I know! We can’t believe it either! Our Kiva Fellowships, as the 16th class, have come to an end.  So what’s in store for us once we return to our homes? Or perhaps, stay in the field for another fellowship?  Read on for the next chapter in the lives of some of the 16th Class of Kiva Fellows Alumni.

I am returning to San Francisco after working around Latin America for the past year. Apparently,  it’s time to go home and get ‘a real job’. I will be looking for work  in social enterprise or impact investing. I will miss the ‘tranquilo’ pace of life here in Nicaragua. Its not often you get the privilege of calculating an operational cost analysis from the comfort of a hammock. I will also miss catching my coworkers at AFODENIC singing along to Spanish versions of classics like ‘Dust in the Wind’ and ‘Total Eclipse of The Heart’ on Radio Amor. I am really glad I participated in the Kiva Fellows program. It was a  real good time.

Do: A Kiva Fellowship. It'll change your life. (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

The sixteenth class of Kiva Fellows has all but left the field- but we’re by no means done talking about our experiences. We’ve collectively spent 422 weeks in the field (just over 8 years!) and worked an estimated 16,650 hours at Kiva field partners around the world.  Needless to say, we’ve got a lot of opinions about how to use this time wisely.

Now, we’re no experts in living or working abroad (though we sure do like it), but we have some nuggets of wisdom to offer up for those of you transitioning into a life abroad or beginning your next Kiva Fellowship. Stick by these tips, and you can’t go wrong. (And for more hints and tips, check out 33 Tips from Kiva Fellows (written November 2009) or 45 More Tips from Kiva Fellows in South America.) Enjoy!

Best Way to a Kiva Fellow’s Heart is through…

1. People love to share food in El Salvador. If you’re having lunch with someone or with co-workers, offer up some of what you have for them to try. (Andrea Ramirez, KF16 Costa Rica & El Salvador)

2. Though most of the USA fast food places are here, don’t bother with them, Turkish food is wonderful. (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

3. If you take a trip(s) during your fellowship, remember that in some cultures it’s customary to bring back (small) gifts to friends and coworkers from your travels! I found that a box of chocolates to share in the office of my MFI was always much appreciated and disappeared within hours. (Laurie Young, KF16 Indonesia)

They may not look good. They may not taste that good, either. But do it: eat the fried cow intestines.

4. Make sure you try the different casados(rice and black beans paired with some sort of salad, and meat). It’s delicious, affordable, and the closest thing to home-made. (Andrea Ramirez, KF16 Costa Rica & El Salvador)

5. Try everything. Ok, yes, you could get sick, but worse, you could live the rest of your life without knowing what guinea pig, cow tongue, fermented maize, cow heart, llama, friend random thing with more random things in it, magical juice in a bag, etc., etc., tastes like. If these things don’t seem appealing, remember: even worse, you could miss out on a big chance to share in a local cultural experience that will stay stayed with you forever. (Mariela Cedeno, KF16 Bolivia)

6. Befriending office mates is easy as pie, especially if you bake one. Any baked treat will do the trick: cookies, cupcakes, 7-layer bars – anything tasty and homemade will suffice. Walk around and offer your treats during the afternoon coffee break. (Sandra Pina, KF16, Honduras)

How do you say…

7. No amount of “city” Spanish will prepare you for the linguistic richness and diversity of Spanish spoken in rural Costa Rica. That said, bring a notebook for ALL field visits, and let the loan officers be your best professors and guides. Even Costa Rican urbanites find themselves lost among the colloquialisms of Tico country Spanish. (Julie Kerr, KF16 Costa Rica)

8. Learning common words and phrases in an indigenous language is the quickest way to break the ice. Guaraní is Paraguay’s other official language and is spoken by the majority of the population. Purete means cool, haso means not cool, kaigue is lazy, nde ha’e kuña guapa means “You are a hard working woman!,” chevare’a means “I am hungry,” and amokose means “I want a drink!” (Alba Castillo, KF15 Paraguay)

9. Get rid of “uhm” in your vocabulary- it mean a female private part in Turkish. (Kim Strathearn, KF16, Turkey)

10. When a farmer says he brings his harvest to market using his “salchichón” (commonly known as “sausage”), blush not my friends, he means “horse”. (Julie Kerr, KF16 Costa Rica)

11. If you lose the thread of a conversation don’t just say ‘sí‘ or intermittently laugh. Get them to repeat things and when that get boring pick out a word or phrase that you Do know and make a comment or nonsequitor. They might be saying “fijate, las olas son bravas en la playa” and your response might be an unrelated, “¿Te gusta la playa?”  This gets the conversation back on your own terms. Think about how often you respond like this in English! (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

12. Because they will ask: Kiva means “unity” or “agreement” in Swahili. (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador & KF16)

What to Bring

Do: bring a tuperwear container. Sporks can also come in handy, for that mid-morning mountain climb.

13. My three smartest investments for my fellowships? A SteriPen, a tuperwear container, and a pocket knife with a corkscrew. (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador & KF16 Peru)

14. Always carry a small, sturdy umbrella. It will get you through unexpected showers; as well as hot, sunny days. (Alba Castillo, KF16 Paraguay)

15. Rain is as plentiful is the air we breathe. Bring an umbrella if you prefer to shower before getting dressed. (Julie Kerr, KF16 Costa Rica)

16. Bug spray, bug spray and MORE bug spray!! For those of you who like more natural alternatives, anything with menthol or eucalyptus helps repel the mightiest of mammoth mosquitoes, sand flies, ticks and chiggers. Slather it on THICK! (Julie Kerr, KF16 Costa Rica)

17. Bring clothes or shoes that need to be fixed, mended, or altered. It is cheap and the work is top quality. The sasterías and zapateros are EVERYWHERE. (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

There’s no place like home (in a new country!)

18. If you can, try to find accommodation near the central market building: there’s nothing like eating shrimp ceviche with avocado at 7 o’clock in the morning. Besides, this may be your only chance for the entire day to get your hands on food that’s neither triple-fried nor made out of pure pork fat. (Emmanuel von Arx, KF16 Ecuador)

19. If it’s possible, go with a homestay! Local food, local language, and a solid support group in-country are just a few of the obvious perks of living with a family. (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador and KF16 Peru)

20. For Kiva Fellows in the former Soviet republics: If you’re looking for apartments in older Soviet buildings, check to make sure that the utilities actually work. Gas outages can be frequent (sometimes in the dead of winter), and running water tends to be spotty on higher floors. As a rule of thumb, try not to live above the fifth floor – after all, the elevator might also not work! (Chris Paci, KF16 Tajikistan & Azerbaijan)

Getting from point A to B

21. When moving around by taxi in Cuzco, do everything possible to seem local to get cheaper prices (there are lots of local gringos, so you can pull it off). How to go about it?

• Say hi to your taxista like this “Buenas, maestro.” Saying hola is touristy, saying chofer is touristy, and asking anything about anything is touristy. You don’t care. You are local.
• Tell him where you are going by saying “I will get off at such and such location”. If you are going to a restaurant, know its name, what street it is on, the nearest cross street, and a reference point nearby BEFORE you get in. Otherwise you won’t be able to pull off the “trabajo aquí.”(Miss any of those four, you are officially a tourist.) (Rob Gradoville, KF16 Peru)

If you're feeling the need for speed, do: hop on your loan officer's motorcycle.

22. If you’re taking the bus and you don’t know where you need to get off, just ask the bus diver. Costa Rica has the nicest bus drivers around! (Andrea Ramirez, KF16 Costa Rica & El Salvador)

23. Note the taxi number (on side of doors when you get in) can help you retrieve forgotten item. Also can help if the taxi driver sees you note the number, he might be less likely to take the long way. It is common for taxis to stop and ask other for directions if they don’t know the place your going. Always make sure they turn the meter on. In the tourist area, always flag down a moving taxi–the ones that are just waiting around are just waiting to rip you off. Beware of the money switcheroo (ie you give them a 50 lira note that is the same color as a 5 lira note and they do the switcheroo and try to convince you that you only gave them the 5. Females always sit in the back and not in the front. I have have some excellent taxi driver and some dinks as well. Rider beware (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

Get to work!

24. If you have any freedom to do borrower visits, have no shame in visiting anyone who owns a panatería, heladería, or pisco vineyard. Peruvian hospitality and pride in their business translate to homemade treats for you. Microtenterprise never tasted so good. (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador & KF16)

25. Make people laugh, even when it’s awkward. Visiting clients who are on a spectrum from extreme introvert, to slightly less extreme introvert, can be daunting, but like everything else in life, there is nothing better than a laugh. You’d be amazed how many times my laughing at people and saying “por favor, sonria porque se me va a romper la camera si sigue asi,” actually made them smile. Don’t rush, don’t pull out your pen and BV template, and don’t start dangerously pointing your camera right way. Chill out, smile, shake hands, take in the scenery, interact! (Mariela Cedeno, KF16 Bolivia)

Do: hang out with coworkers after work. Don't: let them win.

26. Make sure to hang out with MFI staff outside of work. Don’t worry so much about about keeping it strictly ‘professional.’ I built trust, learned office hierarchy, gossip, and got a lot of technical questions answered after a few beers with loan officers. (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

27. Fake it ’til you make it. You will be considered an expert in all things Kiva, even if you’re not. Embrace the challenge. You will have multiple resources at your disposal: use them. Learn along the way and don’t be afraid to tell your field partner, “Can I get back to you on that? I want to confirm with Kiva.” (Sandra Pina, KF16, Honduras)

28. Invest in your coworkers. From the service staff to the reception staff to the MIS, they not only help you with your job but they can be great friends and connectors to your life in a new country. (Jill Hall, KF16 Philippines)

29. They tell you this at training, but really, do it: spend your first week only asking questions. Lots and lots of questions (and start on your Loan Product Survey or Social Impact Assessment first- asking pointed questions while completing items on your workplan is a double whammy!). Being extremely informed about every aspect of your MFI will only make your work easier moving forward. (And teach you more about microfinance, which is the whole point of the Fellowship, right?) (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador & KF16)

30. If it should take a day or two, it’ll take three or four. If it’s your Borrower Verification, it’ll take a month. (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador & KF16)

31. Figure out how your MFI communicates. They are probably using chat or skype. Get your coworkers chat/skype info early on. Sometimes you can formulate better questions, get better responses and be less annoying chatting rather than visiting their office for every little thing. (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

32. Email coworkers when you leave! – Even if they weren’t helpful with that one thing you were working on…they still care and want to hear from you when you’re gone. (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

33. Participate! Don’t be shy (or obnoxious) and get involved with after work sports or after work drinks. This is your new community. (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

Gringo Pricing

34. Don’t be afraid to bargain for transportation and goods! In many developing countries, it’s expected of everyone. You’ll probably be quoted a much higher price at the start than you should be paying, and it’s not because the vendor’s trying to “cheat” you as a foreigner. It just makes economic sense – it would be foolish for the entrepreneur not to sell for as high a price as he/she can get. (Chris Paci, KF16 Tajikistan & Azerbaijan)

35. Never take the first price- haggling is expected. On the other side of the coin (jaja), though, don’t haggle some old woman trying to sell you a scarf in the Sunday market into oblivion- that extra dollar probably means an awful lot more than her than it does to you. Lay aside your hubris and indignation from time to time and accept the gringo tax. (Kate Bennett, KF15 Ecuador & KF16)

