Posts filed under ‘Guatemala’
Connecting through prayers
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
I’m Jewish, but, before every meal at Manuel’s house, we say a prayer thanking Jesus Christ. Manuel is the director of FAPE, the MFI where I work in Guatemala, and I have been staying with him since arriving. He is also a pastor at a B
aptist church. So I was surprised Thursday night when lifting my head, just after our prayer, I spotted a menorah on display. What is this doing here?
Manual caught my gaze. “Oh, a friend gave me that. Do you know what it used for?” he queried.
I attempted to impart what knowledge I had of the menorah: It was a miracle that the oil burned for eight days, but there are nine candles. Channukah was the festival of lights. He listened intently on what I had to say completely fascinated with my every word. His genuine interest in my religion, in hearing my thoughts, was not something I was accustomed to back home. How often do we hang onto every word of someone we barely know?
Shortly thereafter, he shared with me what my name meant to him. (more…)
A welcomed visitor in Guatemala, but just a visitor
By Jeremy Lapedis, KF9, Guatemala
I am the visitor. I am from Kiva. I am Jeremias. This has been my introduction for my first days in Guatemala.
Tueseday, we went to San Martin. It is a two hour drive from Guatemala City: thankfully it was Marco and not me who was driving so I could observe the scenery as we passed through beautiful rolling hills covered in forests. In the distance we could see small peaks, and each one was covered in trees.
Once we arrived, we were greeted by Bertha Carmelina Tohon, who just finished fundraising on Kiva. She gave 
us a warm welcome and insisted that we have tea before we leave her comedor (eatery). She not shy to share her life story. I quickly learned that her kids attending college, one studying psychology and the other chemistry. I learned that she thought the Guatemalan school system did not teach the children anything practical, and that she has a typing school where kids learn using typewriters. I learned that she was hard working: “There is time to rest when you die,” she said.
But not all of our visits on this day would be this happy. (more…)
Adios Guatemala
Today is my last day as a Kiva Fellow working in Guatemala City. I will admit that in recent weeks my mind has been wandering to the luxuries of home: ethnic food, safe and timely public transportation, dishwashers, smog laws, etc… But as always, when leaving a new “home”, I know that I will miss the experiences and friendships that I have been lucky enough to experience while here.
As one of my fellow Kiva Fellows pointed out in an earlier post, we fellows tend to receive credit for the support that all of you lenders are really giving. I wish I could offer you one of the glasses of Coke or Fanta that I’ve been given, perhaps sit you down with a basket of fresh tortillas, bring out a photo album and begin to show you the true gratitude that I was shown by countless Kiva borrowers. Earlier this week I re-visited a client that I had already met a few times. As I was leaving she shouted after me “make sure to tell all your friends at Kiva thank you!” What she meant by “friends” was all of the lenders who had chosen to believe in her.
The field partner that I have spent the past 3 months with is called FAPE, a small MFI with over 25 years in the industry. In addition to their core business of providing small loans to women from mostly rural area, FAPE stays true to their deep social mission of improving the lives of Guatemalans – specifically those with little or no access to financial services.
FAPE Staff - When else will I be taller than most of my co-workers?!?
One of the pilot projects they have begun is a training course delivered to women at the Santa Teresa Women’s Prison. While the project is only one very small piece of the incredible work that FAPE does, I thought it would be interesting to share one of the stories that was shared with me. Here is a short video of a Kiva borrower who lives is a prison in Guatemala City:
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In The Field
Andrea Bouch just finished her first placement in Guatemala. She will be returning home to San Francisco (tomorrow!!!) where she will continue working as a Kiva Fellow.
You have internet but no running water?
Someone asked me how it was that I seemed to have (almost) constant access to the internet AND no indoor running water or heat. From an American perspective, it seems irrational and contradictory. But, Guatemala is filled with (seeming) contradictions and contrasts. I suspect that many of my “fellow” fellows have experienced the same in the countries where they are working.
The family I live with has satellite TV, a wide screen television (and a television in every bedroom) but they have no indoor running water or heating. They still wash their laundry by hand in a lavadero, outside. They cook over a wood stove. The water for showers is heated by a fire lit under a big black drum, which they fill with water early, every morning (before the water runs out). They make their own masa from the corn that they grow. And they all have cell phones, MP3 players and their favorite “novellas” (soap operas) on television.
- Thatched roof home with satellite television in Tulate
The office where I work has internet access (including wi-fi) and right outside my window, there is an elderly couple working their land like it’s probably been worked for centuries—all by hand, living in an adobe structure (with no running water or heat). One of my most surreal experiences during this fellowship was the day I was sitting in my little office at ASDIR, uploading Kiva borrower videos to YouTube; listening to a loan officer explain the terms of a loan in K’iche and, through my office window, watching the elderly couple plant their corn.
- the view from my ASDIR office in Nimasac
At dinner, in the weeks before Easter, my host family would sit around the dinner table and listen to the story of Christ’s resurrection told in K’iche, being broadcast over a radio on someone’s cell phone.
The inside of their stores and homes are very tidy—almost meticulous. Yet, they don’t hesitate to litter pretty much anywhere and everywhere else.
- trash…it’s everywhere!
Lori Gibson Banducci is a Kiva Fellow, working with ASDIR in Nimasac, Totonicapan, Guatemala where she blends in perfectly with the people who live here.
Lori and Kiva Borrowers
Life in Nimasac Guatemala
So, warning, this has NOTHING to do with microfinance.
But, here are two videos that give a definite flavor of life here in Nimasac, Guatemala where I have spent the last two months as a Kiva Fellow with ASDIR, Kiva’s field partner in Totonicapan, Guatemala.
K’iche is the predominant language spoken here. Many people have asked me to describe what it sounds like, but I’ve found that to be an impossible task, so here is a short video of animated dinner conversation in K’iche.
The second is a glimpse at what is involved in washing clothes here in Nimasac (it takes a LONG time!)
Lori Gibson Banducci is a Kiva Fellow working with ASDIR, Kiva’s field partner in Totonicapan, Guatemala where she blends in perfectly with the people who live there.
Lori with Kiva Borrowers
Loan Officers: The Unsung Heroes of Microcredit
Long hours, low pay, angry barking dogs, collection calls, long motorcycle rides and even longer walks…………what on earth keeps these loan officers “in the saddle” 8+ hours a day, 6 days a week? I interviewed two of ASDIR’s (Kiva’s partner bank in Totonicapan, Guatemala) loan officers to try and find out.
I have to say I have been most impressed by the dedication, care and compassion of the loan officers at this MFI. I would also bet that most of Kiva’s 90+ field partners have similar, committed loan officers—- clearly motivated by a lot more than money!
Interview is in Spanish, with subtitles and, it will soon become clear that I was not selected as a Kiva Fellow on the basis of my video editing (or taking) skills.
Click on this link for more information on ASDIR
“From One War to Another”
**Warning: Do not read if you are my parents**
Yesterday morning the secretary of FAPE (the MFI I am working with here in Guatemala City) woke up at 4:30am. As she left her house she kissed her 3-year-old son goodbye and told him that if she didn’t come home tonight he should know that she loves him. She then waited at the bus stop for over 2 hours for a city bus to bring her the 5 miles to the FAPE office.
Guatemala City (“Guate”) is in a public transportation crisis. It’s taken me awhile to understand the situation and it’s still rather complicated, but I’ll do my best to explain what I do know. It all starts with Guate’s large gang problem. One of the ways that the many gangs terrorize the city is by demanding payments from the bus companies. It’s a Hollywood style “meet me every Wednesday at the gas station to pay $100 — or else” kind of deal. If the companies don’t pay, the gangs kill bus drivers at random. They drive by on a motorcycle and fire into the drivers seat. They get on the bus as a passenger and shoot the driver point blank. They follow the bus until the driver stops for a snack and then take him out with one bullet. It’s horrific. In March alone, over 30 bus drivers have been murdered in Guatemala City.
A few Outer City Busses
Aside from being terrifying for the residents of the city, it also heavily affects their day-to-day life. The vast majority of bus drivers in the city have gone on strike (wouldn’t you??) which leaves eerily bus-less streets and hundreds of thousands of people stranded with no way to get to work or school. Guate has no other public transportation system and taxis are too expensive for the majority of the city’s inhabitants. So what do they do?
