Posts filed under 'Vietnam'
Shortcut keys can’t save me now!
I’m already four weeks into my fellowship and as I anticipated, it’s been full of surprises!
A consultant by training, I’m in my element when I’m in an office, laptop in hand and armed with my shortcut keys. This is why I jumped at the chance to conduct my first Kiva training session. We pulled together a Power Point presentation, drafted and translated ‘cheat sheets’ and were ready to go. …or so we thought… Talk about an emotional journey!
The day started well with,
Enthusiasm: Granted, I was probably the only one who was excited for the session to begin but I Fn+F10-ed and the presentation was up and running. Then came…
Anxiety: “Wait! That’s the search bar not the address bar.”
Chaos: Forgetting to translate the calendar months could have resulted in a mad grab-bag of dates had it not been for a quick cross-reference table and printer.
Frustration: Taking up 3 computers for the better part of the day in an office with limited resources was not spectacularly well received by senior management…
Relief: By the end of the day, everyone got the hang of it and profiles proliferated!
Needless to say, it was a most educational day and despite the shaky emotional foundation, it wasn’t drastically different from the countless office days I’d experienced before.
Contrast this with the unfamiliar field. I find myself on the back of a motorcycle (breaking the only rule my dad ever gave me) and traveling to the community house that doubles as the FPW repayment center once a month. I realize that I have left my office sanctuary and <<CTRL+Z>> is not going to save me. I can’t take back the loud crashing noise of my motorcycle helmet falling to the floor or rescind my confusing question of “do you enjoy your job”. I don’t know much about animal husbandry or agriculture or raising a family, and I can’t quickly google ‘Le Mon’ to figure out what it is. …but somehow, it doesn’t matter. The women welcome my questions and share details of their lives. I hear stories of strength and hard work – hauling fertilizer to and from train cars certainly puts my ‘long hours’ into perspective; of sacrifice – expensive medical trips to get better treatment for their children; and most often, I hear of success. “Increased earnings, new TVs, demand for more loans!” There is definitely no shortage of demand for microcredit here, and to me that is a sign that there is a need being fulfilled and that these loans are working!
No shortcut key could’ve taught me that.
Join the Vietnam Critical Mass Lending Team
See loans currently being fundraised by the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women
4 comments 6 March 2009
The Perfume Pagoda Pilgrimage
In Vietnam, the beginning of spring is marked by a very large festival called the Tet Festival where the symbol of the Lunar New Year and spring awakening is the arrival of the blooming kumquat and peach trees. Unfortunately, I missed this festival by just a week or so before arriving in Hanoi. While I missed the actual Tet festival, the festivities do not stop that soon: every year for one or two months after Tet, Buddhist pilgrims (85% of the population of Vietnam identifies their religious beliefs as Buddhist, whether they practice often or not) flock to the Perfume Pagoda, aka Chùa Hương in Vietnamese.
The throngs of boats waiting to take pilgrims to the mountain.
My guide book says that the Perfume Pagoda—which is 60 km south west of Hanoi in picturesque limestone mountains and is actually a large cave—is one of the prime places to visit in the Hanoi area, but warns about visiting it for two months after Tet due to the crowds. I must say, the warning was completely justified! Nonetheless, this was a cultural experience I am glad I partook in.
Prior to my trip to the Perfume Pagoda, my co-workers at the MFI SEDA/Binh Minh asked me for 70,000 VND which is roughly $4. I was unsure why they wanted this money, maybe it was for lunch for the week? I soon found out that they actually wanted me to join them on their annual pilgrimage to the Perfume Pagoda to pray for wealth, health, and prosperity for the new lunar year. We left on a Sunday at 5 AM, for a long but incredible day.
After a sleepless 1.5 hour bus ride to the town of My Doc, we finally arrived at the river that would take us to the foot of the mountains. The town was crawling with people and vendors of cheap trinkets and stacks of small denomination bills which are both used as offerings at the various temples, altars, and pagodas. I could sense the urgency and the excitement in my co-workers who were non-stop chattering in Vietnamese. As I looked around the town upon arrival I was overwhelmed by the mass of people yet I could not help but feel slightly lonely because of the language barrier. Nonetheless the staff at SEDA/Binh Minh did everything they could once we were on the river to explain to me what the day would be like and the purpose of the festivities.
To get the festivities started we purchased a whole cooked chicken, plopped him/her on a pile of sticky rice, stuck stacks of money under it and added a few flowers. We then marched the chicken and a platter of fruit into the first temple and put it on the altar with incense burning everywhere. Everyone, by this point, was praying for wealth, health and prosperity in general. I assumed this was an offering but as quickly as it began the chicken and fruit platters were back out the door of the temple. Apparently they were lunch for the boat ride ahead…
A My Doc woman rowing effortlessly.