Safety

36. Should you ever attract negative attention from the police in the former Soviet world, an effective tactic is to pretend (or demonstrate) that you speak barely any Russian – enough to understand their questions, but not enough to maintain a conversation. As long as your documents are in order, they will likely decide you’re too awkward to be worth it and let you leave. Hurray! Oh, and always carry your passport and registration with you. Always always always always always. (Chris Paci, KF16 Tajikistan & Azerbaijan)

37. Remember, guys: It’s better to appear like a total sissy than to get robbed or killed. If you feel that you are getting into a dangerous situation or a dead-end street in a bad neighborhood, don’t hesitate: simply turn around and run! Don’t worry: nobody will ever know about this – your reputation as a fearless globetrotter stays alive, and so will you… (Emmanuel von Arx, KF16 Ecuador)

38. It’s natural to burn with curiosity about your host country. But if you’re not living in a democracy, be cautious about the sorts of political questions you ask, unless you know your conversational partners well. For instance, my first placement was in Khujand, Tajikistan, in a region surrounded on three sides by the hostile country of Uzbekistan, and the authorities were always wary of Uzbek spies. My current placement of Azerbaijan is a country that considers itself at war and has suffered terrorist attacks in the past, so as the police see it, there’s a lot to be suspicious about. Be hyper-aware of these sorts of issues. And if you feel tempted to criticize the political system there and/or extol the virtues of your own, stop and reconsider. It’s not why Kiva sent you there, and in the worst-case scenario, you might get both yourself and your conversational partners in genuine trouble. (Chris Paci, KF16 Tajikistan & Azerbaijan)

39. Never carry your credit card unless you are making a withdrawal. I prefer to carry large sums of money in my shoe rather than bringing my card out of hiding. (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

40. Make and carry a photocopy of your passport. Carrying it around for real is a real bad idea, and having no record makes it hard to check into hostels/hotels. (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

41. If you’re in a country with a heavy police presence, be careful what you photograph! Sometimes the most unexpected subjects – bridges, factories, metro stations, gorgeous government buildings – can be deemed security risks, and photographing them can attract negative attention from the police. (Chris Paci, KF16 Tajikistan & Azerbaijan)

Hugs and Handshakes

42. If you are an unmarried woman and living in a country where the locals aren’t used to seeing women wandering around alone and are often inquisitive of where you are going and why you aren’t married, bring and wear a fake wedding band. Also, make sure you figure out which hand is the hand that the locals wear it on! It’ll do wonders for (sometimes) avoiding uncomfortable conversations if you don’t want to have them. (Laurie Young, KF16 Indonesia)

43. Outside of San Salvador the people are pretty conservative. Men won’t shake a woman’s hand unless she extends her hand first. (Andrea Ramirez, KF16 Costa Rica & El Salvador)

44. In Paraguay, you greet and say goodbye to friends with not one, but two kisses – one on each cheek. (Alba Castillo, KF16 Paraguay)

45. In Turkey, among friends the greeting is a kiss on both checks (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

Living and Looking Local:

Do: try to dance like the locals. Don't: fool yourself into thinking you're really, really good at it.

46. Although Turkey is fairly well connected, don’t rely on google. (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

47. If you want to look like a local, wear jeans. Even if it’s 100 degrees outside. Tourists are associated with shorts. (Andrea Ramirez, KF16 Costa Rica & El Salvador)

48. One of the best ways to learn about a culture is to people watch– what are they doing and not doing in public. (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

49. When in Rome…always pour some out for Pachamama. If you find yourself sitting around a big bucket of Chicha with nothing but a full gourd in hand, don’t be stingy, pour some out for Mother Earth, she’s thirsty too. (Mariela Cedeno, KF16 Bolivia)

50. Walk, walk everywhere, all the time. Yes you need to be at the office at 8 a.m. and you get up at 7:40, but maybe during your two hour lunch break and on weekends you can make sure to take the time to pace yourself. Remember to absorb everything around you: the sounds, the streets, the people, the street vendors, the conversations, the protests, the smells. For some reason, those were also my most peaceful times. (Mariela Cedeno, KF16 Bolivia)

51. Getting haircuts is cheap and always a great experience. Getting a straight razor shave sounds bad ass but is just bad and hurts a lot. (Jim Burke, KF16 Nicaragua)

52. Get into the rhythm of your location. If the locals take time to smell the roses or take a tea break –you should too. This is a great video (in English) on what a glass of tea means (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

53. Sit in a park/plaza by yourself…someone will sit next to you. (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

54. Be a guest (and a friend) – allow people in your host country to take you around…you don’t always have to pretend like you’re not a tourist…let’s be real, this is not your native country (if it is, still go on some trips!). (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

55. Get off the internet! Your friends at home really don’t need to hear from you every day (although your mother/father probably does). It’s way cooler to say, “I was out of internet range…” (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

Mind your manners:

56. You are going to be thoroughly stared at. Get used to it, as it is not rude here. (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

57. Don’t be offended when asked how much money you make, how much is your apartment, are you married, have kids, no to either question is followed by why not? Good way to deflect is nicely reply why do you want to know? Turks are very curious and have a different sense of what is private information. (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

58. Turkish people are very hospitable and gracious to guests–learn what it means to be a good guest. (Kim Strathearn, KF16 Turkey)

59. Most people in the former Soviet republics love to be photographed! Once you do, though, they might surprise you by asking when they can expect to receive a printed copy of their photo. There are plenty of little shops here where you can get a picture printed, so always take down the person’s address and try to bring or mail them a copy. With an inexpensive little gesture like this, you can absolutely make someone’s day. (Chris Paci, KF16 Tajikistan & Azerbaijan)

60. Follow through on promises (or obligations)– go to dinner with coworker’s families, take a day trip with coworkers or friends, etc. (Eric Rindal, KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia)

Kate Bennett (KF16) is thrilled to be working in Ica, Peru with Kiva Field Partner Caja Rural Señor de Luren. For more on Kate’s experiences with Caja Rural Señor de Luren or life in Peru or Ecuador, follow her work here.

A Warm Welcome! Manana offers the best from her garden. By DJ Forza, Georgia

This week’s Fellows Blog focuses on adaptability: Adapting microinsurance to poor households in Indonesia, an MFI in Turkey adapts to the needs of women entrepreneurs, a multifaceted borrower in Nepal adapts to market pressures, and a Kiva Fellow adapts to changing expectations. In a continuation of The Stuff Kiva Fellows Like series we hear how different fellows have adapted to their lives abroad by ‘crashing parties’ and ‘going to the Bazaar’. We hear about how practitioners are adapting finance and microinsurance products to their borrowers. Equally nimble we hear from a few borrowers and how they have expertly adapted to market pressures and changing circumstance. Microfinance is a dynamic industry by nature and like DJ or Binu or Maya Enterprise for Micro Finance, ensuring success means staying flexible and welcoming new opportunities born out of challenges.

Microinsurance in Indonesia: Current Challenges and Innovations.
Country: Indonesia / Fellow: Laurie Young, KF16

Laurie takes us to a microinsurance conference and explains the challenges of getting appropriate insurance products to poor households in Indonesia.

If It Is Tuesday It Must Be Izmit+ more of my favorite borrowers+ “buyurun agabeyi”…
Country: Turkey/ Fellow: Kim Strathearn, KF16

Kim explains the history of Maya Enterprise for Micro Finance and gives a profile on the women micro-entrepreneurs served by the organization in Turkey.

Multi-faceted Borrowers Part 2
Country: Nepal / Fellow: Abhinab Basnyat, KF16

Abhinab continues his series on multifaceted borrowers by introducing Binu, a Kiva borrower, and explaining her many business ideas.

Second Chances (Part 1)
Country: Georgia/ Fellow: DJ Forza, KF16

In this heartfelt and honest post DJ explains how she adapted her expectations and settled into her Kiva Fellowship in Georgia.

Stuff Kiva Fellows Like #10-17
Country: Nicaragua / Fellow: Jim Burke, KF16

The ‘Stuff Kiva Fellows Like’ series continues. Fellows discuss the stuff they like and how they have adapted to living abroad and working in microfinance.

* * *

Questions from the Field: Why Do We Lend, What’s a Kiva Fellowship + How does Microfinance Support Green& Agricultural Development?
Update from the Field: New Products in Microfinance, Over-Indebtedness+ Transparency
Update from the Field: Earthquakes, 5Ks+ The Pain of Sickness and Loss
Update from the Field: Expanding the Reach of Microfinance, Downsizing Development+ Why We Kiva

* * *

Plus more on-the-ground photos from the past week:

Vice Minister of Finance giving the Keynote Speech on the second day of the event. By Laurie Young, Indonesia

Binu infront of her canteen. By Abhinab Basnyat, Nepal

Spectacular Sighnaghi! By DJ Forza, Georgia

Jill in a Poofy Pink 'Filipiniana'. By Jill Hall, Philippines

We are Kiva Fellows. This is the stuff we like. Here is an insider (often critical, or satirical but always true!) view of what it means to be a Kiva Fellow and promote access to financial services around the world. From party crashing to bazaars to street food, these are the things we like and thrive on. Check out Stuff Kiva Fellows Like (SKFL) #1-9!

#10 Street Food

Mariela Cedeño, KF16, Cochabamba, Bolivia

I’m not really sure why, but there is something inherently appealing to a Kiva Fellow’s being about food that is prepared, cooked, and sold on the streets. Perhaps it’s the dubiously hygienic food preparation, the alternative cooking apparatus used to bring food to fire, or it’s ready availability and our relative laziness…wait, no, it’s actually our need to literally ‘taste’ the local culture. In our fits of street food deliriousness we are open and ready to taste all that our surroundings have to offer, however, we often find that the local fare may not quietly find a home in our stomachs. Thankfully, before leaving to our local assignments, our travel nurses reminded us that in times of intestinal woe, Cipro and other like antibiotics will be our best friend. They sometimes are, but because we are well versed in the dangers of overusing antibiotics and are haunted by nightmares of creating giant super bacteria that start kidnapping local women and children, we use them sparingly and wisely.

Nevertheless, a Kiva Fellow is not threatened by the possibility of exposure to parasites, e. coli, or anything of it’s kind, and with unready stomachs we take in all the savory goodness that the streets have to offer. Often we eat things without knowing what they are, and when told what they are, we shrug our shoulders and press on. We seek cultural immersion through food; we are bold culinary pioneers.

#11 Party Crashing

Sandra Pina, KF16, Honduras

Kiva Fellows (KFs) LOVE a good party. Food, music, drinks: what’s not to love? KFs are repeat offenders for obvious reasons. They do not consider their behavior to be ill-mannered or inconsiderate: crashing is merely a survival tactic. It can get very lonely in the field and KFs can’t sit and wait for invites to flood their Facebook wall because well, odds are they won’t. So, KFs crash. Weddings, birthdays, retirement celebrations, grocery store inaugurations, TGIF fun, holiday festivities are all fair game. Sure, the KF may not know Marta from accounting or her husband to be, or Adrian the birthday boy, but KFs firmly believe that nothing brings people together like cake. In the pursuit of brotherly love (read: food, music, drinks), KFs show up and wow coworkers and strangers alike with their witty banter and impressive dance moves (moonwalk anyone?). As (invited) party-goers head for home, they are usually heard saying something along the lines of, “That KF is really something.”