Well, like FAPE’s secretary, they get up 2 hours earlier and anticipate getting home 2 hours later. They hold their breath, praying that no harm will come to them on the ridiculously overly crowded busses. It may sound dramatic to tell your 3-year-old that if anything happens to you on your way to work that you will always love him, but the fear is real. Can you imagine being scared for your life every time you get on a public bus to go to work or to school?
The older generations, those who lived through Guatemala’s 30-year civil war tend to sigh and say this is just a new kind of war. They saw an era when the military and the police were the ones doing the killing, so seeing them simply stand aside while all of this goes on doesn’t appear to surprise anyone.
The place formerly known as my morning bus stop
What about me? Well, thankfully I can report that I am being extremely well taken care of. FAPE sends me to and from work in a private taxi and accompanies me anytime I venture beyond the large front gate of the office. I actually feel quite safe in my daily routine. I admit that I get small pangs of jealousy when I read about other Kiva Fellows seemingly independent bus trips and client visits, but for now I head “home” every day thankful for the luxury of feeling safe on my daily commute – a luxury that is simply not afforded to many people in this city.
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See actively financing loans at Kiva.org!!
hot showers–not so simple
Warning: this post has absolutely nothing to do with microfinace. Just gives you a glimpse into what is involved with taking a hot shower here in Nimasac, Guatemala.
When I was first accepted as a Kiva Fellow, I was asked if I had any “special” requirements. My response was that I wanted to be relatively safe and be able to take a hot shower.
Taking a hot shower is no simple matter in Guatemala. First of all, most homes do not have running water. (this includes the family that I am living with). So, in that situation, here is how you get to take a hot shower. First, they run a hose from the closest water source (in my case about a block away from the house) and fill this black (20-50?) gallon drum up with water. Then you light a fire underneath the drum and wait until the water gets hot. This big drum is always located above the shower, as it is gravity fed.
Now it gets dicey……because without any cold running water to “mix in” with the hot water, instead of a “hot” shower, you can get a SCALDING HOT shower……..so, it takes some time to figure out exactly how big of a fire to build and how long after the fire has been built is it safe to take a shower…….go too soon and you get scalding hot…….wait too long and it’s tepid at best.
When there is running water, as there is at many hotels, they use this kind of an electrical contraption which is located right there in the shower, right above the shower nozzle. The one pictured here is one of the “safer” versions…..many have electrical wires portruding and a lot of electrical tape wrapped (sometimes loosely) around them. And, when you’re tall like I am and the water splashes on the exposed electrical wires, that too gets a bit “dicey”.
And, as long as we’re talking about “bathrooms”, I thought I’d share a photo of the outhouse that my host family and I use. (actually, it is quite pleasant, as the view from the crack in the door is of the beautiful countryside surrounding Totonicapan)
Illegal Immigration-the view from Nimasac Guatemala
It’s almost impossible to find a family in this little town of Nimasac (in the western highlands of Guatemala) who has not had a son or husband go to the U.S. to find work.
Boys often leave when they are teenagers (16 or so) and take the perilous route to the U.S. through Mexico, by enlisting the services of a “coyote” (immigrant smuggler)—which is a very risky proposition. If they do make it to the U.S. alive, they arrive in large cities (Houston and New York seem to be the favorites here) where they connect with acquaintances or friends who are already there. Many leave wives and young children behind. Many stay for years before they return……..some never come back to Guatemala.
In the U.S. they find work in restaurants, construction, landscaping and, most of them, faithfully send money back to their families in Nimasac twice a month. It is hard to imagine the impact of these bi-monthly “remesas” (remittances) on the families and the local economy. In fact, annual remittances from the U.S. to Guatemala are the second biggest driver in Guatemala’s economy—second only to exports, totaling $ 4.3 billion in 2008 (Sources: MIF, IMF, US Census International DataBase, Latin America Monitor).
You can look around this village and clearly distinguish between the houses that were built with American money and those that were built with Guatemalan money. (see photos below)
Families with sons or husbands in the U.S. can often afford to feed and clothe their families, send their children to school, have cement block homes with running water and maybe even have electricity. It is estimated that 43 percent of Guatemalan households receiving remittances have been lifted out of extreme poverty. (Source: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)). So, these families are still poor (especially by American standards) but no longer among the poorest of the poor.
Remittances are projected to decline by 8% or more in 2009. In data just released by Banco de Guatemala, remittances for the first two months of 2009 are down 9.6 % compared to 2008. The impact of the decrease in remittances is profound and widespread and likely to get worse. Construction on many homes has simply “stopped” (putting those who were building the house out of work). Families can no longer afford to buy things, significantly impacting demand across the board, and especially the weaving, sewing and shoemaking cottage industries in Nimasac.
One Kiva borrower I spoke with said she used to have 35 individuals sewing/making parts for her shoes and now she is down to 15, with prospects looming of further declines. (She used her Kiva loan to pay her employees for work produced, but not yet sold due to lack of demand.) Another Kiva borrower had originally taken out a loan for leather and other shoe making materials, but the market for his product has all but disappeared. So he bought a loom instead—hoping the market for traditional fabrics “cortes” is more dependable. This is a young, industrious, positive young man with a wife and a toddler to provide for. But, demand is down, across the board, in almost every area of the economy here.
On one hand, I understand the associated “hidden” costs of illegal immigration in the U.S. I know that some illegal immigrants do not pay taxes and often times avail themselves of the education and medical care and, with the economic downturn, may be taking jobs from Americans who need the work. I also realize that, since some illegal immigrants are paid under the table and do not pay into Medicare or social security or income tax, we all “pay the price” for their use of our services.
On the other hand, I can also understand the desire of these young men to provide for their families, to improve their lives by immigrating to the U.S. (legally or illegally) where they can find jobs and opportunity. It reminds me of the situation that Jean Valjean finds himself in Les Miserables, when he steals a loaf of bread to feed his daughter.
As with most things, there are definitely several dimensions to this illegal immigration issue. And it is apparent from the Guatemalan side, that many families who had been able to escape extreme poverty are about to be thrust right back into it as remittances from the U.S. continue to decline. And, in the absence of “demand” for products and services, the ability for micro credit to make a meaningful difference in the lives of these people may be compromised.
built with $$$
built with quetzales
The Other 2%
Those of us who know and love the Kiva platform probably find ourselves giving the “what is Kiva” elevator pitch fairly often. “Kiva is an online platform…” or “Kiva is a microlending social community…” or whatever your go-to line may be. And we’ve most likely all seen eyes glaze over and watched our audience find a sudden fascination with their feet. But every once in a while you can tell that you’ve hooked them: “So I would get my money back?” “I can really lend $25?” And my favorite moment of those conversations: “What is the default rate?”
About 2%.
That’s when I always feel like I’ve made my case. A 2% default rate is phenomenal, but what about those clients who don’t/can’t/won’t pay back their loans?
Yesterday I visited 4 clients who all are at least 1 year behind on their loan payments. Only 1 client is a Kiva borrower, but the stories are all very similar. Most of the women had something go wrong; a health issue, a death in the family, a sudden unexpected cost, etc.
But all of them also had over committed themselves to multiple loans from multiple banks. So when things start to head south financially it’s 3 times as hard for them because they have 3 banks knocking on their door. In the absence of a formal credit system it’s fairly easy to think that you’re being smart by taking out multiple loans. In some cases this can work just fine, but when it doesn’t work out it gets ugly really fast. Many banks charge late fees and most loans will continue to accrue interest charges until paid off. In some cases the bank will post a list of clients who missed a payment in their front window. So what do you do when your name is on the dunce list and your debt gets larger everyday? No, seriously, what do you do?
In the cases of the women I met with yesterday: 1 proposed a long term payment plan with smaller monthly payments, another cried and cried and asked for a year of leniency, another pretended she didn’t know what we were talking about, and the last client went to her husband and asked for his help in repaying the debt.
With Kiva brought into the mix it can complicate things even further. Kiva lenders expect to get their money back. In fact sometimes I wonder how many lenders even understand that the potential of not getting their money back exists. The microfinance institutions want to protect their reputation and with the level of transparency that Kiva provides to lenders, the default and late payment rates are right there for the world to see. Thus, many MFIs choose to essentially insure their loans for late payments and they have shiny ZEROS next to those stats. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have late and defaulted loans.