The boat ride lasted about one hour and I was placed squarely in the middle, probably so I wouldn’t fall into the water. The boat was rowed by a small but buff woman who steered the row boat with professional poise, which in my opinion was incredible! We had at least 16 people in our boat and she propelled us through the water without a hint of being tired and with extreme ease. Apparently most of the women in the town of My Doc, aged 13 to about 65, row the throngs of pilgrims up the river every year, all year long. Not a single obese one amongst them.
The scenery on the river was literally awe inspiring. Too bad it was cloudy, because I bet with a blue sky and a blazing sun the limestone and lush green mountains would be even more phenomenal. Despite the clouds it was still pretty. As our boat made its way amongst the other boats the staff of SEDA/Binh Minh broke out into traditional Vietnamese songs until we made it to the docking point where the hike up the mountain would begin.
The hike up to the Perfume Pagoda is several kilometers and quite steep. It doesn’t make it easy that the stone-paved path has been trekked on so many times that the rocks have been burnished smooth and thus are insanely slippery; I lost my footing too many times to count. Unfortunately, all along the path the view was blocked by more vendors and food and drink stalls (which were actually quite necessary due to the heat). I would have liked to have seen the view, but it makes sense for the vendors to be there: with the thousands upon thousands of people walking by it’s a small entrepreneurs dream to have such easy access to a market like this one! I would not be surprised if some of the stall owners had micro-finance loans of their own, from Kiva or any other organization.
The SEDA/Binh Minh staff before the hike up to the cave.
With roughly 1/3 of a mile to the cave, our ability to walk normally stopped. Suddenly I was at a rock concert back home: we were in a mosh pit. The throngs of pilgrims had finally all converged on one narrow path to the pagoda with intense pushing and shoving. I swear, at one point my feet were no longer on the ground and my body movement was only because of the sway of the crowd! Fortunately for me, I was a head taller than everybody so I was able to get fresh air, while everyone else must have been suffocating. Being a head taller was also useful for the staff of SEDA/Binh Minh to keep track of me and each other as I was a very visible landmark amongst the sea of people. In fact I was called a ‘hero’ by them since I was able to make my way through everyone easier and thus opening up a path for them behind me!
The pagoda itself was breathtaking. After walking down about 120 stairs I found myself in a wide-open cavern with a giant pillar of stone in the middle. Behind the pillar was a grotto with several Buddhist altars where people were doing a number of things including praying, trying to catch ‘lucky water’, aka drops from stalactites, and stuffing money into fissures of the rocks (a sacrifice in hopes that wealth will surely be had this new year!). The intensity of the spirituality simply washed over everything in the cave. I was left without words as I took it all in.
Entering the mouth of the Perfume Pagoda.
While I was literally one of only four recognizable foreigners I saw the entire time (I only saw the other foreigners on my way back down the mountain) amongst the at least 100,000 people, I would surely visit it again during this time of the year. If I could, I would edit the guide books to say “do not visit the Perfume Pagoda for the first two months after Tet, unless you want a truly unforgettable cultural experience that you’ll probably keep with you for the rest of your life.” Furthermore, I am glad that I was able to share this experience with everyone at SEDA/Binh Minh because now I truly feel like I have been accepted by my co-workers!
If you are interested in lending to Vietnamese borrowers please join the Vietnam Critical Mass lending team!
Also, please lend to any and all SEDA/Binh Minh borrowers!
7 comments 2 March 2009
Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
My name is Nathan and I would like to introduce myself to the Kiva community as one of the members of KF7. I am stationed in Hanoi, Vietnam with the local MFI SEDA. I am extremely grateful for this amazing opportunity and strongly urge anyone who is considering applying as a Kiva Fellow to do so immediately!
A typical Hanoian street scene.
The well-known idiom ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ perfectly explains my first several days in Vietnam. While I had many fears prior to arriving in Vietnam including safely crossing the hectic and mob-like streets of Hanoi (I even was hit by a passing motorbike on the sidewalk one day and the previous day I saw a city bus T-bone another motorbike!), I am no longer afraid that there are no deserving recipients of microfinance here in Hanoi.
Before arriving in Vietnam, several previous fellows told me that in terms of Kiva placements, Hanoi is a 5-star rated fellowship. The city looks and feels like a modern city in all aspects including hotels that are budget to posh, an extensive public transportation system, large businesses and high-rise buildings on many blocks, and young, trendy, and fashionable people everywhere. The house that I live in even has high-speed wireless Internet, a luxury the vast majority of Kiva Fellows will not even come close to having at home let alone in Internet cafes.