#12 Personal Space

Crowded ferry ride

Lauren Barra, KF 16, Kenya/Tanzania

The world’s population has just surpassed 7 billion people. Whether we’re boarding a matatu, dala-dala, or ferry, Kiva Fellows are painfully reminded of this fact each time we set out into the field. Public transportation in the developing world usually involves hoards of people, pushing and shoving, all desperately trying to secure a coveted seat. Hesitate, and you’ll end up standing for most of the bumpy ride. Although buses have legal limits, more people pile in at each stop because “there’s always room for one more.” You’re packed in like sardines and it suddenly occurs to you. What wouldn’t you give for a few more inches of personal space?

#13 Podcasts

Kate Bennett, KF16, Peru

Stuff You Should Know Team howstuffworks.com

You’re living in middle-of-nowhere Perú, or Sierra Leone, or Cambodia. You’re feeling isolated, whether due to your language skills, culture shock, or sheer exhaustion. You’re covered in mosquito bites, your toilet doesn’t work, and you can’t remember the taste of strawberries or what it feels like to not be in 100°F weather. The only English you’ve spoken or heard in three months are your own inane mutterings over PA2‘s most recent tech glitch.

But then, you flip on your iPod. All your troubles slide away as the smooth, calming voice of Ira Glass envelops you. It almost doesn’t matter what Ira is going on about, it just matters that he’s there for you. And it’s not just Ira: it’s the Stuff You Should Know team, the hilarious duo at RadioLab, and maybe a little bit of Prarie Home Companion for posterity’s sake. Meet your new best friends. You’re learning, you’re growing, and you’re keeping yourself sane through the incredible technologies of podcasts. And now that there’s a Stuff You Should Know lending team? Well that’s just gravy.

#14 Being ‘Xtreme’

Jim Burke, KF16, Nicaragua

Volcano Boarding Leon, Nicaragua

Kiva Fellows are adventurous, risk taking individuals. They are Xtreme. The natural habitat for the Kiva Fellow is the extreme cold (La Paz), the extreme heat, or the extremely uncomfortable. KFs thrive in new environments, welcome an adventurous BV visit, and like being pushed to the limit physically and mentally. KFs love extreme sports like whitewater rafting in Uganda, volcano boarding, walking around Guayaquil, or canoeing flooded city streets.

Kiva Fellows are extreme but what they like even more is to remind people how extreme they are. They do this by wearing outdoorsy clothes, or accenting their business casual office wardrobe with hardcore Keen gear. KFs also establish their field cred by downplaying how extreme they are. They especially like pretending really shocking things are no big deal. Be it a GIGANTIC earthquake, election violence or sky diving, recounting these harrowing tales always ends in; ‘Oh, but it was really just no big deal…’

#15 “Going Native”

Jill Hall, KF16, Philippines

Jill in a Poofy Pink 'Filipiniana'

A Kiva Fellow is lucky if they get an email from their MFI prior to leaving for the field detailing a list of appropriate clothing items to bring. Some fellows get hints like, “at your placement, they are a bit more formal so take a suit” or “you will be visiting agricultural borrowers in remote areas so take durable clothes”. It is not often that you get a “bring a gown because every company event you attend everyone there will be dressed to the nines” so you can imagine my shock when I attended my first work event in the Philippines and everyone is in beautiful gowns called “Filipinianas”.

Every Kiva Fellow knows there is that moment where they can decide to “go native” and we either do as the locals do or we don’t. As fellows we whole heartedly embrace the phrase, “When in Rome…”. With this in mind, I finally traveled to the labrynth of a market to find my own Filipiniana. Initially I had reservations but when I walked into the room in my new bubble gum pink gown, I saw a room full of smiling faces. For this type of reaction, any Kiva fellow would “go native”!

#16 Eating Stuff With Weird Names

Kim Strathearn, KF16, Turkey

Karnıyarık, otherwise known as 'Split Belly'

Kiva Fellows like to eat. But not the stuff that made Rob sick, twice! We like good food with weird names such as the Imam fainted, Sultan’s Delight, split belly, angle hair, lady’s thighs, lady’s belly, attractive lady’s lips, priest’s stew, Ali the gentlemen, cigarette pastry, Albanian liver and Lion’s milk (yes too much of it does make you roar!) More than eating strange foods, Kiva Fellows like to take charge and  cook local specialties themselves! Nothing says immersion and cultural understanding more than whipping up a batch of ‘vizier’s fingers’!

The fellow in Turkey is probably the luckiest because of the amazing cuisine available. Turkey has a rich culinary history dating back to the Ottoman Empire. Don’t forget that the Sultan controlled the spice trade crossing his territories so only the best ingredients ended up on his table. Legend says that imperial cooks were rigorously tested for hire solely based on their method of cooking rice, a simple dish. KFs are foodies and have mastered the subtle differences between rice, beans and other simple dishes

#17 Going to the Bazaar

Chris Paci, KF16, Tajikistan/Azerbaijan

The Bazaar

As Kiva Fellows, we try to do all we can to support the microentrepreneurs that Kiva has sent us abroad to help. The flip side of that – natural, if you think about it – is that we’re required to feel guilty whenever we shop at an enterprise that is not sufficiently micro. It ruins our field cred. You see, we have been sent out into the world as MICROFINANCE MISSIONARIES!: volunteers who spread the Kiva gospel while leading ascetic lives of self-deprivation that bring us closer to the impoverished societies in which we live. Upscale clothing stores and glitzy shopping malls just don’t square with that self-image.

Luckily, there’s a loophole, and it’s called the bazaar. Vast, labyrinthine, and bursting with local color, the bazaar is packed with every good a Kiva Fellow could need, all sold by hundreds of individual entrepreneurs who are micro enough to earn our attention. The bazaar makes us feel more assimilated just for having stepped inside. Even the word “bazaar” is resonant with exoticism and magic, which means, of course, that it should be dropped into casual conversation as often as possible. “Why yes, I buy all of my shashlyk from the bazaar.” “I found the most amazing Engrish T-shirt at the bazaar yesterday.” “I might be a little late; I need to pick up some apricots from the bazaar after work.” Any one of the above lines is guaranteed to make us at least 20% cooler in the eyes of our developed-world peers.

And of course, as every Kiva Fellow knows, successfully haggling with a microentrepreneur is the number-one way to gain field cred!

Read Stuff Kiva Fellows Like (SKFL) #1-9 here!>>>

Be a part of loans that change lives. Apply to be a Kiva Fellow!

Jim Burke is a Kiva Fellow working with AFODENIC in Nicaragua. When not diligently working on his Kiva deliverables he kills time reading the blog SEAWL. To learn more about Kiva borrowers around the world please visit Kiva.org.

I’m currently in Tbilisi, Georgia renewing my Azerbaijani visa and traveling a bit around the region. Hence the “gamarjoba” instead of what’s becoming a regular “salamu alaykum”.

During training for the Kiva Fellowship I heard it mentioned numerous times that taxi drivers in Central Asia (but specifically in Azerbaijan) were the least demanded loans on Kiva. Their loans took the longest to get funded and expired most often. I was not surprised. After all, “Transportation”, being at the end of the Sector list on Kiva also competes with attention-grabbers like “Agriculture”, “Food”, “Housing” and “Retail” that precede it. What’s more, Kiva’s lenders prefer loaning to women, a fact supported by the percentage of Kiva loans that have been made to women entrepreneurs, which currently stands at almost 82%. Thus, taxi drivers raising funds on Kiva are at a justifiable disadvantage considering their entirely male demographic. I gave some more thought to this trend and came up with a few possible causes for it.

Taxis waiting outside a hospital in Baku

Kiva Lenders are really passionate about alleviating poverty. It is then understandable why Sectors more essential to a person’s survival are preferred to supporting industries: one cannot survive without food but can carry on without private transportation.  Unless one lives in a place without any type of public transportation, and taxis are the only way of getting around, loans to taxi drivers can even appear to encourage a service of luxury.

“Transportation” sector is one of the few on Kiva that is not good-centered. That is understandable as economies in developing countries are generally driven by the production of goods, while in the developed countries services account for a much higher percentage of the GDP. Industrialization certainly defines developed countries but it is the high servitization of products within the developed world that separates it from the world still developing. Therefore loans to taxi drivers might also come off as loans to persons in more developed developing countries.

But why are Central Asian taxi drivers less popular than their South American or African counterparts? The area that comprises the former Soviet Union is relatively more developed than other regions on Kiva. After WWII USSR made it an objective to build up the infrastructure and industrialize as much of the country as possible. A lot was accomplished in 40 years until the communist superpower began crumbling and the Gorbachev-initiated perestroika devastated the region. Countries of the former USSR were left with an infrastructure in collapse, industries discontinued and most of the population struggling to survive.

Since then there has been an economic resurgence in the region, but poverty remains a big problem. However, poverty in Central Asia is not comparable to poverty in Africa. The poor in latter are much poorer than the poor of the former, especially if you compare the average standards of living, the purchasing power parity and the GDP per capita of these regions. As a Kiva Lender it makes sense to me to loan to the entrepreneur who will benefit most from my $25.

Bearing in mind the causes (whether justified or not) of Kiva loans to taxi drivers in Central Asia being in least demand it is important to remember that poverty should not be a popularity contest, but a world-wide effort without undue partiality. To fund a taxi driver in Central Asia click here.

In Part 2 of this blog pose I will provide a bit more detail as to why the supply of “Taxi loans” on Kiva and the demand for them is so mismatched. I will also give some background on taxi drivers in Azerbaijan, their profession, and my experiences with them.

Nakhvamdis da didi madloba! (“Good bye and many thanks!” in Georgian)

Ivan Ledyashov is a Kiva Fellow working with AqroInvest Credit Union and Komak Credit Union in Baku, Azerbaijan. Please helpfund entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan!

On November 8^th AqroInvest received new capital from an existing partner, PlaNIS, and an entirely new partnership with Microenterprise. AqroInvest is one of Kiva’s two Field Partners in Azerbaijan. It is important to note that microfinance institutions, such as AqroInvest, depend on new partners and capital for growth. That Monday also happened to be my first day at AqroInvest. At the end of the day the entire staff and I celebrated with champagne and cake, making toasts to AqroInvest’s bright future, and my anticipated contribution to it. It was a very joyous occasion. I left work comparing my experience in the corporate world in New York, where celebration of any caliber were pushed until the end of the week (and Mondays consisted of extinguishing fires that began on the weekend with little time for anything else but breathing), to AqroInvest’s celebratory timeliness. Little did I know that an organization that commemorates its successes very seriously also takes its work that way.

AqroInvest's office in Imisli (250 km South-West of Baku)

The ensuing week was not at all about champagne or cake. AqroInvest’s staff doggedly worked the hours of an investment banker’s analyst. Their goal was to disburse the newly acquired capital to the pre-approved borrowers as quickly as possible, so as to minimize the amount of interest it would accumulate. Unlike Kiva’s interest-free capital this money carries an interest rate, which started accruing when AqroInvest received it. Like other microfinance institutions AqroInvest is able to exist thanks to the interest rate split between its average cost of capital and the interest rate it charges on microloans. That is why microfinance institutions like AqroInvest love working with Kiva. It decreases their average cost of capital so they become more competitive. In return that enables them to offer loans to borrowers at more competitive interest rates.

However, one week of working 14 hour days was not enough time to disburse the capital. The staff incessantly worked through the weekend and national holidays. In Azerbaijan Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week of November 14^th are all days off due to Eid al-Adha. Also called the Festival of Sacrifice, it is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide. During it a ram is sacrificed and equally divided among the family, relatives/friends/neighbors and the poor. This holiday honors Abraham’s obedience to God in his readiness to sacrifice his son Ishmael. God intervened in time to provide Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead. Although Azerbaijan is very secular 93% of the population identifies as practicing Islam. Therefore, it is understandable that banks were closed during those first three weekdays.