I bring this up simply because it’s a reality of microfinance that I hadn’t fully understood until I came to Guatemala and began working with FAPE. As lenders, we agree to take on the risk, but I still wonder how the lender community feels when they don’t receive their money. Is a journal that explains the situation sufficient? Is there something else that can be done?
**This entry doesn’t have a “photo moment” but in the interest of keeping things visually appealing, here’s a picture I took on a client visit last week.
Technology in villages that still lack running water
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Andrea Bouch is a Kiva Fellow working with FAPE in Guatemala City. To help support
Guatemalan entrepreneurs please Join the Viva Guatemala Lending Team!
Not Easily Intimidated
The cooperative, yet fiercely independent, spirit of this mostly indigenous community in Guatemala.
It’s the reasonable repayment plan-stupid!
Many of my friends and family have been shocked, when I explained to them that microcredit loans often carry (what we would consider) usurious/oppressive interest rates. Many of them have asked me how ANYONE could justify interest rates of 30 or 50 or even 100%?
I have tried to explain all the factors that go into how a microfinance bank determines just how much interest it must charge in order to remain a viable business.
I go through the litany of factors contributing to the “high” interest rates—-the fact that it costs as much (or more) to make a $300 loan as it does to make a $10,000 loan; that in order to reach the poorest of the poor, the loan officers must often travel long distances on back roads in order to serve this population(because these borrowers do not usually have transportation to get to the banks); how a microfinance bank must cover its costs if it is to stay in business and continue to provide credit to the poor, that inflation rates must be accounted for in order for the banks to even recoup the original value of the loan. Usually, their eyes glaze over, they remain unconvinced and they find it difficult to get beyond their shock at the absolute level of the interest rates.
So, yesterday, I listened to a loan officer with ASDIR (Kiva’s field partner in Totonicapan, Guatemala) explain to a couple how they would have to repay their 30% interest loan in 12 monthly installments and (this is the key) that with each payment the total amount due on their loan would get lower and lower, until it was paid off.
That is when the differences between credit card debt which most U.S. consumers use to finance purchases and the microcredit consumer loans became crystal clear! It’s not about the absolute interest rates; it is about having reasonable repayment terms, which pay off the loan!
Let’s compare two loans of, say, $1000 —-one done the microfinance way and the other the American credit card way. The microcredit loan is made at the apparently outrageous rate of 50%, while the credit card loan is at a far more “reasonable” 20%.
___________ Microcredit American credit card
Loan Amount 1000 1000
Interest Rate 50% 20%
Minimum monthly payment ($107.59) ($16.67)
Total Payments in one year ($1,291.02) ($200.00)
Amount owed after 12 months 0 $1,000.00
Total amount paid in 5 years ($1,291.02) ($1,000.00)
Amount owing in 5 years 0 $1,000.00
Interest Payments to Bank $291.02 $1,000.00
With a microcredit loan, a loan officer evaluates the financial position of the borrower and develops a payment plan that is reasonable. It is a plan that gets them out of debt in a relatively short amount of time. In contrast, in recent years, the credit card way has been to provide people with a credit line, encourage them to make purchases on their card (up to their limit) AND then encourage/allow them to make only the minimum monthly payment. Paying off the card/the loan is NOT encouraged. Better for the banks to keep them paying interest only.
After one year, the borrower with a microcredit loan has paid off her loan and has paid a total of $291.02 in interest. After one year, the American credit card borrower has paid $200 in interest and still owes $1000 on the loan. After 5 years, the American credit card borrower has paid $1000 in interest and still owes the entire $1000. Meanwhile, the microcredit borrower may have taken out and repaid another loan or two, while the credit card borrower is still paying on the original loan!
Ends up the lower rates, but totally open-ended repayment terms are far more onerous for the borrower (and beneficial to the bank in the short term) than a significantly higher interest rate with clear and closed-ended repayment terms.
I don’t know if this will change the minds of some of my doubting friends and family, but, I think it illustrates how banks can charge interest rates high enough to cover their costs and risks, while still benefiting the borrowers who must pay the interest. It is truly a win-win, even if it may not seem like it at first glance.
For more information on microcredit interest rates: http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.26.2617
Hola from Guatemala City!
Well, what the guidebooks say is true: Guatemala City is no walk in the park. Yet, the largest city in Central America certainly has much to offer and I look forward to sharing my experiences over the next few months with you.
I hope you enjoy the video below that I created to introduce you to FAPE – the microfinance foundation I’ll be working with here in Guatemala City. A previous Kiva Fellow (Megan Montgomery) and the Kiva staff have built a strong partnership with FAPE and I’ve been received with open arms and a lot of food.
Here are a few facts about Guatemala:
- Estimated 2008 Population: 13.6 million
- Population living below poverty line: 59%
- Indigenous population: 41%
- Languages: Spanish + 24 recognized indigenous languages
- GDP: $33.7 billion (About that of the state of Montana)
Hasta pronto!
Andrea
Help support FAPE and Guatemalan entrepreneurs by joining the
“Viva Guatemala” lending team!
How to adopt a child…..
As some of you might know there is the story about the Guatemalans being a bit scared of people taking their kids for illegal adoption; apparently there was once a Japanese tourist beaten to death when he (or she I don’t know) picked up a kid.
Myself I have had kids dropped in my lab to have them sitting there for a couple of hours during a bus ride where mama already careys two others. One in tied around her back in a cloth an easily mistaken for a small package. One holding her skirt and one carried into the bus while mama balanced a basket on her head. I have also made some good friends with the neighbourhood kids because I walk crossing the hammock bridge with them every day and when we do we try to make it swing as much as possible. This to the big fun of the kids: this crazy gringa….
With this in the back of my mind it is just só hard to not want to take all those naughty little menaces with their dirty faces home.
I am used to share my food with the kids living on the streets of Peru and Colombia; over there, the waiters in the restaurant will even give them a real seat and a good treat when you invite them to share your food with them. I did this with the two shoeshine boys who shine the Panajachel calle Santander shoes. I mean who can eat 4 (!) pancakes on his own? Myself I am 34 and had never the idea I needed to have kids. Dutch women are first of all not very much the marriage kind and kids is something you might do after 36 or later… I like to chat with all the people I meet; the woman on the street, the man next to me in the bus, my colleagues and the woman who takes care of the house I rent. There are always 4 questions to start with: where are you from, what’s your age, where do you live (in Guatemala red.) and: do you have kids? And I don’t have kids.
This raises eyebrows and I have even noticed women who don’t dare to ask me more about it because they think there must be a problem if at my age (!!!) you don’t have a kid yet!
Well…. This week I went to interview this woman who lives of her tamales sales.
While I walk up the hill at the outskirts of Sololá there is this little boy running around us asking us who we are looking for. We tell him we look for Juana and he says with the biggest smile; that’s my mummy!!
And I am sorry but every time I think of this moment and my interview where the story of the little boy is unravelled I still get tears in my eyes. I have the feeling he will be in my heart forever and we only met for 30 minutes! I feel I need to go back to just hug him but also his mother for adopting him…. I wish I could do more…
Read the journal following the link below, while I work on those rough peaces in my throat….
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=13728
A Day in Prison
Two weeks ago FAPE launched a new program. After months of fighting bureaucracy, they finally got permission to give loans to female prisoners at the Centro Preventivo de Rehabilitación Santa Teresa (loosely translated, the Santa Teresa Prevention Center for Rehabilitation). The program was kicked off with a weeklong training called ISUN (Inicie su Negocio or Start your Business). Thirty-two women participated in this course, which is a joint effort from the Coordinadora Nacional de Microempresarios de Guatemala (the Guatemalan government’s national office on microenterprise), the Guatemalan Ministry of Economy, and FAPE, with most of the funding coming interestingly from the Government of Taiwan. I had the opportunity to attend one day of the course and then returned for the graduation. And yes, I was there to interview a client for a Kiva loan.
The whole experience was very interesting and quite bizarre. Santa Teresa is a low security prison, where women (there is also a men’s prison within the compound, but I didn’t visit that) are detained while their trials and sentencing are pending. Most of the women are there for either drug-related crimes or money laundering. Many of them have been there for several years, simply waiting for their cases to get through the bureaucracy of the courts.