This so-called 5-star rating made me question whether microfinance was actually all that necessary in Hanoi and the surrounding communities. After my first day in Hanoi I still felt this way after looking to purchase a mobile phone. After being pointed in a direction to find a phone by a long-time expat from Australia (maybe this was my first mistake!), I went into a very fancy looking store with an all-glass front with automatic sliding doors. Inside, the clientele was 100% Vietnamese with many of the people wearing what appeared to be designer clothing and sporting cool and trendy-looking haircuts. The cheapest phone that I found in the store was around $40, with prices ranging all the way up to $600+ for iPhones and various Blackberry phones.
My initial fear about microfinance in Hanoi however has turned out to be unfounded. Without even having a chance to settle down and get over my jet lag I went right to work as a Kiva Fellow my second day. After taking a hired taxi to SEDA’s branch offices on the outskirts of Hanoi and beyond I realized that there are in fact many deserving recipients of microloans here in the Hanoi surrounds.
Bac Ninh: The location of a SEDA branch office.
In one village that I visited near SEDA’s Bac Ninh branch office, I met my first group borrowing team. The village was small and had open raw-sewage drains along the tiny road in front of the small retail shop of one of the women. Nearby several small children were playing next to dogs that were foraging in piles of litter. The five women that I met live very different lives than many of the residents of Hanoi-proper, and in my humble opinion are using their microloans to attempt to better their opportunities. In fact, when asked what their hopes were for their futures they all said the same thing: get larger future loans so that they can improve their businesses even more so that hopefully they can send their children to university to provide the children better job opportunities than they have. Very inspiring if you ask me!
Lesson #1 learned in Hanoi: you can’t judge a book by its cover!
To learn more about SEDA, please click HERE. If you would like to lend to woman like this group near Bac Ninh, Vietnam, please check out SEDA’s currently fundraising borrowing groups by clicking HERE.
12 comments 13 February 2009
From boardrooms to street kitchens
You will not find much about it in the Lonely Planet but Thanh Hóa, Vietnam, is where I will be spending the next few months as a Kiva Fellow. Its dirt roads, paper-based systems and road-side street kitchens are a far cry from the corporate culture that I am familiar with, but I am excited to see what the next few months will hold.
Thanh Hóa is the fourth largest (by area) and second poorest province in Vietnam, with over 30% of the households considered poor. Kiva’s field partner here, the Fund for Thanh Hóa Poor Women, has been in operation for over 10 years and continues to grow in size and influence, opening a new branch just this past November in the Hậu Lộc district.
Although I have only been here for a few (linguistically challenged) days, we have hit the ground running and I am trying to ramp up as quickly as I can. (Easier said than done when there isn’t a wikipedia page on hand.) What I have found so far is a great passion for change and a general consensus that with the strong work ethic ingrained in its people, Vietnam’s economy will grow. The only question is how quickly and at what cost.
I will keep you posted on what I find, but in the meantime… Tôi cần thực hành tiếng Việt!
Note: In a future blog, Nathan, Kiva Fellow based in Hanoi, and I will be delving into the differences between microfinance in Hanoi and Thanh Hóa. Please leave us any specific questions you would like us to look into (e.g. how does the cost of living differ?) by leaving us comments. Cám ơn!
Join the ‘Vietnam Critical Mass’ lending team!
8 comments 13 February 2009
On Poverty
Yesterday I met Mr. and Mrs. Phung, their two children and their granddaughter. The Phungs run a bicycle repair shop. It is a small shop on a partially paved, pot-holed street on the outskirts of Thanh Hoa City, Vietnam (150 kilometers south of the capital, Hanoi). Had it been a few houses further down the street, Mr. and Mrs. Phung would have enjoyed views over the rice paddies.
Bicycles are repaired on what would be the pavement, if one existed. As with many homes, the front room not only acts as a sort of living room but also as a place of business; in this case a store room for bicycle parts. Bicycle tires and tubes hang from the ceiling and brakes, brake cables, pedals, baskets, etc. are stored in cubby holes on the wall. Even with the entryway wide open, one’s eyes take a moment to adjust to the dark inside.
Mr. and Mrs. Phung had been warned in advance of this foreigner’s arrival and welcomed me into their home. We were there with one of the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women’s loan officers to distribute a group loan.
While each borrower was lent almost 3.1 million VND (~ US$181), they all said they wanted to borrow much more but couldn’t. I’ve heard this complaint many times as I usually ask borrowers what they like most about the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (“FPW”) and where they’d like to see improvements. As I knew, FPW restricts the amount that individuals can borrow by reference to their credit history, and 6 million VND (~US$353) was the absolute maximum loan amount. So I wondered why borrowers wanting more money didn’t borrow from the bank. After all, it is not uncommon to hear FPW’s borrowers such as Mr. & Mrs. Phung say they expect to make a profit of 2 million VND (~ US$118) per month on a 12-month 3.1 million VND loan.