AqroInvest has developed a very efficient system of disbursing loans and collecting repayments. A borrower simply comes into one of the branch offices, and picks up a check along with repayment slips. This check can be cashed and the repayments submitted at their nearest bank. Picking up a check takes only a few minutes. After that the borrower has no need to visit the branch office, where they applied for a loan, and which might be far away from them. This saves time and money for both AqroInvest and the borrower.

Azerbaijani manat. Excange rate: 1 manat = $1.25

That is exactly how things went until the banks closed for Eid al-Adha. The branch offices could stay open and distribute checks to pre-approved borrowers, but those wouldn’t be cashed until Thursday. This meant that the remaining balance of AqroInvest’s recently acquired capital would keep accumulating interest. On the other hand the pre-approved borrowers would wait even longer to receive their loans. To avoid this situation AqroInvest cashed the remaining capital on Friday. Its objective was to hand-deliver the cash to the branches, which in turn would distribute it to the borrowers.

AqroInvest's CEO signing loan contracts

Early on Sunday morning I set out for the branch offices with the CEO, Accountant and the Operational Manager. We drove through AqroInvest’s three branch offices in the South: Sabirabad, Saatli and Imisli. By the end of the day majority of the capital was in the hands of the borrowers. On Monday the staff finished disbursing it and finally, after 8 grueling days, relaxed. After sacrificing themselves, their sleep, and showing an unmatched work ethic it was time to together celebrate the Festival of Sacrifice.

It was an amazing experience to meet the humble borrowers, who came into the branch offices to pick up their loans. It made microfinance so much more real for me. It was also interesting to reconcile the theory of microfinance with AqroInvest’s work on the ground. I was delighted to have taken part in the Festival of Sacrifice, a community-building event that has few parallels in the world.  However, I consider witnessing AqroInvest’s staff at work the highlight of this entire experience. Philanthropy and interests of the borrowers were surely not their primary motivation to work the long hours. It was their personal ambitions and interests of AqroInvest. There is nothing wrong with that. After all AqroInvest is a for-profit organization. Yet, it was very encouraging to see how microfinance was mutually beneficial to the borrower and the lender in this most haphazard of the situations.

Sağolun (thank you and good bye)!

Ivan Ledyashov is a Kiva Fellow working with AqroInvest Credit Union and Komak Credit Union in Baku, Azerbaijan. Please help fund entrepreneurs in Azerbaijan!

One of the benefits of a Kiva Fellowship is the opportunity to peek behind the Kiva curtain.  Like Oz, Kiva is not always as it seems, but it’s also not smoke and mirrors.  For starters, those who work for Kiva are fully committed to its values and mission.

I was fortunate to see Kiva staff in action for 2 weeks in Azerbaijan this month, when the Regional Director, Portfolio Manager, and Field Support Specialist for Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, & Central Asia (APEECA) landed in Baku to visit field partners, attend a microfinance conference, and perform due diligence on a potential partner.  Not only is it rare for a Kiva Fellow to run around with Kiva staff, it’s also rare for this APEECA team to be in one place together.  Many of Kiva’s financial staff live in the areas they support to better facilitate relationships with its microfinance institution (MFI) partners.  That a reunion occurred during everyone’s first visit to Azerbaijan was an interesting experience for me.

Most impressive about my time with Scott, Michael, and Cissy was the emphasis they placed on getting to know the staff of the MFIs.  Significant time was spent with those in charge of operations and finance, but also with MIS and HR professionals.  In the case of one MFI, we were thanked for our interest in the entity’s HR policies and procedures, even after this gentleman was grilled about turnover, number of female employees, and hiring practices.  For me, this experience provided evidence that Kiva places considerable importance on an MFI’s social responsibility to its employees, as well as to its clients.

Kiva staff visits allow both Kiva and its partners the opportunity to see how the other side operates, which is particularly important in little-understood places like Azerbaijan. Kiva processes and systems, which are developed by people with American sensibilities, can look very different – and be far more complicated to implement – in practice than was expected on the drawing board. (Any Kiva Fellow can explain the difficulties MFI staff experience to remain in compliance with Kiva’s policies.) At the same time, local customs and ways of doing business, which can be exasperating to those looking for American-style professionalism (especially when experienced virtually by email and Skype), are given context when the practices are discussed and observed in person.  Empathy and understanding are valuable outgrowths of these face-to-face meetings.

This fall, many of the APEECA Kiva Fellows will have or have had the opportunity to work side-by-side with one or more members of Kiva’s APEECA team, which is in the midst of a whirlwind tour of the region.   Not only will these visits provide Kiva with valuable insight and information on its partners, they also will provide a peek behind the Kiva Fellows curtain.  For a short time, Kiva staff will experience our lives in far-flung places.  In the case of a visit to Azerbaijan, this meant navigating the waters of nonsensical immigration and visa procedures, overcoming notions of attentive customer service, and learning not to trust Azeri taxi drivers.

Nina Nelan is a Kiva Fellow working with Aqroinvest Credit Union in Azerbaijan. She has no multimedia skills, so she thanks Kevin Mihelic for his help with the video.

Azerbaijan’s schools started the fall term on September 15th.  Kids are now smartly dressed in their white shirts and navy slacks and skirts.  And Baku traffic suddenly seems twice as bad as usual.  Universities also started back up, and the campuses buzz with the unmistakable energy of thousands of young adults concentrated in a small geographical area.

Primary and secondary education is publicly funded in Azerbaijan and government officials make much of high literacy rates and the amount of money spent on education.  However, the results of  a recent survey conducted by the Economic Research Center show that Azerbaijan spends only 3.1% of GDP on education, while the European Union spends 5% and the US 5.7%.  On education spending, this ranks Azerbaijan with some of the poorest countries in the world.  For context on spending priorities in Azerbaijan, this is the country that recently spent millions of dollars to construct and claim the world’s tallest flagpole.

Baku - tallest flagpole in the wold

The lack of funding results in poor access to education, especially for Azerbaijanis living in the rural regions, as well as decreased quality and effectiveness.  The same survey concluded that 23% of Azerbaijani secondary school students could not pass their high school graduation exams, and 60% could not pass the general university admissions test.

These figures should be looked upon skeptically, however.  A significant factor contributing to poor performance of Azerbaijan’s youth is the problem of pervasive corruption in the education system.

Teaching and school administration are highly coveted jobs in Azerbaijan, which means that many of these positions are secured with some rüşvət to school directors and Ministry of Education officials.  The jobs go to those who can pay the most for them, and not necessarily to those who can teach.  Once someone becomes a teacher or student aide, they can demand rüşvət from parents to secure certain grades or attention for their children.  All children in Azerbaijan have the right to a free education, but the bribes (pre-) determine how well a child will perform.

The system cannot be escaped.  Proctors for high school graduation and state university admissions exams also expect payment to ensure that a student receives a certain score.  The right score means you gain entrance into the right university (also publicly funded) and choose your preferred field of study. And corruption does not stop with the admissions exam.  Recently, a student failed out of the State Oil Academy because he published an article about the bribes demanded by his professors for exam grades.  Despite protests and flash mobs, his case has been mostly ignored by the government.   He is currently appealing the decision.

As Kiva wraps up back-to-school month, I feel compelled to provide this perspective on a country that should, and could, do better in the education of its youth.  It’s not hard to imagine that Azerbaijan, so resplendent with and dependent on its rich petrodollar economy, is setting itself up for failure when it pays so little attention to the quality and effectiveness of its educational programs.  I hear stories of students who skip the majority of their classes, but secure passing grades with payments to their professors.  These are Azerbaijan’s future doctors and lawyers and scientists and economists.  (Or school directors and exam proctors.)  The future looks very bleak indeed.

And what of the children of Azerbaijan’s poor, who live in the rural regions outside of Baku?  Without any money for bribes, they are less able to build a better future for themselves through education.  These children must study and work extra hard to receive the scores necessary to graduate from high school and attend university.  Some days, life in the regions doesn’t allow for the luxury of this time.

Ayyub, the chairman of my host microfinance institution, has been searching for a financial accountant for some time and he laments the dearth of qualified candidates for the job.  The corrupt educational system may be largely to blame.

So Ayyub has offered me the job, promising an apartment, a car and…a good Azeri husband.

Nina Nelan is a Kiva Fellow working with Aqroinvest Credit Union in Azerbaijan.  She will not be taking Ayyub up on his offer, even if it includes a Lada Niva 4×4.

The Niva

The first news reports on BBC, New York Times, and AP said that the bomb went off at 8:10 in the morning. I swear though, that I heard it at 8:04. It’s not every day that a young American not serving in the armed forces hears an explosion as they gets ready for work, but for Kiva Fellows, this isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Whether we are in Tajikistan or Sierra Leon, Uganda or Azerbaijan , Rwanda or Palestine we deal with violence in the form of active civil wars, former civil wars, and random acts of violence. These can be scary and slightly nerve racking to be sure, but the countries themselves deal with a lot more.

While I’ve been in Tajikistan, the country has had to deal with bomb blasts in the two largest cities, military ambushes, a major prison break, a former civil war, and violence just over the borders in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan. The bomb I had heard, the first suicide car bomb in Central Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan are not considered part of Central Asia unless you talk to UNESCO), was against a police station. Some believe it is in connection with the murder of the former head of a large market in a different town, and recently an unheard of group took responsibility for the blast.

This is as close to the explosion site as I wanted to get. You can see the smoke coming from the fire that the bomb set.

Tajikistan is sadly used to this violence. It was devastated following its Independence in 1991, with a low estimate of 350,000 people dying in the killing from 1992-1997 in the Civil War that has been said was ideological, but really seems more regional.

Since then there has been bombings and at times a fear from outside powers that the country may slide back into Civil War. Within the country many people I have talked to have stated repeatedly that they are sick of violence, and some have talked about themselves being part of a “lost generation” having come into adulthood during the civil war. But Tajikistan is not the only country on the Kiva website with a story like this, and when you begin to think about it, it becomes heart breaking.

Whether reading the 1999 US government Report “Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why“, a Paul Collier book, or for those more interested in less technical reading almost anything by Thomas Friedman or Nicholas Kristof, you will find smart people from all over the world have shown that poorer countries are more prone to violence, domestic, sexual, and larger civil war type violence. But how do you end the violence cycle if you aren’t a diplomat and you do not wish to walk into dangerous or even potentially dangerous countries?

Today the 21st of September is the 21st annual International Day of Peace. If poverty can be linked to violence, then its important to note that economic well-being has also been linked, by many of the same people, to peace.
It’s a good discussion to have if Peace begets Prosperity or if Prosperity begets Peace, but one thing is certain when you have one you get the other which in turn gives you the other and so on and so forth.

I have a copy of parts Robert Kennedy’s speech from South Africa behind me at my job here, the one quoted above, and so today I would like to ask you to send out a tiny ripple. On this, the International Day of Peace, where the UN asks all combatants to have a day of cease-fire and I would like to ask all of you to participate in an easy way and donate $25 to any of the countries on the Kiva website, – and in doing so help create a more peaceful and prosperous world.

You can also join the Kiva Loan group Citizens United to Rebuild Peace, iPeace, and many others.