Entrance into the prison was remarkably easy. I was with Sergio, the director of FAPE, and all he had to do was show a copy of a letter from the director of the prison, and we were allowed in right away. It was interesting to note that the “official document” that allowed us to drive right past the sign that no cars are allowed was actually a poor copy of a faxed letter – really not very official looking at all. We had to wait a little outside the entrance into the women’s prison, but only because the sign-in registry wasn’t at the front desk yet. Once we were admitted, I handed over my passport in exchange for two stamps on my forearm, which were evidently the temporary mark of a free person. I was eventually patted down, but only once we were well inside the prison, as that was the first time we passed a female guard. I had my camera in my pocket, which aroused suspicion when they felt it, but upon seeing the poorly faxed letter, once again we passed through without question – they didn’t actually even look at what the large thing in my pocket was. I’m definitely curious if the lackadaisical security is the same for everyone, or if I would have had a more thorough inspection if I weren’t American. I suspect so.
Sergio and Me in Prison
Once we were actually in the prison, I was struck by how much it didn’t feel like a prison; although I didn’t see any of the rooms where the women actually
Kids and Clothes - A Typical Scene in Santa Teresa
live, which I have heard are far from pleasant. The views are quite nice, beautiful lush mountains on the edge of the city, clothes of all sizes hang out to dry
in the sun, little kids wander around (yes, children are allowed to stay with their mothers in prison until the age of 4, but once they turn 4 they are sent to an orphanage if they don’t have family to go to), all the women are dressed just like you would see a group of random women out in town, although no traditional clothing at all.
It was really fun to watch and even participate at bit in the ISUN training, which was very interactive and the women participated very enthusiastically. There was a lot of laughter and camaraderie, and it really just didn’t feel like the preconceptions I guess I have about how a prison should feel. At one point the course involved an activity where the women were divided into groups, given some random supplies, and told to create a business in 20 minutes. Evidently when this course is taught elsewhere, the teachers bring a whole host of materials to be used to make some sort of product to “sell.” However, because we were in prison, the amount of supplies, and especially things like scissors, was quite limited. It was really fun to see them all working together and coming up with such different ideas for what they would use their bits of paper, string, glue, and markers for. Once the 20 minutes were up, the teachers, Sergio, and I were supposed to be customers and visit each business to see if we were interested in “buying” anything. One group made a catalogue of clothing and conducted an “international fashion show” of their clothing, as they had a Nicaraguan, a Russian, a Colombian, and Guatemalans in their group. I got targeted to “buy” their hypothetical clothes and it was hilarious to see them fake wine and dine me. And with Sergio along as my husband for the day, I “bought” some clothes with his credit card. The whole thing was quite funny and the ladies really seemed to be having such a good time. Other groups made things like address books, greeting cards, and random little toy things out of yarn that were actually really cute. After the activity each group talked about what businesses they came up with, what they sold, and why they thought they did or didn’t do well with their sales. And then we, the consumers, got to talk about why we did or didn’t buy the various items. It was a fun and seemingly very effective way to get everyone thinking about what all they need to consider when starting up a business, from consumer preference, to advertising, pricing, competition, etc.
One Group Planning Out Their Business
Products on Display
Creative Advertising
Sergio and One of His Purchases
While the training was really interesting on its own, I eventually got to the task I came there for: to interview a prisoner for a Kiva loan. It was very interesting to talk to her and she really was more appreciative of the chance to get a loan than almost anyone I’ve talked to yet. While we didn’t talk in detail about why she’s in prison, it has something to do with money laundering and her mother and cousin are in with her for the same. They’ve been in for a whopping four years waiting for their sentencing and can now leave as soon as they can pay their fines – 50,000 Quetzals each, which is less than $7,000, but totally cost prohibitive for them. They have a lawyer and are working to get the fines reduced, but if they can’t then they’ll be transferred to another prison to start serving out their fines – at a rate of 25 Q a day, so almost 5 ½ years, on top of the 4 they’ve already spent waiting around for their trials and finalizing the fine. Wow.
So other than the really interesting training and hearing more about the inefficiencies of the Guatemala justice system, it was also fascinating to learn a little more about how and why prisoners have businesses from within prison. Karina, the lady I was interviewing, talked about how bad the food that the government provides is and that they really do have to find ways to supplement what they’re given. From what I understand, it’s not bad just in terms of taste, it really is just very poor quality, small quantity, and relatively void of nutritional value. The prison has regular visitor’s days, and many prisoners have family members that bring them food, snacks, and necessities such as toilet paper. Some people, however, like Karina and her mother and cousin, do not have any family nearby, and are therefore left with the only option of purchasing additional food and necessities from within the prison, where prices are easily double what they are outside.
Lesvia, Me, and Karina with My Gifts
Karina and her cousin work making arts and crafts like those shown in this picture, which they gave to me to thank me for coming, and Karina has a business selling juice to the other ladies in the prison. Previously she had been able to use another lady’s freezer to cool the juice down, but that lady left and took her freezer. Obviously Karina can sell a lot more juice if it’s cold, so she is requesting a loan from FAPE to buy a refrigerator and more juice. It was interesting to hear about the networking that she was able to do from within prison, shopping around for the best deal she could find on a used refrigerator and jumping through all the hoops necessary to get permission to bring it into the prison.
She also talked quite a bit about what they’ll do when they get out. They don’t have a house or anything, don’t have any money, and will have a hard time getting formal jobs of any kind because of their criminal records. Karina really is working hard, between her arts and crafts and the juice sales to try to get a little money together to get started when she gets out. It was also really interesting to talk with her about her plans for the future and her dreams. She has all sorts of ideas for businesses she would like to start and has very clearly had lots of time to really think different ideas through and strategize.
Overall, it was a really interesting experience. In many respects, these women are absolutely not typical microfinance clients. Beyond the obvious distinction that they are in prison, every one of them can read and write and have had far more education than most FAPE clients, or microfinance clients in general. Nevertheless, in some respects they really aren’t all that different. They certainly have very limited resources at their disposal, and have faced and will continue to face many challenges in terms of building a life for themselves and their families. Many will leave prison with very little, if any, money in their pockets to get started with their lives again. What’s so exciting about what FAPE is doing here though, is that now 32 of these women will be leaving with a little more knowledge about how to start a business. And for those that will be receiving loans from FAPE in the coming months and starting their own businesses from within prison, they’ll potentially have a little more money to get started with, and will have gained some experience managing a business in what actually is a decently competitive market within the walls of the prison.
Obviously many people may have reservations about lending money to prisoners, and that’s certainly understandable. But at the same time, after having seen how excited these women were to have a chance to learn about starting up business and to potentially have access to some resources to really start doing something productive with their time in prison, I would certainly feel comfortable loaning my own money to these women. As I said before, Karina really was so incredibly appreciative of the fact that FAPE is willing to take a chance and invest in these women and I have no doubt in my mind that she will do all that she can to rise to the challenge and fulfill her side of the deal.
Eventually the training was finished for the day and we got ready to leave. Interestingly, on the way out I was given my passport back but before they would
Mark of a Free Person
let me leave they insisted I roll up my sleeve to show them that I did in fact have those apparently all-important stamps on my forearm. This particular day was a visitor’s day at the men’s prison next door, so as we headed out we saw all the action associated with that. There were tons of people everywhere, with all the women in skirts, as that’s an actual requirement to visit the men’s prison. The street outside the prison building, but still within the compound, was lined with little stores and eateries doing booming business for all the people that had come in from other areas and wanted to provide their friends/family members in prison with goodies and a decent meal. A very interesting scene overall.
While I’m certainly no expert in prison systems anywhere, I have had the opportunity to visit prisons in Mexico and Bolivia prior to this trip to Santa Teresa. And all of these prisons had very limited resources and prisoners did what they could to supplement what the government provides. Out of necessity, people start up businesses and because the governments provide so little, there is significant demand for basic products. The fact that FAPE has initiated a program to help the women of Santa Teresa start up businesses, not just through offering them loans but also through working with the Guatemalan government to provide training in starting up a business, is really such a fascinating way to help facilitate business development within this market and, more than anything, start giving opportunities to women that want to make changes in their lives but have very limited opportunities to do so.