Now many poor borrowers the world-over can’t borrow from a bank because they have nothing to offer as collateral. But this appears not to be the case in rural Vietnam where most people own their houses and the land on which their houses are built. Which raises another very interesting question: how poor are these borrowers?
I know the answer to the first question is much more complicated than I’ll ever learn but from my few short weeks in Vietnam, here are two pertinent discoveries: many borrowers don’t have title deeds to their properties and some who do aren’t willing to risk losing their homes on a business loan. Being told the latter by Mr. Phung (while Mrs. Phung tended to her granddaughter’s needs) was particularly revealing. Here was a borrower who was willing to borrow money from a loan shark at an <a href=”http://www.mftransparency.org/”>APR</a> of 188% but they wouldn’t mortgage their house to obtain a more favorable interest rate (fortunately for Mrs. Phung, FPW loans carry an APR of only 24%). On the other hand, maybe the Phungs were more clued-in than I give them credit for as I’m sure many small business owners in the US will rue the day they gave their bank a personal guarantee on their small business loans.
I also wonder, in light of the aforementioned discovery, how poor FPW’s borrowers really are. Now I really am tip-toeing into a mindfield. So let me skirt around the edges. <a href=”http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/aboutus/“>CGAP</a> (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), the leading independent resource for objective information, expert opinion, and innovative solutions for microfinance, defines the <a href=”http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/530/”>poor</a> as those living on less than $2 dollar per day per capita. I haven’t yet investigated how this definition takes into consideration real estate ownership. The fact that FPW’s borrowers benefit enormously from such small loans (particularly given the alternatives) is good enough reason to lend to them. But are they really that poor? It is a question that many Kiva Fellows I’ve spoken to ponder. And it is a question I will continue to research and think about.
Postscript: Today, at the opening ceremony for FPW’s fifth branch, the local People’s Committee member welcomed FPW into his district saying, among other things, that he hoped the provision of loans to women in his district would prevent them having to leave their homes to search for work elsewhere. He went on to say that some who did were “stolen into China” – which my interpreter translated to mean sold as wives to Chinese men. Indeed, my translator told me that one of her parents’ neighbors had been sold to China, only to return 10 years after her disappearance. A sobering thought which puts theoretical questions related to “poverty” into perspective.
1 comment 16 December 2008
Culinary Delights in Vietnam
My mother grew up during WWII. She can make a little go a long way. But she’s no match for the Vietnamese. A couple of nights ago, at my translator’s house, we had chicken.
It is no fun being a chicken. But at least they weren't battery chickens!
Not chicken breasts or chicken thighs but chicken vertebrae. The amount of meat on a chicken’s vertebra is virtually nil. Common sense would accurately lead you to such a conclusion. But the Vietnamese serve up cooked vertebrae and you pop them into your mouth and then suck out all the juices and do your best to find some meat. Not exactly a satisfying meal. Thank goodness for rice. Not that I should complain. My translator and her father are poor people; I used to make in a week what they each make in a year. And yet they have invited me to their home for dinner on a number of occasions. Eating chicken vertebrae, however, beats eating cat – which is what I had for dinner on Sunday evening at a new-found friend’s house.
The cat arrived in the early afternoon. Fortunately not on foot but in a bag carried by one of his friends. I wonder what it had done to deserve such a fate. I spent the next hour or so hearing them chop it up outside. And I spent the next couple of hours not looking forward at all to the moment I’d have to eat it. Fortunately, a shopping trip with the my friend’s wife and her sister took my mind off the evening’s dinner. I bought some silk for the lining of a new suit that I’d ordered from a local tailor a couple of days ago. I wonder what the $100 suit will be like. She bought shoes and a new outfit. But back to the cat. It didn’t taste good. Perhaps it would have tasted better if I had been on the fast road to getting drunk, like the others. How much was psychological as opposed to physiological I can’t say. It reminded me of the time I supped on turtle and piranha in the Amazon rainforest. At least this time, the meal didn’t have me up all night. I’m not looking forward to eating dog. No wonder dogs are all so well behaved in Vietnam; they rarely so much as bark. Snake, porcupine, termites and congealed gelatinous blood don’t appeal either. But generally though, the food here is good.
For me, one of the pleasures of international travel is, generally speaking, eating the local food. I particularly enjoy street food and meals bought from little restaurants frequented by the locals. In that regard, today was a stellar day. I had three tasty meals, all for a total outlay of US$3! In the morning, I had a 2 egg omelette in a French roll from the woman who has a stand outside the MFI’s office ($0.50).