For some, traveling abroad is an exotic means of recreation, for others it is a learning experience. I cannot find statistics reciting the numbers and nationalities of people who go abroad each year, but from my experience as a backpacker and Kiva fellow, most people who travel (either for leisure, student exchange or professional duties) come from one of the 32 developed countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, NZ, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK, US (see the World Factbook for more information). This means that essentially, over 80% of the world’s population, over 5 billion people, have never visited another country!

It is only recently that the reality of how lucky I am has crept through. I hail from a country where incomes are high compared to the cost of necessities and where opportunities to earn are abundant (yes, even in this downward economy). I am not constrained by family obligations or fiscal responsibilities for anyone but myself, and whereas my brothers and sisters in other parts of the world are compelled by necessity to sacrifice for the sake of family, I carry the burden of individuality. How privileged I am!

But with privilege, there is responsibility. According to Peter Singer, the Utilitarian philosopher from Princeton University, we have an ethical duty to help others who’re less fortunate. His argument is this:

- Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.

- If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.

- By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.

- Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.

Whether or not you concede his argument you are probably at least curious about how people in other regions of the world live since you’re reading the Kiva Fellows blog. If you’re an active Kiva lender I offer you my deepest appreciation! Each loan you’ve made will influence more people than you think: the borrower, their family, their community and the infinite number of individuals that these people will influence in the future.

Consider this quote by Mother Theresa: “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

Thanks for letting me share my experiences as a Kiva fellow with you these past 3 months. If you enjoy reading this blog, perhaps it’s time you became a Kiva fellow?

I leave you with a video of the son of a Kiva borrower playing the saz, a pluck stringed instrument from central Asia and singing a folk song about love and beauty in the town of Shusha (now occupied by Armenia). You may have noticed that many Azerbaijani borrower profiles mention music lessons for their children, now you know why  You can see the Azeri & Russian lyrics here.

Yelena Shuster has completed her placement at Komak Credit Union in Azerbaijan. You can join Komak’s lending team here, support Komak borrowers here, and read more about the Fellows program here.

As my plane approached Baku’s airport, I had some mixed feelings about where I’d be living for the next 3 months.  It was a world away from Colorado, which I’d left 20 hours earlier.  All was well, however, as soon as I saw the friendly face of Ilkin, who works for the Baku branch of AqroInvest Credit Union, one of the microfinance institutions (MFIs) I will be working with during my time in Azerbaijan.  He swept me out of the airport and delivered me safely to the flat of the outgoing Kiva Fellow, Yelena, who has been working at my other MFI, Komak Credit Union.

I’ve not yet been to the rural areas to meet my MFIs’ borrowers, but I’m assured these visits will come soon. Like many around the world (excluding, perhaps, Americans), Azerbaijanis take long holidays during August.  Thus, many of the MFIs’ employees are off visiting family in the cooler areas of the country, or are abroad.  This means that all of my impressions of Azerbaijan and its people are based entirely on less than 2 weeks in the capital city of Baku.  I am easily identified as a non-Azerbaijani for some reason (ha), so I was stopped in the street by an Australian tourist the other day.  “This is a really tough place,” he said.  Perhaps he was talking about the heat, because I find many things about Baku to be appealing.

First, there is the beloved Lada.  Others before me have written (joked) about its ubiquity here and in other Central Asian and Eastern European countries, but it adds some much needed character to the streets of Baku, which are seemingly overrun with Mercedes, BMWs, Toyotas, and Hyundais.  Long live the Lada, I say.

And then there’s the produce available at every street corner.  It’s a treat to sample Azerbaijani fruits and vegetables, herbs, and nuts, and to attempt to duplicate the wonderful dishes made by Raziyya, the chief accountant at AqroInvest.  She makes it look so easy, but she must be withholding a secret ingredient because they don’t come out quite right for me.

And what would an evening here be without a stroll by the sea?  (Hot and airless, is what.)  Yes, Baku citizens stroll and a beautiful boulevard follows the Caspian seafront to accommodate them.  It is 3km long right now, but expected to expand to 25km by 2015 (perfect for a long run!). Thousands fill the area as soon as the evil sun begins its descent every day; some ride the merry-go-round and others the Ferris wheel, but most are content to just…stroll.

None of these things compare to the friendly people of Azerbaijan, though.  At first, I believed the myth that Central Asians do not smile because I couldn’t coax one out of a single pedestrian as I walked to work last week.  But peoples’ street personas have nothing in common with who they are in offices and stores and restaurants and homes.  Azerbaijanis are as warm and welcoming and smiley as anyone else in the world, and many have gone out of their way to help me adjust to life in Baku.  Tamilla, the Kiva Coordinator at AqroInvest, ensures that I arrive at work and at home safely each day.  And Ayden, the director of Komak, calls Yelena (and maybe me, one day!) his daughter.

And their hearts are huge.  Not only because of how they have welcomed me, but because of how they’ve devoted themselves to  helping the poor of Azerbaijan.  Tamilla understands that I am suffering from some cognitive dissonance right now, since people in Baku seem relatively well off.  It’s in the rural areas, she says, where I will see and understand how poor Azerbaijan is and why people may need loans.  But I’m certain the people there have the same Azerbaijani hearts as Ilkin, Raziyya, Tamilla and Ayden, and I can’t wait to meet them.

For more evidence of the smiles in Azerbaijan, please check out the borrowers of both AqroInvest and Komak!

*******

For your viewing pleasure, some pictures of Yelena’s going away party at Komak, where Yelena and I were the only women available to dance with 4 very enthusiastic Azerbaijani men.

Yelena and Ayden dancing

Ayden spins me

Nina Nelan is a Kiva Fellow serving at AqroInvest and Komak in Azerbaijan. For blogs by past Kiva Fellows in Azerbaijan, please click here.

Being a loan officer has its perilous moments. The scary Caucasian shepherd dogs that guard client’s homes and threaten to bite you and the difficult to find addresses of remote properties that one must search for in the unrelenting summer heat are obstacles. Then there are the numerous unforeseen hazards one encounters trying to go the extra mile as a loan officer…

Last week one of our loan officers at Komak went to meet a new client, a tomato farmer from the Absheron region. To get a better picture of the borrower’s greenhouse for his Kiva profile, Emin climbed on the roof of a 3 meter high building. Then he slipped and fell onto the hard pavement below, shattering his ankle completely.

I wish I knew more about the state of medical care in Azerbaijan. When I saw Emin in the hospital last week he was reluctant to tell me details. He was sharing a small sunny room with another man, who’s chatty wife laughed at my inquiries about the hospital. After I’d told her about the insurance system we have in the United States she said, “So it’s the same, without money one doesn’t get treatment.” “Almost” I insisted, “except in the US one is guaranteed treatment in the emergency room but may end up with debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars or lose their house.” She nodded her head disapprovingly.

A colleague from Komak brought Emin his salary (Emin will be paid while he is not working because it’s a work related injury) which was to be used for paying the nurses and doctors. Supposedly, each time a nurse comes to give an injection, she must be “tipped.”

“And what if he doesn’t tip her?” I asked. “In that case the injection will hurt more…” came the reply.

For the next 3-4 months our dear Emin will be unable to walk. He’ll work from home in his other official capacity, as Komak’s IT guy.

In Azerbaijan, there is no such thing as preventative medicine. People visit doctors only when the problems become extreme and cannot not be self-medicated. In Baku, the capital, pharmacies are everywhere and no prescription is needed to acquire medication.

According to a study from 2008, “The emergency medical system surveyed in Azerbaijan is inefficiently organized, under-financed, poorly equipped and lacks adequately trained staff.”

The findings of [the study] demonstrate a lack of emergency medical capacity not only in disaster situations, but also in routine emergency cases. Most hospitals cannot provide an adequate response if multiple critical patients present simultaneously. Additionally, most life-threatening situations cannot be treated adequately due to a lack of critical equipment and medications, and inadequate training of medical personnel in evidence-based emergency medicine.

I have one week left with Komak and I am pleased to write that my experience has been great. The director, Aydin, calls himself my “moral father in Azerbaijan,” and my colleagues treat me with respect and care. I appreciate the efforts they made to make sure I secured a visa before I arrived in Azerbaijan (major issue for many foreigner volunteers in this country) and the help they provided in obtaining a registration card here. I’ve enjoyed chatting with Afitab, the young Kiva coordinator, who’s helped me see deeper into Azerbaijani culture.

Since coming to Komak in May, I’ve seen their Kiva portfolio almost double and I am very happy about this. Through Kiva, Komak has the opportunity to serve more entrepreneurs for whom access to credit are obstacles (though not the only ones) to prosperity. At the present time, there are two loans set to expire on Kiva within the next 2 days. If you’re interested in helping Azerbaijan support our  borrowers.

I’d like to tell you about language in Azerbaijan especially since there have been some questions among Kiva lenders and translation volunteers as to why Komak is posting profiles in Russian using Latin letters instead of Cyrillic.

You see, since the start of the 20^th century the Azeri alphabet has metamorphosed 3 times…

• Prior to 1929 Azeri was written in Perso-Arabic script.
• 1929–1938 A Latin alphabet was used (although it was different from the one used now).
• 1938 to 1991 The Cyrillic alphabet was imposed by the Soviet Union.
• 1991 With independence, the current Latin alphabet was introduced.

I’ve met several folks in their 40s and 50s who grew up reading only Cyrillic and now have difficulty reading newspapers and books. How isolated they must feel with their access to newspapers, magazines and books so unfairly limited by the alphabet!

In the early years of the Soviet era, Azeri was widely spoken among elite and government circles. But as Stalin solidified his position in the late 1920s and early 1930s, sweeping away Azerbaijan’s native intelligentsia through exile and execution, the Russian language came to dominate politics, meetings, offices and education.

Many parents sent their children to schools with Russian language instruction believing that the good jobs required Russian. According to a young Azeri friend of mine this linguistic shift created a population that could speak neither Azeri nor Russian effectively. For children of Azeri speaking parents, a lack of language reinforcement from their social circle meant that their knowledge of Russian did not develop beyond a certain point, and that their knowledge of Azeri remained equally stagnated because their communication with their (Azeri speaking) parents was limited by the language differences.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, attempts to stimulate the use of Azeri increased. The “government Azeri language program,” established in 1990, provided Azeri lessons to non-Azeri speakers for use in the workplace. In 1994 it was estimated that some 82% of Azerbaijan’s citizens spoke Azeri as their first language, while 38% of Azerbaijanis spoke Russian fluently as well. Twenty years later, knowledge of Azeri continues to grow in importance and an inability to speak the language is becoming a greater barrier for employment opportunities.

In 1993, Azar Mammad, wrote: “It’s the miserable and bitter truth that you cannot fnd many intelligentsia in Azerbaijan who can speak their own native language. Others simply cannot express themselves without Russian. And let me remind you that it is not their fault, either.”

To better understand the complexities behind the language issues, read these interesting editorials from 1993 between two Azeri citizens, one who speaks his native language fluently and one who doesn’t.

Here at Komak, only 3 out of 13 staff members are fluent in Russian, while 2 others speak it a little bit. Within the middle-aged population of Baku, most are fluent in Russian, that is unless they migrated to Baku from another region, in which case they might not speak Russian very well. Among older men who served in the army before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian is spoken, albeit with a few errors. Among the youth of Baku, it varies. I’d estimate that 1 out of every 3 youth speak Russian in the capital city. Outside of Baku, the numbers are lower. Unless you’re in Krasnaya Sloboda, the 800 year old Jewish community in northeastern Azerbaijan, where the locals speak their native Judeo-Persian, Azeri and Russian.

