raised and tiled and narrow. No extra room is allotted for lamp posts or stoops or two-way traffic, all must exist in no more than four feet dedicated to pedestrian passages.
The rules to walking in Leon are thus: a gentleman passes on the outside, there is plenty of room, and greet passersby with a smile and an “Adiooos.”
My days begin with these passages. Rather, as I, dedicated tom-boy, wobble to work in high heels, these passages are the best things about beginning my days: I wave to the tour office and the guards outside the mill. I strut until I see Yader, he greets me with my daily kiss (on the cheek). On Yader’s corner, across from the park of poets, at the intersection with the stoplight, is the lady who grills corn. Every day she does something wonderful like wearing aprons with row upon row of frills. We bottle neck at her grill. (more…)