A kindly street vendor who makes my breakfast omelette
Each day she greets me proudly with a new English phrase; today’s was “good morning”. And then for lunch, I had Vietnamese tapas: a small bowl of cuttlefish, a couple of small pork chops, a local variety of roll, some freshly roasted and salted peanuts, rice, a small plate of sliced boiled potatoes with herbs and a larger bowl of boiled greens in their broth (which one pours over the rice). All for $1.60.
My local lunchtime restaurant
And for dinner I had beef pho. I’ll blow the budget later on $1 beers when I meet the only other Westerner in town: an Australian who runs a bamboo company.
5 comments 25 November 2008
Ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille
I am a little nervous. Not for myself, but on behalf of some of our Kiva clients. The reason? We are heading out to Bac Ninh ( the small town where Kiva’s Vietnamese micro-finance partner has a regional office ) to film some clients. Kivab2b is making a short film about Kiva and the engaging dynamic duo Rachelle ( Canada ) and James ( US ) are here in Vietnam to interview and film a few Kiva clients. They have already criss-crossed the US filming Kiva lenders and now it’s the turn of the borrowers. We have chosen 10 clients who we think will be comfortable being filmed. I am fervently hoping that the cameras, microphones and not least the legal form giving consent ( of which the English version confuses the hell out of me! ) do not prove to be too intimidating.
We arrive in Bac Ninh in relative luxury in a small mini-van we have hired for the occasion. It makes a very nice change from the local buses and hair-raising motorbike taxis I usually take! The mood is a bit like heading to summer camp, as we have myself, Rachelle and James with associated equipment, a translator and a couple of interested head-office MFI staff all coming along for the ride. It’s early as we depart Hanoi ( 6.30am ) and the street markets are at their busiest as vendors sell all manner of fruits, vegetables, breads and meats for the day’s meals – I am sure you can buy virtually anything you desire from a Hanoi street vendor!
We were given strict instructions by Mrs. Lan – the Bac Ninh branch manager – to be there by 8am sharp. I always tell Mrs. Lan that she is the boss and I will do whatever she tells me to, so the early start is to ensure we uphold our part of the deal. Mrs. Lan is impressed to see us already there enjoying a morning cup of Vietnamese tea when she arrives at 7.45am. Introductions over, we depart for our first client, with SEDA’s neighbours curiously observing this motley crew.
The villages around Bac Ninh have not seen many mini-vans and we gingerly progress down tight alleyways and over mud-tracks, Mrs. Lan navigating for the city-slicker driver. We arrive at the home of our first client. She has been expecting us and warmly invites us into her home. I have met most of these clients before and they greet me like an old friend – it’s very heart-warming. Some of them chastise me for not yet providing them with the photos I took of them during my earlier visit – I try to tell them I am waiting until the very end of my stay – and make me promise that I will bring them with me next time. Some of the clients are exactly as they were the first time I met them and have obviously not allowed the fact that they will be filmed intrude on their daily routine. Others however have clearly made a special effort to look a little special for filming and I detect a bit of make-up, some nicer outfits and hair neatly tucked away in elegant buns.
Another notable observation is the stronger presence of the husbands during these filming sessions. SEDA works with the Vietnam Women’s Union and as such well over 90% of their clients are women – as you would expect! Sometimes a client is taking out a loan on behalf of herself and her husband for their joint business but in most instances the wife and husband have separate jobs so as to maximise the family income. Here I must digress slightly to express my admiration for the strength and resilience of Vietnamese women – they really are the back-bone of this country. I am certain that official statistics would show they are key contributors to the nation’s gross domestic product. They do all manner of jobs – I have seen female construction workers, mechanics, garbage collectors – you name it – while also bearing the greater load of the family and household responsibilities. Getting back on track….The husbands are not usually present at the repayment and loan disbursement meetings at which I have previously met the clients, but now that the cameras have arrived they take a more active and visible role, proudly being the man of the house.
James and Rachelle immediately and easily place the clients at ease and scout for a suitable location. These are not closed, controlled film sets – they are people’s homes and businesses – and we are often disturbed by tractors and harvesters passing by, children and neighbours wandering into the midst of filming, ubiquitous mobile phones ringing ( the Vietnamese love to have cutesy pop songs as their mobile phone ring tones) with the call recipient loudly answering and chatting away. Luckily the clients are wearing microphones, which when first shown to them draws the identical response of “I have never worn a microphone before”. Kudos must be given to Mrs. Lan who quick-smart became an expert at discreetly disguising the lapel microphones in the client’s clothing.