Since businesses in prison, and especially loans to prisoners, are such foreign concepts to many of us, I’m really interested to hear what Kiva lenders think about this project and I hope to receive some comments here if anyone has any interesting thoughts on the matter.
Highs and Lows
As my fellowship continues to fly by, I’ve had many, many positive experiences, and really only one low point, which I’ll get to after reporting a little on my latest work. I’ve now been at FAPE for two weeks and it’s been fascinating to see the similarities and differences between the two organizations I’ve had the privilege of working with. FAPE is a much smaller organization than Friendship Bridge and FB has access to many more resources, as they are based out of Colorado and therefore have various sources of U.S. support. FAPE is a completely local organization, with a purely Guatemalan staff and board of directors. As a relatively small (less than 3,000 clients), local organization, FAPE has historically been quite limited in the loans that they can offer. Traditionally they have only offered group loans and in relatively small amounts (averaging about $250 per person). Over the years, they have acquired quite a few really good clients that have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to pay off their loans. As their businesses have grown (thanks in part to their loans as well as their entrepreneurial abilities and hard work), many of these clients have started to outgrow the small loans that FAPE has historically been able to offer. The organization clearly doesn’t want to lose these great clients, but their hands have been tied as they simply haven’t had the resources to offer larger loans. And then along comes Kiva. FAPE is now utilizing the partnership with Kiva to offer a new product: individual loans of up to $1,200. It’s been really great to interview the clients that have worked with FAPE for several years getting smaller group loans, and to hear how excited they are to now have access to more credit. While microfinance is clearly supposed to be, well, micro, these clients are taking what amounts to a relatively large sum of money to them to take larger steps in growing their businesses.
Between my time at Friendship Bridge and FAPE, I’ve interviewed over 80 clients to hear about how they’ve used their loans to invest in their business. Most of the time they’ve used the credit to buy more stuff to sell – more pigs or chickens, more inventory for their convenience store or their clothing sales, more thread and fabric for traditional weaving and embroidery. While all of these investments are clearly exactly what microfinance is about, in talking with the recipients of these relatively larger loans I’ve heard stories of even larger successes where these clients are strategizing to maximize the use of their money and investing in things with more long-term benefits. A few clients proudly reported that they had been able to pay off the last bit of the debt for their land, so now their earnings from their agricultural work are truly theirs. Other successes include paying off their market stall or being able to make a downpayment on a store of their own. As I interview these clients that have received substantially larger loans, a common theme is that they want even bigger loans. In general, they each have some sort of big purchase that they dream of, be it a truck to help them deliver their products to their customers, a house of their own for their often very large families, or a real store where they can sell their products in the formal sector, with the taste of a larger loan, they repeatedly ask for more. It definitely has me thinking about the delicate balance in microfinance, or lending in general, between the advantages of graduating to larger sums (such as discounts from buying in bulk, etc.) versus what is appropriate and responsible to give to people with few resources. While the clients clearly want more and can benefit from more, MFIs bear the tremendous responsibility of identifying what are reasonable amounts to lend to an individual. And that brings up another issue that Sergio, the director of FAPE, constantly mentions; that microfinance is not about credit reports and business records, it’s about the people. When FAPE looks into lending to a new person, they go out and meet with that person, see where they live, take a look at their business, or at least talk face-to-face about their business ideas. And when they decide to lend to an individual, it’s not really the business they are investing in, it’s the person. Overall it has been really interesting to hear this perspective and wonderful see FAPE making such good use of their partnership with Kiva to help their best clients even more.
On a completely different note, not all of my experiences have been positive. The vast majority have been amazing, but there was one low point recently and the worst part is not what happened to me, but the fact that this is a threat that so many people in this country have to deal with everyday. Last week I was on a bus, traveling with a FAPE loan officer from Guatemala City to the neighboring department of Chimaltenango, when five men with guns boarded the bus, shut the door, instructed the driver to keep driving, and proceeded to rob everyone on the bus. Overall it was as unbelievably harmless for me as such an experience can possibly be. I gave them the money I had in my pocket, which amounted to less than $2, and later they came back by and took my watch. As the lone token gringa on the bus I absolutely should have been their biggest target, so I sat and patiently waited for them to come by and take my backpack, with my camera and cell phone among other things, my wedding ring, and whatever else they might find valuable with close inspection of the foreigner. For some reason that is beyond human comprehension, that never happened. They really hardly paid any attention to me and after taking a few other people’s bags and many wallets and cell phones, they got off the bus and we continued on our trip. The loan officer I was with (Gloria) called FAPE to report the incident, and I immediately had several phone calls from a very concerned Sergio and other coworkers.
Incidences such as this are not uncommon in and around Guatemala City. I was well aware of that fact before I arrived, and I really had prepared myself mentally to be fine with handing over anything I have on me at any given time. So the robbery of my material possessions was really not all that traumatic. And other than the discomfort of seeing somewhat fake-looking guns being waved in the air and listening to general threats that they’d shoot somebody, I was subjected to no physical danger. The most disturbing part of the day was not the robbery itself, but all that I heard afterward. During the rest of the bus ride I heard story after story from other people on the bus, including Gloria, about all the robberies they had been subjected to; in their homes, their places of work, and on the road. And throughout the rest of the day as I headed to various interviews, Gloria mentioned the robbery to all we encountered and the reactions were all the same; everyone was so concerned that I had been subjected to this side of Guatemala and everyone had a similar story to tell.
So while it was unpleasant, in an odd sort of way I’m glad I had that experience. I’m here to experience the real Guatemala. I’ve had the privilege of getting dozens and dozens of small glimpses into the lives of some of the poorest of the poor in this country. And this incident, most unfortunately, really is a part of the lives these people lead. While I appreciate all the concern everyone expressed about how unfortunate it was that I had to experience that – me as a foreigner giving my time to help the people of Guatemala – what’s way more unfortunate is that this happens all the time to people who have so much less than I do and can so much less afford to have the little that they do have taken from them. I am so incredibly privileged to know that at any moment I could have any material possession I have taken from me and that I can replace it relatively easily. My only concern is my safety, which is certainly a valid concern for anyone in that situation, but really that’s it. However, 56% of Guatemalans live below the poverty line. That means that more than half the people in this country don’t have the minimum level of income needed to achieve an adequate standard of living. So to have any amount of money taken from them is so much more devastating, not just because it’s a scary experience, not just because they worry about their safety, but because they are often struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads and having money and other possessions robbed from them really may result in missed meals for their children. So while I appreciate all the concern that I had to experience this, more than anything I am grateful to be that much more aware of the challenges people face in Guatemala and am reminded for what seems like the millionth time since I’ve been here of how lucky I am to have the life that I do.
Zakierík mis Amigos (Buenas Dias my friends),
My First week in Guatemala and already very impressed! Don’t know where to start because it seems I am here already a while when counting the many adventures I already had!
My long flight from Europe through several US places brought me to Guatemala City in the evening. I was picked up from the airport by a very friendly man called Viktor who brought this exhausted woman to the hostel for me a lovely horizontal rest after being wake 24 hours! The next day the mini-van brought me to Antigua where I had 2 hours to wonder around before leaving to Panajachel. Antigua is a beautiful city and – correct me if I am wrong- stated as cultural inheritance by Unesco.
Driving through the Mountains for a couple hours brings you to lovely Panajachel on the shore of lake Atitlan. This is the place I will stay the next couple of months and seeing it while driving towards it is already warming my heart. I am being dropped off at Friendship Bridge or Puente de Amistad as the Guatemalans say. I am meeting Jorge there; my main contact. We head towards the hostel. Unpack and straight to work!
The following day I get a brief introduction and we hit the road towards Sololá. This is half an hour’s drive with a bus or in the back of a pickup-truck when you miss the bus; like we did. Sololá is known for it’s traditionally dressed both man and women. Women dressed in traditional clothes, the patterns and colors according to the region they are from are seen all over Guatemala but the men aren’t wearing theirs so much anymore. They have only kept their hats. But not in Sololá: there you see the beautifully dressed man everywhere. I will work with the Sololá branch of Friendship Bridge a lot because they cover a large section of the region in need in the highlands from there.
The day before yesterday I have switched my first hostel for a lovely little apartment. The new house is one I was passing by in the morning and thought: if that could be my house… well there I am now and I feel very happy there! It’s a small studio with my own little kitchen and it’s at the end of a nice hammock bridge a bit outside of the busy town of Pana.