Some interesting facts about the Azeri language:

• It is the official language of Azerbaijan and an official regional language of Iran.
• There are two main varieties of the language: North Azerbaijani (spoken in Azerbaijan) and South Azerbaijani (spoken in Iran).
• In Iran, Azeri is called “Türki.” It’s spoken by 19-34% of the population, including districts of Tehran province and parts of Kurdistan.
• All together, there are at least 30 million people worldwide who speak Azeri, with significant linguistic communities in Azerbaijan, Iran, Dagestan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

Last Tuesday I traveled from Baku to Fuzuli, a rural region in southwestern Azerbaijan, to meet two clients for borrower verification. The drive took us 4 hours (and 4 more to return), on a hot winding road that was paved but a few years ago. We drove past the Iranian border, a simple gate with vegetation behind it and no soldiers. Like custom dictates, we stopped for tea along the way at one of the road stops.

I was excited to go to Fuzuli. Named after a renowned Azeri poet of the 15^th century, Fuzuli today is one of the “occupied territories” (see here). Only about 20% of Fuzuli remains within Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction and its current inhabitants are a blend of Fuzuli natives and internally displaced people from surrounding Nagorny-Karabakh. The main sector of employment in Fuzuli is agriculture.

As I’ve written in a previous post, Fuzuli is an important place for my MFI, as it is the place where Komak was founded amongst 20 internal refugees. Currently, about 30% of Komak’s borrowers live in Fuzuli.

I hope you enjoy the following video I made about my day doing borrower verification in Fuzuli!

Guests During One’s Lifetime
By Mammad Araz (Azeri poet born 1933)

Someone is knocking at my door.
“Hey, who’s knocking?”
“I’m Memory.
I’ve brought a letter from your first love.”
(An angry woman appears in the kitchen.
The person knocking disappears with the letter.)

Again, a knock at the door.
“Hey, who’s knocking?”
“I’m Praise!”
“Welcome!”
“Do you have anything to drink?”
“No, I don’t!”
“Then go on writing!”
(Praise leaves).

Knock, knock.
“Who are you?”
“It’s me – Need!
Open the door!”
“What news?
I haven’t seen you for a long time.”
“It seems the less you see of me, the more you miss me.”
“Your neighbor gets a wage equivalent to five salaries
Another man buys a car.”
“By God, let me write!”

Again knock, knock.
“Who’s that?”
“Your friend, Latest News!”
This damned world hasn’t collapsed:
Our century is the century of diplomacy, hey brother!
They speak about peace, carrying bombs in their pockets.
Two more of your poems were rejected
Because of your friends there.”*
“Give me some peace! Let me breathe!”

Again a knock at the door.
“Who do you want?”
“I’m Fame!”
“Welcome, who are you looking for?”
“Mammad Araz”
“Brother, you’re late.
He doesn’t live here any more.”
“Where does he live now?”
“It’s near this place -
There’s a grave over which a woman is crying,
That’s where you’ll find him now.”

* “They speak of peace, carrying bombs in their pockets” meaning that his friends are double-faced and superficial and, in reality, don’t support him.

Translated by Aytan Aliyeva

Yelena Shuster is a Kiva Fellow serving with Komak Credit Union in Azerbaijan. Support Komak borrowers and join our team Friends of Komak!

Yelena Shuster is a Kiva Fellow serving with Komak Credit Union in Azerbaijan. Support Komak borrowers and join our team Friends of Komak!

I’d like to tell you a little bit about Komak, the MFI (microfinance institution), where I am serving my Kiva fellowship.  Komak, which means “help” in Azerbaijani, has offices in four regions: Baku, Absheron, Khachmas and Fizuli. The central office, where I have spent most of my time is located in Baku, the capital city. Here I work with five other people: Aydin, the director; Emin, information technology; Aliabbas, accounting; Elnur, bookkeeping; and Afitab, the Kiva coordinator. With over 1,600 current active members, 80% of whom are IDPs (internally displaced people), Komak is a small but energetic MFI.

The regions where Komak has offices: Baku (main office), Absheron (kind of like the suburbs of Baku), Khachmas & Fizuli city.

-

I asked Aydin, who’s been the director of Komak since its inception in 1999 to tell me about its beginnings and goals…

Aydin grew up in Fizuli and studied technology and food conservation in Odessa, Ukraine. He was living with his family in Fizuli, working as the manager of technology at the local wine factory (Fizuli afterall is one of most fertile regions in the Caucus, producing a variety of distinctive grapes from which delicious wine can be made) when the geopolitical conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out with Armenia in 1992. As Armenian forces occupied his home town, Aydin and his family fled to the neighboring city of Horadiz, leaving all their belonging behind. Soon after their resettlement, Armenians occupied Horadiz as well and Aydin’s family moved again. His wife and five children went to Baku, where they stayed with relatives, while Aydin tried to forge out a living through agriculture in Ahmedbeyei for the next 5 years.

Map of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Fizuli region (shown in the first map) is almost entirely under the jurisdiction of Armenia, however, Fizuli city (where some Komak clients live) still belongs to Azerbaijan.

In 1998, Azerbaijan joined WOCCU (World Council of Credit Unions), enabling formation of the country’s first credit unions. Prior to this, only NGOs like FINCA and Worldvision, provided microloans. At that early point in the history of credit unions in Azerbaijan all that was needed to form a credit union was a charter, 20 members who lived near each other and a 4000 AZN start-up minimum. So in 1999, Aydin and 19 other IDPs formed Komak. The first five people to take loans from Komak in its first year bought cows and sheep (four borrowers bought a cow each and one borrower bought four sheep). With the money earned from the sale of milk products and the lambs, the borrowers repaid the principle with 10% interest by the following year, enabling five more borrowers to take loans. At this time the need for microfinance, especially among IDPs (who had left everything, including their banking documents that could show that they were ‘credit worthy’ to banks) was very strong.

In 2001, Komak got its first grant from TACIS (Technical Aid to the Commonweal of Independent States), a program implemented by the European Commission to provide foreign and technical assistance to countries in transition to democratic market-oriented economies. With this credit of $57,000 Komak’s membership increased drastically. In 2003, Komak opened offices in Baku and Absheron. As an increasing number of IDPs resettled in Baku and the outlying Absheron region, Komak decided to relocate the main office to Baku as well. From the capital, contact with foreign donors was also easier.

At the end of 2006, Komak began fundraising on Kiva. Since then they have lent over $2 million to 1757 borrowers through Kiva. I’m here to help Komak improve their footing on Kiva by helping them make sense of Kiva logistics and assist in the creation of borrower profiles so that they can interest more Kiva lenders. As I’ve written in a previous post, Azerbaijan is one of the most difficult regions in terms of soliciting Kiva funds. I hope that my presence will help Komak and Kiva’s lenders learn more about each other and connect for the benefit of people in Azerbaijan.

In 2007, Mix Market, the leading source of performance data on MFIs around the world, awarded Komak a certificate of transparency with 5 diamonds (the highest rating). Aydin’s goal for Komak is to expand its membership gradually while keeping up with the standards of transparency and accountability set by the international community. He thanks Kiva for doing “Godly work,” evoking and developing our innate humanitarian conscience with opportunities to help others and compelling both borrowers and lenders to think about their role in the world. Aydin says “Kiva unites not only individuals, but nations, in a common purpose and sense of fulfillment.”

Elnur, Me, Afitab, Patricia (Kiva's Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia), Aydin, and Aliabbas.

You can support Komak borrowers on Kiva or join the team, Friends of Komak!

Hörmətlə,
(Truly yours)

Aydin & Yelena

Greetings from Azerbaijan!

It’s been almost two weeks since my arrival. Not surprisingly, my impressions are multifarious. I enjoy the good and blast the bad, all the while trying to understand this country and its contradictions. On the one side is the growing economy, with multiple natural resources, on the other are the many people who do not get to bask in Azerbaijan’s growing wealth. While expensive stores line the streets that lead to the beautiful boardwalk along the Caspian sea, where young chick Azerbaijanis eat ice cream as they stroll with friends, bleak Soviet-style apartment buildings emanating poverty and struggle are just a kilometer or two away.

The other day I met an ex-Peace Corps volunteer who noted that in the town where he worked in northern Azerbaijan, the cold winters were frequently spent without heating. The irony is that gas is one of Azerbaijan’s most prominent resources and it was being sold abroad rather then provided to Azerbaijan’s citizens for use during the cold winters!

I have learned not to judge the state of the common people based on the government or politics, or on how the elite of a country flaunt their wealth. The real people are those individuals whom you may never see on television or read about in the news. And this is what I love about volunteering with Kiva… I get to meet real people!

One of the biggest Kiva challenges in Azerbaijan is encouraging lenders to lend to borrowers here. Either because of preconceived notions about what poverty is or mere disinterest in the region, borrowers here have a lot of trouble getting Kiva funds.

So why should you lend to a borrower in Azerbaijan?

Because without credit these individuals cannot improve their lot in life. Opportunities here are limited by corruption and lack of credit. In a post-communist developing economy like Azerbaijan’s, self-sufficiency is important. By helping Azerbaijanis expand their businesses, lenders also create opportunities for whole communities! By supporting a farmer who wants to buy more seeds or fertilizer we are helping his neighbors buy local and inexpensive food! By supporting a female hair stylist we are helping the network of local women and improving their self-esteem! And think about the children! As a borrower’s business becomes more financially prudent, children of borrowers can pursue their own interests like music lessons, sports and university education instead of being limited by subsistence activities.

Here’s a picture of a Kiva borrower with his calf. Aftandil’s other cows were out grazing and enjoying themselves on the pasture not far from his home. Free range, hormone-free, local yogurt? I saw it with my own eyes. Plus, Aftandil provides the local stores with fresh yogurt. He says that neighbors love his dairy products so much that they sometimes come to his house to purchase them. He’s seeking a loan to buy another cow because he’d like to dedicate himself to his cows full time and quit his part-time job as a construction worker. His loan request will be online later this week, meanwhile check out one of the other borrowers (many of whose loans are expiring in a day or two).

Çox sağ olun!
(thank you)

Last week I arrived in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan to begin my three-month fellowship at Komak credit union. For me, Baku is a special place because like the country of my birth (Ukraine) it was one of the 15 republics that made up the former Soviet Union.

So you may wonder, where is Azerbaijan?click on the map below for details

Azerbaijan is a small country located on the cusp of Euro-Asia, bordered by Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Iran and the Caspian sea. In Baku, many Azerbaijanis consider themselves Europeans (and if we consider sports membership a sign of identity, all Azerbaijani sports teams compete in European regional games but not Asian ones).

The population, estimated at 9 million, are mostly Shi’ite Muslim and Turkic people, and as of 2008, 52% of Azeris live in urban areas. The official language is called Azerbaijani (very similar to Turkish). An interesting fact about their alphabet: it has undergone 3 transformations in the past 100 years! It was Arabic until 1929, Turkic until 1939, Cyrillic until 1991, and today it’s Latinized!