If more cameras were available, it would have been fascinating to film “a making of” as word spread and curious neighbours sit, stand and squat at the edges, fascinated by what is occurring. For some, bravery and curiosity combines and they approach the camera lens and peer through it. A special treat awaits me at one of the villages which I have visited many times and has become a bit of a favourite. I always draw a crowd, but it’s the warmth as opposed to the quantity of the people which has left the greater impression. In particular I have been enchanted by these 3 magnificent grandmothers. The first time I saw them there were sitting outside a house that was about 25 metres away and they kept their distance. The next time they were sitting outside the same house but got up and pretended to casually walk by, when in reality they were intently watching what I was doing. This time they had no qualms about coming directly coming over to us and asking what we were doing. “We have seen you here before” they stated and I finally got my longed for interaction. Upon spying my camera, one of them asked me to take a photo and I was extremely pleased to oblige.
But back to the interviews… As previously mentioned I was a little apprehensive as to how comfortable the clients would be, but it turned out to be needless anxiety as many of the clients comfortably and confidently answered the questions. Responses were direct, succinct and matter-of-fact but also peppered with laughter. They were often puzzled at the question “what was their happiest memory?” but all of them were easily able to answer the question “how long do you expect to have to work for”? The answer – “forever”. When asked “How does it make you feel to know that strangers thousands of miles away want to help you and your business” they become a little emotional and thanks and gratitude are demonstrated in their individual ways.
Our client’s businesses and their specific skills continue to fascinate me, be it rice noodle production, silk production right at the source from silkworms, breeding said silkworms, making roof tiles or making specialty cakes. Tremendous pride is evident but never explicitly stated when we compliment them on their output.
When we finished filming after 2 very successful days, I returned to Hanoi feeling yet again privileged and humbled to have had this unique glimpse into our client’s homes, businesses and indeed lives. Memories I will cherish for a lifetime.
To make a loan to a SEDA client similar to the ones we filmed, please click here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=85&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_tpg=fb
1 comment 4 November 2008
Honey I’m Home ( aka A Typical Kiva Day in the Office )
I am not a morning person. I know this about myself, but am starkly reminded of this fact when my alarm goes off at 6am. In a zombie trance I get out of bed, put the kettle on and have a shower. I put on the clothes I chose the night before, as I know that at 6am in the morning my brain does not work at its best and there is a high risk I may choose clothes and footwear completely impractical for riding on the back of motorbikes and sitting cross-legged on the floor. Today I head out to Bac Ninh, where SEDA has one of their regional offices and where the actual work of meeting clients, disbursing loans and collecting repayments occurs. All of the Kiva clients are serviced out of Bac Ninh and I travel there twice a week, travelling 2 ½ hours each way on 3 local buses to get there.
Back to my cup of tea. I gulp it down and head to the bus stop down the road to catch my first bus of the day. It’s 6.40am and the routine is to meet Huyen – my university student translator – at Long Bien bus depot at 7am. From there we catch the next bus to Bac Ninh. Long Bien is the largest bus depot in Hanoi and a nightmare to navigate. There is no order to the buses, no signage or timetable to indicate where you can find your particular bus. You basically wait and pray. The one positive is that it’s still early and there are less hawkers about to bother us. The Bac Ninh bus arrives and we get on quickly to ensure we get a seat. Getting a seat on a Vietnamese bus resembles a competitive sport and women get no special treatment. I try and avoid any diplomatic incidents despite what I observe, but once I saw a young man nearly trample a pregnant woman to get to a seat. I could not help myself and stood directly in front of him, loudly announcing that he should be ashamed of himself. Despite the language barrier I think everybody in the bus could understand what I was saying. At the next stop he sheepishly got up and offered the pregnant woman his seat. One thing I do admire however is the fact that older people are treated very respectfully and as soon as they board a bus, somebody will instantly get up and guide them to a seat.
It’s a 1 hour journey to Bac Ninh. Huyen and I usually chat away for the first half an hour, but then after a while we put on our respective MP3 players and listen to music to pass the time. The journey is primarily highway and the scenery would not make it onto a postcard. An hour later we reach Bac Ninh town. We disembark and walk to the bus depot to catch our next bus to Yen Phu, a small town in Bac Ninh province where the SEDA office is based. The Bac Ninh bus depot is one of the few places I get approached by beggars. There is one particular young man – I’d guess early 20s – with a severe limp and facial disfigurement who is there every week. The first time we saw him Huyen told me not to give him money as he would most certainly be hired by somebody to beg and would have to pay his ‘pimp’ the bulk of his takings. This knowledge coupled with telling myself that I am already doing some good by volunteering in Vietnam for 4 months makes me feel more comfortable about ignoring the beggars.