But let me tell you about work; at my first meeting in Sololá I felt like a giant in a porcelain closet. In the Netherlands I am certainly not one of the tallest but the women here reach barely my shoulder and speak hardly any Spanish but mostly Quiché or are so shy they don’t say they speak Castillano. I wish I could speak some of their language to tell them how stupid I feel I can’t speak their language. Most of the women have had more micro finances and this way they managed to take control over their own life’s more bit by bit. We smiled a little bit to each other and when the pictures were taken we felt a bit more comfortable all together. The young –maybe 5 year old- son of one of the women was passing me over and over again while putting his hand shortly on my knee and look at me. It was the quietest thing to see how his curiosity won from his shyness!
The next day we took a bus to Santa Clara where Jorge would show me the art of interviewing once more. The journey took about 2,5 hours and the waited another hour on a small doorstep because the loan officer was held up. This wasn’t a problem; this way Jorge and I had a bit more time to get to know each other since we are going to work together the next 3 months. The dependence on the facilitadoras as the loan officers are called here is big: they only know the streets or houses the meetings are held. There are no street names or directions. These ladies speak the local language and are well known by the entrepreneurs because they also take care of the additional trainings such as credit control, hygiene, create more self esteem, and even sometimes gymnastic lessons as we found out that day! The people in Santa Clara are very open and we were buenas-diassing our way through the streets there: the people would even wave if you were out of reach of their voice. I caught myself staring at beautiful clothing ones and the man was waving at me to say hi. I think he didn’t see my red face after… This interview went very different from the other one because the women were very open and laughing a lot. They were very much at ease in that little backroom of one of them, and to see how Jorge connects with these women was inspiring too!
Afterwards a drive back with buses and mini-vans and on the way Jorge told me I was going to go to a meeting by myself the next day. I would be picked up at the Sololá branch at 8.30 by someone. What a surprise the next morning to see it was these two Maya women who picked me up. The two were entrepreneurs and sisters. Luckily for me they did speak Spanish and as soon we were on the streets they grabbed me by the arm and started babbling while doing some shopping before we all jumped in the bus to Nahualá. What a darlings were these two sisters Maria Magdalena -and Isabel Tamriz Chovon. And its still a nice surprise when out comes the nice cell phone and other things you didn’t expect of their traditional blouses.
Everybody in the bus was surprised and curious how I knew these two women and another woman from San José started questioning me about that. Funny: I was the gossip of town for a moment. When we arrived, almost all of the 23 women of the group were already there so I got started right away with using my new learned words: zakierík lé nubí Chanti. (Buenos Dias my name is Chanti). The women were happy and surprised I had learned some of their language and gave me a little applause! After that the question if they would understand Castillano? Well that wasn’t the case at all but luckily the loan officer was very willing to translate for me. In the beginning there was a bit hesitation but later on there was enthusiasm to answer my questions. After half an hour I walked out of the door with nice content to write my first business description! I was immediately followed by one of the sisters asking if I would be alright to find my way back. The sweet sweet woman was worried and not without a reason. I had to take a tuktuk towards the petrol station and from there buses to a sharp crossing and from there change buses into Sololá. Her explanation made it all easy and after another big hug I left feeling very humble how such a big cultural difference sometimes is not in the way of making new friends!
Sweet greetings from beautiful Guatemala
Chanti
¡Adios Puente de Amistad, Hola FAPE!
My time at Friendship Bridge has come to an end and I’m off to Guatemala City to start the next phase of my fellowship with la Fundación de Asistencia para la Pequeña Empresa (FAPE). Before I launch into my work at FAPE, I’ll attempt to reflect back on my time with Friendship Bridge a bit.
First of all, being a Kiva Fellow is fantastic work. I’ve spent much of my time traveling around a beautiful country, meeting with incredible women, and talking with them about their lives, their businesses, their loans, and pretty much whatever else they want to tell me about. I can’t imagine many other circumstances where I would have the opportunity to talk with so many different people and hear so many different interesting and sometimes heartbreaking stories. It’s been an honor to be able to do this and I sincerely hope that I’ve been able to effectively pass on glimpses into these people’s lives through the journals I’ve been writing and posting on Kiva.
In terms of working with Friendship Bridge specifically, I can’t imagine a better introduction to microfinance in Guatemala. All of the staff I worked with were absolutely wonderful and it was such a pleasure getting to know them both personally and professionally. More than anything, I have been so struck with how true to the social mission the organization and its staff are. Friendship Bridge’s mission is as follows: “Friendship Bridge provides microcredit and education to help women and their families create their own solutions to poverty.” I was given a copy of a MicroRating International rating report for Friendship Bridge shortly before I started working with them, and one line jumped out at me when I first read it over. This microfinance rating agency stated that “Friendship Bridge’s mission and vision permeate the organization.” After having spent just six short weeks with the organization, I believe that “permeate” really is the perfect word to describe how their mission influences their work.
Obviously the financial component is the most substantial ‘product’ that they offer. However, along with every loan there is heavy emphasis on education, not only for the women receiving the loans, but perhaps more importantly on the education of their children. Time and time again I’d ask the women receiving loans from Friendship Bridge if their children are in school, and the vast majority proudly answered yes. However, some reported that they can’t currently send some or all of their children to school because they don’t have enough money to pay the small registration fees and to buy the required school supplies. It makes me sick to think that these costs don’t amount to much more than I easily spend on a good night out in the States. Nevertheless, almost every single woman I have spoken with over the last couple of months stated that their top priority is fighting for their children to have a better life, and one of the most important steps in that fight is helping them get good educations. It’s amazing to witness microfinance in action, seeing women have access to a little credit to build their businesses in an attempt to ‘create their own solutions to poverty.’ But it’s been even more amazing to see how much that impact can spread. Not only can these small loans help women build their microenterprises, but they can also help them give opportunities to their children that they themselves never had.
Yes, I do realize the praise is excessive here. No, microfinance is not a panacea and Friendship Bridge certainly isn’t perfect. Nevertheless, they are an organization with a noble mission, and are largely staffed with people truly dedicated to that mission. It’s been a privilege to get to share in that mission for six short weeks, and I’ve learned much and gained respect and appreciation for microfinance and the women of Guatemala that I will carry with me for years to come. Now I’m off to meet a whole new staff and see a completely different organization in action. While I am, of course, very sad to say goodbye to Friendship Bridge, I’m thrilled to move on to the next phase and learn more about microfinance, the people of Guatemala, and poverty alleviation in action.
But first, one final shameless plug for Friendship Bridge! For anyone interested in learning more about this fantastic organization, visit their website at www.friendshipbridge.org. And if you want to lend to their incredible clients, you can see what’s currently fundraising on Kiva here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=55&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_tpg=fb.
Update from Guatemala
Hiking in Xela
The city of Mazatenango, on the other hand, is not a beautiful place. At all. Lonely Planet has all of four sentences on the city – it’s the capital of the Suchitepéquez department, something about it being a hub for trading Pacific Slope agricultural produce, it has a few serviceable hotels if you have to stop in an emergency, “otherwise just keep on keeping on.” Seriously, that’s all the Lonely Planet writers could come up with, and I quickly saw why. It’s a relatively large, miserably hot and sticky city full of cars, dogs, bikes, people, and lots and lots of concrete. Definitely not the most beautiful place in Guatemala.
After one sleepless night in the oppressive heat, I headed to the Friendship Bridge branch office and was asked if I would prefer to stay with one of the loan officers and her family in a rural area outside of the city. Of course I promptly and enthusiastically accepted, and headed to the tiny little town of Siete Vueltas, Chicacao. Still hot and humid, but beautiful, lush countryside and with much fresher air out there. The rural lowlands definitely have a different feel than the highlands – and not just in terms of weather. The people are a bit more open, a little less shy. A gringa is an extremely rare sighting in these parts, and to be living with a family way out there was quite an experience. I stayed with a loan officer named Maria Elena, her seven children, and her 83 year old mother-in-law. It was a very simple house with cement floors, cinderblock walls, and a somewhat leaky tin roof that gives the feeling of being in an oven when the sun is shining on it, and gives off an angry roar as the afternoon/evening rain pours down on it. There were essentially three rooms – one kitchen/dining room, one room with a bed and a desk, and then one very large room with four beds and some chairs. I passed the night in the room with one bed, and as I got up the next morning I passed by the other room. What a sight to see seven children, a mother, and a grandmother all piled together in four small beds. And this is a family doing relatively well. Both Maria Elena and her husband have good, formal sector jobs with steady income. I find it so fascinating to see how people live and how unbelievably relative needs and wants really are. The first night I didn’t sleep very well – it’s hot, there are no pillows anywhere to be found, the rain thunders down on the roof. But by the end of my time there, I was sleeping like a baby and feeling so privileged to have the opportunity to spend some time with this amazing family. The kids were so entertaining and welcoming, and the oldest daughter actually spent a day with me, helping me find a bunch of the women I needed to interview. What a great experience.
