Posts filed under 'Kyrgyz Republic'
Verb rules and road duels
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan
A less endearing road habit is driving in the country at night, where the gentleman’s etiquette of how to deal with oncoming traffic that I’m used to, has become an updated version of the staple of the 19th-century Russian novel, the duel.
Continue Reading 3 comments 5 November 2009
Kyrgyzstan’s Windy City
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan
In the middle of October I spent a week away from the Bishkek office of my MFI, Mol Bulak Finance, to see microfinance in action in their Balykchy branch. Part of the training as a Kiva Fellow is to complete an online course from the United Nations Development Program on microfinance, which seemed to tell me continuously that microfinance is a low-margin, high-cost business. No matter how many times this message is drilled into me, it still comes as a shock.
The town of Balykchy sits at the start of Lake Issyk-Kul, the world’s second-largest mountain lake after Lake Titicaca. The lake is a summertime holiday Riviera and a former Soviet naval testing ground far away from the prying eyes of the West. Compared with its more visitor-friendly lakeside neighbours of resort town Chopon-Ata and trekking or skiing centre Karakol, Balykchy suffers from a bad reputation in Bishkek. Bishkek was a sea of yellow leaves at the time, but I was warned that I would need warm clothes for the cold and sunglasses for the wind. As we drove out from Bishkek, the ever-present fields and mountains became drier and when we finally left the steppes and arrived in the massive valley of Issyk-Kul, the landscape looked more and more like a mountainous desert, camels included. During my time there, I never experienced Balykchy’s gale force delights but the wind’s presence seemed to hang over the town like a dragon in the mountains.
The modern-day Silk Road outside of Balykchy.
5 comments 1 November 2009
Добро пожаловать, граф Картошка! Jagaimo-san, Irasshai! ジャガイモさん、いらっしゃい！Welcome Mr Potato!
By Rob Packer, KF9 Kyrgyzstan
Inter-Cultural Exchanges in Kyrgyzstan
The words ikebana and prazdnik started spreading around the offices of Mol Bulak Finance, my MFI last week. Prazdnik was the easy part: it means holiday, festival or party in Russian, but the word ikebana was new to me. My first thought was “That word sounds a lot like the Japanese art of flower arrangement!” and then decided it didn’t really sound all that Russian, and used my limited knowledge of Kyrgyz (eki means two) to convince myself it must be Kyrgyz. When I asked I was met with shocked expressions and told it really was the Japanese word and that on Thursday flowers would be arranged, or lunch prepared.
8 comments 21 October 2009
A Sunday outing, MFI-style
By Rob Packer, KF9 (Kyrgyzstan)
I feel it’s almost become a cliché to write about the inspiring professionalism and overwhelming dedication of MFI staff on these pages. I’ve now been at my Kyrgyz MFI, Mol Bulak Finance, for a week and have now seen where the clichés come from: reality. As if to drive the point home, MBG’s indefatigable Credit Manager, Renat was waiting outside my apartment at 9am on a sunny, but cold October morning to visit borrowers in and around Kara-Balta, Kyrgyzstan.
The view from Bishkek
The road out of Bishkek was my first trip outside of the capital within Kyrgyzstan after my night-time journey from the airport into town. Our route out took us past Osh Bazaar, one of Bishkek’s largest, and Kyrgyzstan’s largest used car market, which is a phenomenon I hope to write about in a later blog. Along our route thousands of kilometres of flat Kazakh Steppe and West Siberian Plain crashed spectacularly into the snow-capped Toblerone blocks of the Alatau Mountains, the advance guard of the Himalayas, which rise 3500 metres within the space of 50 km. (more…)
10 comments 11 October 2009
Countdown to Kyrgyzstan
By Rob Packer, KF9 (Kyrgyzstan)
It’s been a short six months since I first found out about Kiva and in that time I’ve moved from having an interest in poverty alleviation and a vague desire to “do a bit more” to graduating yesterday as a fully-fledged KF9 Kiva Fellow. And my physical journey to Kiva has been no less of a complete change of direction: it started six months ago with me working for an investment bank in Hong Kong, and continued with persuading Indonesian internet cafe owners to let me have interviews over Skype in the dead of the night, returning to my hometown of London, England for a few weeks to say goodbye to friends and family, and finally arriving at Kiva Fellows training in San Francisco. My journey to my placement with Mol Bulak Finance in Kyrgyzstan will take me most of the way back to where I started.