Our last bus arrives and we board for the final 45 minutes journey to Yeh Phu. In contrast this is a stunning journey and I still enjoy looking out over the rice fields and slices of life in the small villages we pass. Then we arrive at Yen Phu. It’s 9.30am and it feels like we have done a full day’s work already, but we have just begun.
On the Way to Yen Phu
On The Way to Yen Phu
We are warmly welcomed by the SEDA credit officers. Then onto the back of a motorbike and off we go to visit clients. The credit officers have 3 days of client interaction – Tuesday through to Thursday. In the morning they have their weekly repayment collection meetings and in the afternoon they disburse new loans. On Monday and Friday they are in the office catching up on paperwork. I enjoy the motorbike rides out to visit clients. The preparation beforehand is hilarious. I basically lather my face, arms and neck in sun-cream, put on sunglasses and sometimes a hat. And that’s it. The locals however have a much more fastidious routine. They wear long shirts, gloves, hats and face masks to ensure that no skin whatsoever is exposed to the sun and that they stay white. It makes me laughingly think of the women back home who pay a lot of money for regular fake sun-tans.
All Covered Up and Ready to Go
We drive through all manner of surrounds – narrow village laneways, along canals, pass cemeteries, through rice fields- arriving at the location for our first collection meeting. The meetings are usually held in a central location such as a school, pagoda or a home and we will meet with 4-5 groups at once. I always get a little nervous at schools as invariably one of the students sees me and then bedlam ensues. They leave their classrooms and jump and dance around singing “hello, hello, hello”. After a few minutes a teacher will appear and yell or dramatically bang a drum and they scurry back to class. Occasionally some persistent little rascals will remain throughout the meetings, intriguingly observing us.
On the Way to Clients
On the Way to Clients
Hello, Hello, Hello
The credit officer meets with each group leader one by one and collects the weekly repayments. I then enquire if I can ask them a few questions. It never ceases to amaze me how open the clients are with a complete stranger and they patiently answer my questions about their family finances, families and hopes for the future. Interview over, I ask if I may take a photo. This usually draws a response of nervous laughter and protestations that they are not suitably dressed for a photo. The credit officers interject telling them that’s nonsense and that they look fine, so they acquiesce whilst patting down their hair or straightening a shirt – the response to having a photo taken really is universal! One time while I was taking photos of clients, one of them was taking a photo of me with their phone – the shoe very firmly on the other foot!
The meeting is repeated 3 times at separate locations and we usually meet with 10 -15 groups per session. Lunchtime. The Vietnamese take their lunchbreaks very seriously. Usually we drive back to the office and will have lunch at one of the food stalls in Yen Phu. Occasionally we are too far from the office and may have lunch at a client’s home. I am always humbled by our client’s hospitality when we visit their homes. They are always delighted to see me and dust off their best chair for me to sit down on. Cups of tea will be thrust into my hand and instantly refilled the moment they are empty. It’s an honour when we eat with them but I also feel a little guilty that we are taking food from their families’ mouths. I quash the strong desire to ask the credit officers to give them some money for the meal as I know that would be incredibly insulting. Thankfully for my western conscience we don’t have meals with clients very often.
After lunch we have disbursement meetings where new loans are distributed. These are large meetings as every member of the group must attend, so 20 – 30 women may be in attendance. These meetings are held in a public area as a home could not comfortably contain this many people. The credit officers commence by talking about loan discipline, the importance of meeting their repayment obligations and also of making savings. Typically a SEDA client will also have a savings account where they will contribute 5,000 Vietnamese Dong ( $US 0.30 ) a week in savings. That does not seem like a lot – and it isn’t – but instilling a behaviour of savings is important and even a small amount will ultimately pay dividends. Once the ‘pep talk’ is over, the groups approach one by one and each member of the group needs to sign a basic contract acknowledging that they have received the funds and will repay accordingly. It’s very businesslike and the women usually count their loans to ensure they have received all their funds. One woman once made me laugh as she did not like the fact that some of her notes were old, so she emphatically asked the credit officer for newer notes!
A Loan Disbursement Meeting at a More Subdued Moment
Making it All Official
About 2 – 3 disbursement meetings are held in an afternoon and then it’s back to the office. It’s typically 4 – 4.30pm and Huyen and I bid the Yen Phu team good-bye. We trudge back to the bus stop, fervently praying that we don’t have to wait too long for the bus. The longest we have had to wait is 50 minutes! There is absolutely nothing at the Yen Phu bus station so that was 50 of the longest minutes of my life. Eventually the bus arrives and we commence our 3 return bus journeys. The music I choose on the way back to Hanoi tends to be mellow as I am often reflecting on the clients I have met and the sneak peek I have had into their lives. I am always in admiration of the resilience, hospitality and sheer hard work demonstrated by the Kiva clients – there is no ‘woe is me’ self pitying attitude.