Maria Elena and Family
While I was definitely sad to say goodbye to Maria Elena and her family, it was wonderful to escape the heat and return to the beautiful, cool highlands. I’ve spent the last week and half since then hanging out in Panajachel, working out of the office to write up the journals and helping Friendship Bridge document some of their policies and procedures for utilizing Kiva, putting together a master database of their Kiva clients, etc. While working in the office is certainly not nearly as exciting as getting out in the field, I am so glad to be able to get to know the people working here a bit better, and will hopefully be able to leave a little bit of lasting value for the organization from the projects that I’m working on. I can’t believe I only have one week left with Friendship Bridge before I head to Guatemala City to work with another microfinance institution, FAPE. I’ve been in touch with the director of FAPE and he has been extremely helpful and welcoming. It’s going to be fascinating to see how another MFI works. I’ll definitely be sad to say goodbye to Friendship Bridge and Panajachel, but it’s really exciting to be going to a smaller MFI that hasn’t been working with Kiva all that long. I really hope to be able to add a lot of value to their organization in terms of learning about Kiva and how to best utilize this resource. No doubt, the adventure continues!
Beautiful Lake Atitlan from the shores of Panajachel
To see all currently fundraising loans from Friendship Bridge on Kiva.org, please click here.
7 July 2008 at 15:58 Megan Tatman Montgomery Leave a comment
In Love
I fell in love today. It started out as an innocent crush, evolved into a dangerous infatuation, and today turned into full-blown, head-over-heels in love…with Guatemala, that is! What an amazing place this is. I’ve spent quite a bit of time traveling throughout Latin America, but I’ve never been so taken by a place and its people. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what has swept me off my feet, but it’s some wonderful combination of the breathtaking countryside, the extreme warmth of the people, the crazy packed buses and terrible roads, the conversations with random kids trying to sell me things, getting drenched in a rainstorm and feeling like a little kid again, and most of all, seeing first hand how incredibly strong women combine ingenuity, drive, and a small loan to improve the lives of their families.
I’ve spent the past week working out of the Friendship Bridge Quetzaltenango branch office, and have travelled around to small, rural villages in the beautiful highlands of Guatemala. The experience has been wonderful on so many levels. I’ve had the pleasure of running around rural Guatemala with various loan officers, all of whom have been an excellent resource for finding where I need to go and helping with translating for the many indigenous women who don’t speak Spanish. They’ve also been great fun to chat with on all the many, many long and bumpy bus rides. Additionally, I’ve been able to stay with a Friendship Bridge employee and her family out here, which has been a great way to get a glimpse of real day-to-day life in Guatemala. They have treated me like a queen and I don’t think I’ve stopped eating since I arrived! The best part of all, though, has been going to people’s homes/places of business and getting to hear their stories. There have certainly been some challenges, which I think I’m learning to overcome a little more with each interview.
Some of the ladies are very shy, and simply say their business is good and repayment is good and their families are good. There’s definitely a skill to getting them to open up, and hopefully I’ll continue to learn how to do that better. Some ladies, on the other hand, get really excited to talk about their families and their businesses. They are often very appreciative of their loans and very proud of what they have done with it. My favorite part is seeing the pride in their faces when they talk about being able to send their children to school. And for those that can’t, they repeatedly emphasize how giving their children an education and better opportunities for the future is their top priority.
Fortunately, most of the women I’ve talked with so far (approximately 35) have had pretty positive stories to tell. Their businesses are going relatively well, many of them are able to send their children to school, loan repayment has been going well, etc. But there certainly have been a few in situations that I can’t even fathom. A story of taking out a loan to purchase inventory for a little store a woman just opened up to try to support her family, only to have all the inventory stolen. “Fighting” just to pay back the loan and feed her 8 children while her husband drinks away any money he earns. And yet this woman smiles a sad smile, graciously thanks me for what I’m doing, and focuses on the dream that someday her children will have a better life. It’s so unbelievably humbling to realize the real issues people face everyday all over the world. And it makes me feel ashamed and ridiculous for many of my “needs” back in the U.S. What a privilege it is to get a glimpse of these women’s lives, hear of their struggles, be in awe of their successes.
A friend recently made a comment about balancing life’s moments with life’s big picture. The more I think about this, the more I realize how easy it is to be wrapped up in life’s long-term goals and plans, often letting day-to-day moments slide by without notice. At the same time, so many people around the world don’t have the privilege to think much beyond getting food on the table each day and keeping a roof over their heads. Yet the women seeking these loans have made a point to work to improve their lives overall, and it’s unbelievably inspiring to see the perseverance that drives them each day. Since I’ve been in Guatemala, each day has been an adventure, full of rich experiences. I can’t stop thinking about how amazing it is to live in each moment, soaking it all in. Life is so pure, so simple, so real, and I’m absolutely in love with it!
Greetings from Guatemala
While I didn’t quite get it together enough in the midst of scrambling to get ready to go to write a pre-departure blog, here’s a go at some initial impressions and aspirations for my fellowship. I’ve been in Guatemala a little over 48 hours, and one of the things I’ve been most struck with is how friendly people are here. As with any with any adventure into a new place, there’s a lot of uncertainty. And as I’ve asked for directions, inquired about how to say this or that, and questioned various aspects of how things are done around here, I’ve received nothing but kind, enthusiastic responses.
In preparing for my departure, things were quite hectic. While the 4 days of training Kiva provided were extremely informative and made me all the more impressed with the organization and excited to be working for them, they also taught me just enough to know that I have a very long road ahead of me to understanding what microfinance means and how it really works. We were given tons on information and much, much more to look at in some undetermined future free time. Without realizing it, I’d given myself way less time to prepare than I would have liked. Nevertheless, the plane ticket had already been bought, so I scrambled to shop, pack, say goodbye to family and friends, and even try to learn a bit about the country I was headed to and the organizations I’ll be working for.
I have a pretty fantastic set-up for my fellowship. Based on a simple matter of scheduling, I’ll have the privilege of working with two different microfinance institutions in Guatemala, Friendship Bridge and FAPE. The Friendship Bridge office I’ll be based out of is in a small-ish, touristy town on the shores of Lake Atitlán, called Panajachel. I believe I’ll be traveling around quite a bit to work with their various branch offices and will be interviewing mostly indigenous, often not-Spanish-speaking, clients. I’m really excited about checking out different parts of the country, and especially about seeing microfinance in action first-hand. I know it’s going to be an incredible experience to be able to interact with people and hear their stories, which might not ever be possible otherwise. After 6 weeks with Friendship Bridge, I’ll head to Guatemala City to work with FAPE. Again, this set-up is ideal because Friendship Bridge has worked with Kiva for awhile and has already had a few Kiva Fellows. They’ve been a very successful Kiva partner, so I have a lot to learn from them. FAPE is relatively new in working with Kiva, and I’ll be their first Kiva Fellow, so it’ll be great to have a bit of experience under my belt as I go to work with them and can hopefully be a great asset in helping them utilize Kiva and institutionalize the relationship. Furthermore, it’ll be great to see another organization in action and interact with different clients.
Overall, I’m really excited to get started, but also a little nervous. I really don’t know what to expect, and I’m quite confident that this experience will be a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I met briefly with some people at Friendship Bridge on Friday, and one thing that we really emphasized what that the Kiva business profiles and journals are never about pity. This is about a business transaction, and it’s so important for all parties involved to recognize the dignity in the relationship. I couldn’t agree more, and I’m thrilled to get to play a small role in all of this and to be able to witness amazing women fighting for a better life for them and their families.