KF9 Graduation with Kiva Staff and KF9 Kiva Fellows
One of the most obvious differences between my placement and most other Kiva Fellow placements is that I won’t be dealing with extreme heat. (more…)
8 comments 26 September 2009
Six Months Later: 10 Lessons Learned About Life, Microfinance and the Universe
Going full circle. Ferris Wheel in Bosteri, Issyk-Kul Lake Region, Kyrgyzstan
It was exactly half a year ago, on January 23rd, that I packed all of my belongings in one 30-pound backpack and left New York City for a 7 month trip to Central Asia and India. I only had a slightest idea of what the trip would wind being like and what exactly I’d be doing during all that time. I just knew that it was something that I had to try for myself, even if I couldn’t quite find and explain the reasons to others.
Low and behold, it’s now six months later and and I’m in the midst of doing my 2nd Kiva placement in Kyrgyzstan (after doing doing a Kiva Fellowship in Tajikistan and then a another job assignment in India). So, I figured that it would be a good time to stop and reflect on the experience and the lessons learned. With just four weeks left before heading back to the good, old U.S. of A, you definitely wonder about what this meant for you.
10 Lessons Learned About Life, Microfinance and the Universe (in no particular order):
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On Patience: Things take time to work. Over the last 6 months, I started work in 3 different organizations (2 for Kiva and 1 was for an independent, non-Kiva placement but also in microfinance). The first few weeks in every place can feel slow and sometimes awkward, as you struggle to find your place within the organization and figure out what you can contribute. Patience really is a virtue. (more…)
7 comments 23 July 2009
From Sweets to Riches – The Business of Cookies
Pre-Story: Hollywood Comes to Kyrgyzstan
Last week, our MFI was visited by a pair of filmmakers from Brazil who were shooting a documentary on microfinance and the impact it has on the lives of clients. Their plan was to travel the globe for 10 months and record customers, loan officers, and other microfinance specialists in different parts of the world. After shooting in Brazil and Russia, they were coming to Kyrgyzstan and turned to our organization to help them with the logistics.
We arranged for them to meet and interview several of our clients and staff members in the Issyk-Kul region (about 4 hours away from the capital of Kyrgyzstan – Bishkek – where our headquarters are) and I had an opportunity to come with them to translate the interviews.
As a Kiva Fellow, we typically get to talk to clients frequently to learn more about their lives, businesses and the impact that credit has had on them. However, those conversations are typically brief, since the clients, and often the loan officers that accompany us, are on a tight schedule.
This time around, however, the interviews lasted for more than an hour and were in a relaxed, non-rushed setting. As a result, it offered fascinating insights into the lives of these inspiring business owners and showed many more dimensions to the clients.
I’d like to share with you a story of a husband and wife who have created a successful bakery and how they’ve come to this point.
And That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles…
3 comments 20 July 2009
Behind The Curtain – Getting a New MFI on the Kiva Platform
A Kiva entrepreneur in Kyrgyzstan who has also created a Center of Temporary Stay for Orphaned Children using her own funds and resources. Click to learn more.
By Boris Mordkovich, KF8 – Kyrgyzstan
After doing a Kiva Fellowship in Tajikistan during February and March of this year, I’ve returned to Kiva this summer to do another placement in Kyrgyzstan.
Within the first two weeks at the micro-finance institution, it became very clear that this placement will be quite different from the first one. It’s actually quite amazing how much things can vary from one MFI to the other, from one country to another.
The main difference between the two placements is that the first MFI I was working with in Tajikistan was already on the Kiva platform for over a year when I arrived. They already had an established system in place for collecting data and posting profiles of their borrowers on the website. And while there was some room for improvements here and there, as a whole, it functioned very well. (more…)
1 comment 25 June 2009
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