Politically, Azerbaijan is a republic with a constitution and elected representatives. However Freedom House’s rating of “not free” (after a thorough assessment of Azerbaijan’s democracy and civil rights) is more realistic. Despite a literacy rate of nearly 100%, access to non-biased news sources is limited, the media is censored, and access to international news sources like BBC is restricted. In a recent incident, Azerbaijani police arrested and sentenced two video bloggers to jail for criticizing the government. Corruption is also ubiquitous. On my third day here I was forced to bribe an official to accept my registration papers. As I held my grease money, I saw a local man slip 30AZN (approx. $38) into the official’s desk as the latter nodded habitually and proceeded with my paperwork. “You’ll get used to it” my Azerbaijani co-worker consoled me.

Azerbaijan’s single most profitable resource is petroleum, which although helpful for the economy has not come without a cost to the environment. According to the CIA, the Caspian Sea is one of the most ecologically devastated areas in the world because of the severe water pollution from oil spills! Nevertheless, because of its oil, Azerbaijan has become one of the fastest growing economies in the region. Even the president’s 12 year old son is joining the ranks of the rich. To what extent this economic growth will effect the rest of the population remains to be seen…

This past week, heavy rains flooded several districts, damaging some 20,000 houses and forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes. According to the Red Cross, “A disaster of this scale has not occurred in 50 years in Azerbaijan and the damages caused by the current floods will demand longer-term efforts including restoring infrastructure; compensating residents for lost income and livelihoods; providing people with drinking water; and controlling the health situation to avoid spreading of malaria and inflectional diseases.” If you’d like to help, now and especially in the future, make a small loan to someone.

Flag of Azerbaijan: the blue band recalls Azerbaijan’s Turkic heritage, red stands for modernization and progress, and green refers to Islam; the crescent moon is an Islamic symbol, while the eight-pointed star represents the eight Turkic peoples of the world.

Who am I? My family immigrated to America in 1992, when I was seven years old, to escape the systematic anti-Semitism and endemic economic asphyxiation constraining life in Ukraine at the time. In Brooklyn, I grew up amidst Russian speakers from all parts of the former Soviet Union, including Azerbaijan. In college I studied anthropology and last year I spent 11 months backpacking and volunteering in Southeast Asia. Since leaving Ukraine, I have never been back. So despite Azerbaijan being almost 1000 miles away from the country of my birth, Baku feels familiar and I keep finding remnants of Soviet influence and Slavic culture. I am also happy to practice my mother tongue (Russian) which although it’s not spoken by everyone here, is still understood more or less

Throughout my fellowship, I hope to meet brave and ingenious individuals and share their stories with you. Until then, follow my journey and support borrowers in Azerbaijan through Kiva!

Construction in downtown Baku

Soviet style housing in Baku's 9th district

Fruit vendor

My finest hour was when I was starting on the copy desk at a newspaper, trying to make a good impression as a head-down, able worker, and the copy chief gave me a big story. I had my take-out dinner on my desk. As I stared intently at the screen, trying to be the model of a journalist who’s so totally engrossed in the task at hand he can’t even be bothered to look at his food, I gave my Orangina a vigorous shake, as instructed on the bottle. Forgetting about the cap. Which was off.

The guy sitting next to me said he couldn’t believe his eyes: me just shaking this bottle, the bright-yellow fizzy drink flying everywhere. And it took me a second to catch on, too: even as I felt myself getting I drenched I think I was in disbelief at the sheer stupidity of what I was doing, so I kept right on shaking the bottle for another second, soaking my clothes, dinner, and workstation in sugary goodness.

Yeah, I’m awesome.

So I’m on Day 2 as a Kiva Fellow at XacBank, here in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. XacBank is the first microfinance institution Kiva has partnered with in this country, and I have been given specific instructions to make a good first impression as a Kiva representative because Kiva is super-excited about the partnership. And I am, too: I’ve been pumped to get to Mongolia ever since I heard Kiva would be starting operations here.

In Azerbaijan, where I spent about two months as a Fellow before coming here, each of the MFIs I worked with rents a few rooms and has a few employees in their main office. I got to know the CEOs personally. We all wore sweaters to work most days. The employees were tight, like families.

XacBank (pronounced haas-bank) is like — well, a bank. It’s a microfinance bank, but it’s definitely a bank. Gleaming marble floors. ATMs. Currency exchange. An HR department. Fatigue-wearing security guards with guns. Suits and ties. A conference room with snazzy rolling chairs.

So, of course, Day 2, I break a mug right in the hallway by the stairs, the most high-traffic part of the office. I’m actually thinking, as I put the mug down on the blatantly-neither-flat-nor-level Hyundai water cooler (see photo): “This sure seems likely to fall, as this is not a flat surface.” I’m actually thinking that.

This is not a flat surface.

And this is not a new experience. I’ve been down this road before, either thinking “if I back up any more, I’ll put my tail light out on that fire hydrant,” or “if I flick this cigarette butt that way, it’ll hit that dude’s Harley,” and then proceeding to do it anyway.

So now I’m picking up broken ceramic shards and apologizing to whoever walks by. And I’m having a lousy day — I’m new to this country, it’s freezing cold, there’s bad news coming by e-mail from home and I’m too far away to be of help, I feel lonely and jet-lagged — and I’m experiencing wave after wave of let’s-call-the-new-guy-’butterfingers’ shame.

1. Cats are great city animals.

Cat on car.

At one time, Baku was rat country, so I’ve been told. Someone decided to fix the problem by either introducing cats to the streets or firing all the cat-catchers. You don’t see many rats around nowadays.

Cats are everywhere. They stand guard outside the markets, scurry beneath the tables inside the posh furniture stores, sleep atop parked BMWs, pick through garbage, and mew in the hallway of my apartment building. A friend here started adopting street cats and now has seven in her flat.

Coming from New York, I’ve always held up pigeons (and to a lesser extent, squirrels) as the best city animals. And I’ve always taken rats for granted. But cats, quiet and clean, are, to me, the new gold standard.

2. Traffic laws are outstanding.

So THAT'S what a seatbelt is for...

As a car owner, I have some ambivalence about traffic laws. I hate parking tickets. Sometimes I find a 65 mph speed limit to be ­— idealistic. And I’ve sent the occasional text message at a red light.

So I write this fully aware that I am a hypocrite: traffic laws are outstanding.

I’ve been in countries with bad drivers before. The drivers of India and Pakistan and Bangladesh don’t deserve any medals. But there, because it’s generally poorer and warmer, the streets are jammed with every sort of vehicle: hand-pulled, bicycle and motorized rickshaws, scooters, buses, trucks and cars, not to mention a variety of livestock.

So bad driving is mitigated by 1) self-preservation (as you can get thrown from a rickshaw pretty easily) and 2) weak engines. It’s hectic, lawless traffic, but it’s not that fast.

Azerbaijan, in contrast, has hectic, lawless, fast traffic. People are generally driving cars, buses or trucks, and good cars, too, not Tata Nanos, but Benzes.

And because cars are the only thing on the road and cars are expensive, if you’re driving at all here, you’re a big deal. That, in turn, means you shouldn’t have to break for any commoner on foot. Nor should you approach a blind turn through a narrow, residential alley at less than 50 mph.

It’s not that right-of-way is ambiguous here: the cars have it. I guess I’ve been spoiled living in places where cars break for pedestrians, but I find the traffic here beyond aggravating. Everyone uses their car horns constantly to express anger, and tricked-out horn upgrades (the “air horn” and the “Godfather theme” being ubiquitous) are mandatory.

What’s optional? Seatbelts. Headlights at night. Child safety seats. Staying within the solid double-lines on a highway. Most people with kids have them ride on their laps in the front passenger seat, their little faces pressed to the windshield.

On a recent road trip, we passed a roadkill horse (!), two dead dogs, and a brick truck that had lost its bricks on the way out of Baku. On the way back, we saw a dead person in the road (!!). No wonder everyone stops at the mosque just outside of town to make an offering to Allah thanking Him for a safe ride!

3. Russian is hard.

Three genders? Six cases? I’ve been studying for two months and still don’t know what a case is.

4. All politics is local.

So said Tip O’Neill, long-serving Speaker of the House.

Case in point. In America, we fought a “cold” war with Russia from the mid-1940s to 1991. There is still hatred and fear of Russia in some parts of our political sphere (ask Sen. John McCain how he likes the Russians).

We also have as our enemies the “Axis of Evil”: Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Iraq, of course, is now are ward. North Korea is flirting with giving up the bomb. But Iran appears to be carrying on as a threat, with worried talk in the news magazines and Sunday morning talk shows over when it will get nukes and what it will do with them.

So here I am in Azerbaijan, sandwiched between Putin and Ahmadinejad. Azeris don’t care. There’s nothing too frightening about either. They may not always have nice things to say about their neighbors to the north and south, but Americans aren’t always that charitable with Canada and Mexico, either. Anyway, Azeris have reserved 100 percent of their negative energy for their neighbor to the west: Armenia.

The cause is a dispute over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which took the form of a war in the late ’80s and ’90s and now is the source of much saber-rattling, but little fighting. Some 800,000 Azeris were displaced by the loss of the territory, and bettering their lives is a major part of microfinance here.

It’s less of an axis and more of a singularity of evil. And, sadly, it’s no exaggeration to say that dislike of the Armenians is nearly universal and is strong. I don’t know, there’s some axiom here that fits, one man’s jelly is another man’s jam or something…

5. Bribes suck.

I finally paid one, last week. Sixty manat (about $75). It wasn’t, like, spiritually degrading or anything, but it was 60 AZN that I’m not going to be spending on candy and DVDs.

Posted in All, Azerbaijan, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class) Tagged: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Baku, Bangladesh, bribes, candy, cases, cats, DVDs, hypocrisy, India, Iran, mark bulliet, Nagorno-Karabakh, NFL, Pakistan, rickshaws, Russia, seatbelts, The Godfather ]]> http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/12/16/5-things-i-think-i-think-about-azerbaijan/feed/ 8 kivamark dsc004201 dsc00265 http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/09/18/hello-cool-world/ http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/09/18/hello-cool-world/#comments Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:48:52 +0000 kivamark http://kivafellows.wordpress.com/?p=1555 ]]> I’m the only fellow headed to Azerbaijan from Kiva Fellows 6, so I’m pretty excited to bring word of this fascinating region to those of you who make Kiva such a success. I’ll be visiting each of Kiva’s partner microfinance institutions in the region to assist them in any way I can, support Kiva, journal and train the MFIs on new software systems being put into place.

I’ve never been to the Caucasus. It’s largely a blank slate to me. What the Lonely Planet, my Azeri taxi driver last night and previous Kiva Fellows in the area, such as Jonathan Buser, say is that it’s a real crossroads: a blend of post-Soviet bureacracy, Shi’ite Islam, impoverished “internally displaced persons,” fabulously wealthy petrocapitalists living off the transport of oil and natural gas from east to west and the ex-pats who help that happen. I’ll be living in Baku (birthplace of chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov), the capital, for 6-10 weeks, and then moving on to my next destination for Kiva (Mongolia?) for the remainder of my 6-month fellowship.

I really hope to shed some light for people on this poorly understood region and its challenges for all of you. I’ll do my best.

–Mark Bulliet, KF6

Novruz is also important for Azerbaijan’s small businesses. Many of the Kiva borrowers I visited were making business decisions based on their sales projections during the holiday. One client had pre-shorn three sheep with the hopes of selling them for butcher at a higher price during the holiday. All of the Kiva trading clients had stocked up on inventory for their shops. Some of the special items included small fireworks, nuts, and festive pots of wheat. This is a very enjoyable time to be in Azerbaijan.