Eventually, mercifully, I turn the key and enter my apartment. In reality it’s modest but in contrast to where I have been today it’s palatial. It’s already dark and usually between 7 and 7.30pm. I immediately head to my shower as I am always sweaty and grimy. I cook a modest meal and usually treat myself to ice-cream. Exhausted it’s early to bed, but satisfied that in a small way I am doing my bit to help.
This is what I do two days a week. They are long, hot and tiring days, but they are also my favourite days of the week.
4 comments 30 September 2008
My first blog
For someone who is non-technical, blogging is a whole new adventure. So I’ll keep this short just to see if I can post this blog. Ciao.
3 comments 18 September 2008
Same Same But Different
In Hanoi the tourist stalls in the old quarter are crammed with all manner of trinkets for tourists to buy. T-shirts are of course popular and there are many that contain that ubiquitous saying ‘same same but different’. Usually I ignore the persistent hawkers ( while fighting back the urge to proudly declare that I am more than a mere tourist ) but events over the past couple of weeks have made me actually stop and think a little more about ‘same same but different’.
I am first generation Australian of Greek heritage. I grew up very much in a Mediterranean household, where family and food is at the core of life. I vividly remember the sense of bewilderment I felt when I went to barbecue of a friend and was told to bring my own meat and drinks. What ? An invitation like that would cause confusion amongst my family, as for Greeks a hosts’ table is laden with food and people fight for the “honour” of paying a bill after a night out.
Although you would not think it, the Vietnamese share quite a few similarities to their Mediterranean “cousins”, as family and food are also at the core of Vietnamese life. For the Vietnamese I would add a third pillar – business and the obtaining of money. This is decidedly lower down the list for Mediterraneans with their “live for today and tomorrow will take care of itself” attitude, although I imagine that if you live in a country where significant poverty is not an issue, you would have a more carefree attitude to money.
Another similarity is how loud the Vietnamese talk! I have a voice that is loud and rises further and quickens in direct proportion to my passion. My Mediterranean friends and I can all talk at the same time and what to others may appear as talking over the top of each other, to us is normal. You don’t stay quiet in a Mediterranean environment – you have your say and you do it emphatically. I sometimes struggle with this in the Australian business culture, but in Vietnam it’s not a problem. I often sit in on meetings where 3 conversations are happening at the same time and the voices get increasingly louder as a point is debated. Sometimes it sounds like they are angry with each other, but they are not – it’s just the very direct conversation style. If a phone rings while sitting in a bus, the phone call recipient will answer and their conversation will boom throughout the bus. This initially surprised me as I expected a more restrained conversational style, but my Mediterranean background helped me adapt very quickly.
I love being Australian. I think that if you grow up in Australia you have truly won life’s lottery, as you do for the most part grow up in a land of tolerance, opportunity and fairness, not to mention outstanding climate and physical beauty. One of things I treasure most is Australia’s multi-cultural background. I love the fact that when you travel you always feel that things are a little bit familiar because you might have seen or tasted something similar as a result of the Italian, Chinese, Portugese, Vietnamese, Sudanese, Lebanese or South African family that lives down the road. Of course Australia is not perfect, but overwhelmingly you have fewer things to complain about as an Australian than you would as a Vietnamese or any of the other countries that Kiva is active in. For me however there is a ‘but’ and the ‘but’ comes in the form of Australia’s isolation. I have often thought that if we could take Australia and just move it further up, then it truly would be perfect. I know many of my countrymen revel in Australia’s relative isolation and would be horrified by this thought, but not me. I wish we were closer to the action. That we weren’t so comfortably complacent. And most of all I wish that Europe wasn’t a whole day away. But I guess you can’t have everything. And after extensive travel and if you consider that the Unites States has had 8 years of Bush and his cronies in charge, there still is no other place I would rather call home.
One of the things I am enjoying however about my Kiva Fellowship is feeling like I am a global citizen. An Australian living in Hanoi, working for an American group with an Asian micro-finance organisation. I love hearing the multitude of backgrounds, perspectives and accents. Last week I attended a micro-finance forum at which over 500 delegates from all around the world were present. I had dinner with Cambodians and Dutch, swapped ideas with a woman from Papua New Guinea and had a lively discussion with someone from Bangladesh.
The more you travel and live abroad, the more you realise that although cultures are different and should be celebrated as such, there are also lots of areas where we are the same. That to me is wonderfully reassuring. Maybe I will get myself one of those t-shirts after all.
Add comment 7 September 2008
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