Throughout the few hours we spent together, I was incredible impressed at how diligent Ulviyya was at asking for definitions of words she didn’t understand, taking notes, and referring to what’s left of her Azerbaijani-English dictionary to express words she struggled with.  I felt more and more embarrassed at how little effort I am putting into learning Azeri in comparison to her!    

After lunch, Ulviyya took me to a place in the city where there were vendors selling English instruction books.  We selected a few but the availability of affordable books was very scarce.  She had already read almost all books at the level below her current ability. Ulviyya tells me that she would like to improve her English so that she can be confident of applying for and getting a job as a geologist at BP, where the salary is much higher but fluency in English is mandatory. 

I am humbled upon realizing how hard Azerbaijanis at every level of society strive to better their lives.  Some opt to borrow from microfinance organizations to expand their businesses while others increase their human capital by learning English. 

Last week, I ventured outside the capital city of Baku (where Normicro’s head office is located) to visit a branch office (where loans are administered) for the first time.  My goal was to interview clients who received loans from Kiva lenders, write journals, and upload the journals to Kiva.org.  Getting to Khachmaz, a city north of Baku, was relatively easy for someone who doesn’t speak Azeri or Russian.  Minibuses, known as “mashrutkas”, line up outside one of Baku’s main bus stations with clearly labeled signs of their destinations.  As far I know, the mashrutkas don’t follow schedules, but depart as soon as each vehicle fills up.  For most low-income Azeris, mashrutkas are the most reliable and affordable means of traveling to other cities.  However, the 3 manat (approx. 3.60 USD) one way, 2.5 hour bumpy journey is not for the faint-hearted.  Many times the driver would pass slow trucks in spite of on-coming vehicles, swerving back to his own lane only at the very last minute.  Sometimes, when the driver overestimated his mashrutka’s horsepower on a passing attempt, he would resort to creating an additional middle lane.    

During my 3 days at Normicro’s Khachmaz branch office, the two loan officers, Vagif and Nafira, were quite busy meeting with clients at the office.  Yet, they took some time off in the afternoons to take me to see borrowers of Kiva loans.  I also received translation help from a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, Adam.  Most of the clients we visited operated retail (e.g., clothes, groceries, shoes, furniture) business.  Very quickly I got consistent replies that the loans were used to purchase inventory in bulk to get lower prices.  This implies that the additional profit margin from lower cost of goods was more than sufficient to offset the 3% monthly interest rate charged by Normicro.  Access to loans essentially accelerates the rate at which these entrepreneurs accumulate profit and grow their businesses.  Many of them also expressed the desire to take larger loans so that they can make one-time infrastructure investments or buy inventory in even larger quantities.    

In a small city such as Khachmaz, when two foreigners walk through the bazaar and talk to people, all buying and selling activities are paused because everyone gathers around to listen to our interviews!  Each one of us also draws attention for different reasons: Vagif and Nafira, the loan officers, were constantly approached by current and potential clients with inquiries; Adam, a caucasian, was considered the rich investor who would provide the loan capital; I, on the other hand, was asked directly or indirectly what I was selling!  (Chinese in Azerbaijan are typically seen selling toys and misc. items on sidewalks and on the streets.)

I made sure we had an internet connection and a projector so everyone could experience Kiva.org — some of the attendees have not yet worked with Kiva, while others do not have consistent internet access in their offices. During the presentation I surfed through the website, highlighting important points and answering questions about lenders and clients. (I even impressed them with the fact that almost 12% of all Kiva funds, thus far, have gone to Azerbaijani clients!) One thing I really focused in on was that Kiva lenders are individuals – I think it’s easy for the uninitiated loan officer to assume that Kiva is just some faceless American corporation throwing big money at international projects. I pulled up Hajibaba’s business profile and used Mrs. Diba’s Class as an example of Kiva’s lenders. The mental image of six-year-olds collecting pennies for Hajibaba really helps illustrate the Kiva spirit!!     

To train the newbies and reinforce Kiva’s processes to the experienced loan officers, we used a “real” client as an example. We tested out the new Kiva Form created by Adam (Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to NorMicro) as a means of systematically improving information flow between loan officers and the individuals who post the Kiva listings. Next, we all worked together to develop a concise, but detailed business description. Finally, Behbud (NorMicro’s Beylagan Branch Kiva Coordinator) walked us through posting a profile – keep an eye out for Rafig’s profile!

The Kiva Training attendees:

The response to the training was very encouraging and I expect that the Azerbaijani Kiva listings will soon be even better! The training was a little bittersweet for me – I leave in just one week!  Time has flown! I am sad to go, but I guess I do need to get back home and finish up my degree at some point   I hope to post some links to pictures before I leave!

14 – 16 July: I jumped on a mashrutka (a fancy name for a really old, unsafe, run-down mini-bus) and headed two hours north of Baku to NorMicro’s branch office in Khachmaz. I spent Saturday hanging out with Azerbaijani friends I have made on previous visits to Khachmaz this summer. On Sunday I went to the modest seaside resort town of Nabran, but unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate much and the water was really cold. On Monday I visited eight Kiva clients in Khachmaz with translation help from Adam, the U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to NorMicro in Khachmaz. We walked all over Khachmaz locating clients – at least I’m getting exercise to offset the amount of food I’ve been eating! I’ve been to Khachmaz often enough now that I know a lot of people there – it’s fun to spot clients I’ve visited on previous trips and see that things are still going well for them. While I was in Khachmaz, I spent my nights with two different host families. Azerbaijanis rank near the top of the list of the most hospitable people of the planet…but I do have to admit, all the attention and food and cousins and tea and wedding videos and more tea and photo albums does get a bit exhausting! I definitely did not have a chance to write-up any of my Kiva journals while I was the guest of those families!! (Photo: People and cows enjoying the beach at Nabran.)

17 July: I caught an early mashrutka to the small town of Devechi and met up with Adam and Nafira, a loan officer at NorMicro’s Khachmaz branch. We visited fourteen clients in the Devechi bazaar – nearly every vendor in the bazaar is a NorMicro client! Nafira is very efficient and is well-liked by her clients, so our visits went smoothly and quickly. After a late lunch of mutton kebabs, I returned to Baku.

19 – 20 July: The next morning I took yet another early mashrutka to the central Azerbaijani town of Agsu. In the two days I spent there, I visited twenty Kiva clients with the help of the branch manager, Namik, and his friendly staff. The talk of the town in Agsu that week was the municipality’s new mandate that all street-front shops conform to a specific architectural design. The idea is that Agsu will look much more appealing once all the ramshackle shops are torn down. The downside for shop owners is that the municipality is not helping out at all with the costs of remodeling. They are, however, providing the demolition free of charge. Khilgat’s rented shop had been torn down 2 days before my visit, and Terlan’s shop was scheduled for demolition later in the week. Despite the bad news, the clients were in relatively good humor and showed me the color blueprints for the approved Agsu storefronts, so kindly provided by the municipality. Following these two days of visits I experienced my most exciting taxi ride in Azerbaijan thus far (and that’s saying something…!) – me, two other women, and three children in the backseat of a Lada, with me holding onto a stranger’s baby. Many high-speed hairpin turns and two hours later, we arrived – safely – in Baku. (Photo: Me with NorMicro’s Agsu Branch staff)

21-21 July: Saturday was devoted to spending quality time with my host family – we visited three different aunts in Baku, and, of course, ate and drank tea with all of them. I finally got time Sunday to head to a coffee shop I had found recently that has free wi-fi – it’s geared towards upper crust Bakuvians and expats, so the food and drink prices keep me from hanging out too long! I did manage to get some work done, though!

23 July: I have had so much success in visiting clients with Nafira that I returned to her region to visit six more Kiva clients that live in a small village outside Devechi. Adam and Vagif, another loan officer, helped us out. I was eager to visit agricultural businesses after so much time visiting retail and trading businesses. It was a very, very, very warm afternoon, but the clients were friendly and the visits were rewarding.

24 July: ACDI|VOCA and AMFA class on success stories and business descriptions.

25 July: After reviewing the materials from the business descriptions class, Bahman, the director of NorMicro suggested that I prepare formal Kiva training for his staff. I spent most of the day developing a training plan and trying to locate a venue to hold the training in. My plan is get a projector and an internet connection and walk the staff through everything – understanding how Kiva works, posting business descriptions, journals, etc. I think that seeing the website and understanding who the lenders are will be highly beneficial, especially for those loan officers and branch managers who rarely use the internet and may not yet fully understand the person-to-person connection that Kiva fosters. I expect that this training will enhance the Kiva listings coming from Azerbaijan! Hopefully, we will conduct the training next week…I’ll post an update!

26 – 27 July: I spent two days visiting Kiva clients in the industrial town of Sumgayit. As we pulled into Sumgayit, thick black smoke was billowing out of some sort of plant and was hovering over the town. This town was once the center of the Soviet chemical industry and held the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most polluted cities. The demise of the Soviet Union resulted in bankrupt factories (but cleaner air), unemployment, plus an influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict. I visited eighteen clients here with help from NorMicro staff members Tasaduf, Ahmed, Bahram, and Board Member, Adalat. (Photo: Sumgayit’s Martyr’s Monument on the Caspian Sea.)

29 July – 1 August (already!?): I spent several days in the southern Azerbaijani town of Beylagan. With the help of NorMicro branch staff members Behbud, Eldaniz, and Arif, and U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, Carlo, I visited sixteen Kiva clients. I also managed to get some kind of food poisoning that made me fully appreciate the plumbing and toilet situation I have in my place back in Houston! Nonetheless, the client visits went well and I have fully recovered.

2 August: The staff of AqroInvest, another Kiva Field Partner in Azerbaijan, invited me to spend the day traveling to their branch offices in the towns of Imishli, Saatli, Sabirabad, and Bilasuvar. We visited three different IDP villages – I’ll try to post a separate blog about these villages…

3 August: Finally back in the NorMicro head office in Baku – internet access!!

Thanks for reading this far!! I leave Azerbaijan in two weeks, after having spent three months here. I’m starting to get sad. But now I gotta get busy finishing up journals!

The class was organized by Paul at ACDI|VOCA through the Azerbaijan Micro-Finance Association (AMFA) after he detected a high demand from the Azerbaijani MFIs for such training. Paul spent about an hour teaching methods for writing success stories. He touched on basics like length, structure, and formatting. The importance of considering the audience that will read the story was stressed. He also spent time discussing the importance of well-composed photos – a topic that was well-received by the attendees.

I spent about an hour discussing the elements of a quality (interesting!) business description. I tried to impress upon the attendees that they have the opportunity through these business descriptions to educate international lenders about Azerbaijan, the local industries, and living conditions for the entrepreneurs. I used actual Kiva examples and the attendees rewrote the business descriptions using a Kiva-based format I provided. Paul had a projector set-up to his computer, so we were able to project Kiva.org on the wall and click through listings to reinforce the importance of quality business descriptions. Hopefully, having a pre-made template and seeing some English-language examples will aid these MFIs in bulking up their business descriptions.

As the class was wrapping up, Paul mentioned a follow-on class covering English-language emails and PowerPoint training – everyone received those topics enthusiastically. They were also interested in a class on photo composition and photo editing (cropping, straightening, brightening). Additionally, a couple of the Kiva partners here have asked me to help them create systems for more efficient posting and one partner is interested in learning how to post videos! Looks like I’ll be teaching a couple more classes! I’m really hoping that the training and interest will be translated into high quality Azerbaijani postings that more accurately represent the great entrepreneurs here!