On Returning Home… …some thoughts from the plane
The past six months have been indescribable. I’ve attempted to wrap my thoughts around them and put them to words, but the result does not compare to the experience. I’m home now, trying to find a way to live here, in this world, with the same passion that comes so naturally when given the constant inspiration and education I received from Kiva’s entrepreneurs. Here are some thoughts I scrambled together on the plane ride home, reflecting on what there is left to do and how to possibly take on the challenge:
Poor little rich girl with the luxury of picking around the slightly bruised grapes, choosing not to eat the peas and carrots accompanying the mashed potatoes. What must it be like to not think that way; to feed your child dirt to quell the pangs coming forth from their tiny helpless body? Part of me almost wishes I knew, just so I could identify with those who own this as their reality. Because I can never know, no matter how close to it I live, how many mothers I see defeated, how many sighs of helplessness I breath. Trying to understand it is like trying to understand war by watching Glory, love by reading Shakespeare. I can get lots of ideas, form my opinions, decide what I think the best solutions might be, but I can never know it. It is a part of me in an entirely different way than it is a part of them. They are teaching me. I selfishly benefit from their misfortunate birth into poverty. I can choose to learn from them, or to go elsewhere and learn from someone or something else instead. But for them, the choice is only present in the decision to get up and fight one more day.
The world is perfectly cruel and wonderful, tilted just like the earth itself to bring constant periods of light and dark. In all its unbalanced harmony, where a small percent of the population controls the vast majority of the world’s wealth, there is enough. The problem is, not for a second, resources. The problem is distribution. Distribution of food, water, education, opportunity. There is enough food on the earth for each person, all 6.6 billion of us, to eat almost 3000 calories a day. But while we fill up on free refills and seconds and thirds at the buffet, others feed their children dirt, simply to temporarily relieve the unimaginable ache that haunts every waking moment.
I don’t know who said it, but I’ve often repeated to myself the phrase ‘comfort is a vice’ over the past six months. Comfort can be wonderful and good, but the things it keeps us from doing are dangerous. Comfort keeps us from committing to the voice within us telling us to act when we see something that needs to change. Comfort encourages us to drive on, live our lives in the warmth of our home, enjoying the fruits of our labor while ignoring the barrenness of theirs. Maybe if it were our neighbor who was feeding their child dirt for every meal, maybe then we wouldn’t cling to comfort. But isn’t it our neighbor? Our mother, our brother, our friend?
There are society’s solutions to poverty–give of your money to every charity that knocks at your door, or volunteer your time until you are so exhausted you have no more time to give. Maybe if you donate both of these gifts, you won’t have to be annoyed with guilt from the wonderful burden of knowing that you do have the power to change the world. But basing your role in change on society’s validation doesn’t work. Listen to yourself. You know your truth, you know how to press your inner comfort levels, to challenge your abilities and be an agent for change. The world needs not only our money and our time; it needs our talents, our compassion, our love, our attention. If you could make a change in the world, in your country, your city, your home, what would you do?
If your brother were born without sight, would you read him stories? Share your knowledge? If your sister had no legs, would you carry her? If your daughter were mute, would you speak for her? If your son was hurt on the side of the road with no way of calling for help, and all who passed him by looked the other way, what would you feel? Would you be his voice? How would you help him find his voice so he could be the voice for another?
Instead of anger, choose resolution. Instead of hate, choose love. And instead of indifference, choose action. Choose to be moved by the quiet voice in your head that is so easily ignored. Listen to it. Instead of just talking about all the world’s problems, take the guidance from Gandhi; Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Cold Weather
Over the past five months I have, several times, made the ignorant mistake of poking fun at the perceived idea of ‘cold’ here. Coming from Minnesota, land of ‘the nation’s ice box’, where just a couple weeks ago it hit a record low of 40 below, before wind-chill, I have a different mentality of cold than someone from a not-so-northern state, who might put on a winter jacket when the weather hits 60, when we don a t-shirt come spring when the thermometer notch reads above freezing. So, when traveling to places in Peru and now Guatemala, that are known to the locals as unbearably cold, I simply laugh and say, ‘I’m from Minnesota, I think I can handle it’.
And, of course, I can- because I have a heated room with hot water and warm blankets to go home to after the day’s work. It has taken me five months to realize this, and I feel so foolish for my delay. Choosing where to live in the ‘developed’ world, based on weather conditions, has always been a question of simple taste. Do you like snow? Do you crave the sun? Do you love the water? Do you need the openness of endless plains, or the distraction of the mountains? But not here. A few days ago a Guatemalan woman asked me about my home. She was intrigued by the weather of Minnesota, trying to picture that much snow or that amount of cold. But she had a confused look, and asked, very awe-struck, what we do for food during the winter. Because certainly, crops can’t grow like that. I had no idea how to answer that. The simple answer of ‘we drive to the grocery store just like we do in the summer’ didn’t seem to be appropriate, so I rattled something off about cows and pigs and chickens being okay in the cold. I felt my ignorance rising up inside, and made an unsuccessful attempt to explain importing food from other regions not burdened by the cold, but realized I had no real idea what I was talking about.
The cold here, when you have no heat and holes in the broken walls of your house, is lethal. Thinking about it made me cringe with sadness for the homeless in Minnesota, too. I can’t imagine. I have been cold before, truly freezing, with icicles forming on my eyelashes, but I have always done so out of free will, with the option of running back inside to the warmth and security of a heated home full of blankets, fireplaces, and hot chocolate. And here, if the cold doesn’t kill you, it kills your crops, your one hope for an income or nourishment for your family. I wonder if this fear is present for farmers in the ‘developed’ world, when I read about an early unexpected frost.
I’m slightly embarrassed it took me this long to see things a little more as they really are. I wonder what else my ignorance is keeping from me…
Child labor?
I am finding myself in situations here that require much moral thought, and I can’t seem to come up with the right answer, no matter which choice I make. There are children everywhere, all of them somehow under the age of twelve, and all of them working the same trade, selling bracelets, scarves, and little souvenirs on the streets, sharing their stories of sadness and begging for your business. I don’t know what to do with them. Long ago I couldn’t have seen anything but goodness in giving to a child- believing that my money and my food will help them out of their poverty. Now, I see things differently (although not entirely).
I have mixed feelings about buying from children in the street. On one hand, they are offering me something in exchange for my money, so they are working for it, it’s not a handout. On the other hand, they are working for it. They are so young, should they be spending their time working all day? And if I buy from them, does it just affirm to their parents that yes, they should be working all day? My heart tells me to never turn away a child, but my mind goes through the whole process, and sees a parent who has the option to put their child in school, or on the streets working. And when the child comes home from work with money, which option will the parent choose? But then six-year-old Tomás comes up begging, dirt in his eyes, no shoes, and pleading for me to buy a doll from him, he hasn’t eaten all day and he needs to buy a tortilla, please. What can you do? I had met Tomás earlier in the day as I sat down to read. I told him no, thank you, I didn’t want to buy a doll. This time he found me as I waited for my dinner. Sometimes I’ve seen kids laughing in the streets, and as they see me coming, they immediately stop laughing and turn on the sad face, as if it’s a Pavlovian instinct triggered by a gringo. But Tomás, his tears appeared genuine, the desperation in his voice real. There was a family next to me, and they had a small dog who was clearly loved. They were having a pleasant family night, eating pizza, drinking Cokes, laughing at stories and playing with their dog. Tomás approached them, necklaces draped over his arm, dolls in hand, asking five Quetzales for both (about 75 cents). They politely said no, and continued on with their night. He persisted, lowering his price, showing them the necklaces, telling them his story. They again said no, not unexpectedly. Finally, Tomás asked if he could have some food, as he was so hungry and they had plenty of leftovers. They said no, and eventually he gave up and moved on to me. As I was talking with Tomás, his eyes looking as if they were about to spill over, this family’s dog was barking, sitting on his hind legs, and being fed pizza for each trick he performed. It broke my heart to have to watch Tomás witness this, I can’t imagine what he made of it—people would rather feed their food to a dog than take away his hunger.
I don’t intend to judge this family, they have their reasons, and the situation runs deeper than I can imagine. It just struck me, and made me wonder.
I had an encounter the night before that made me start thinking about this subject. I was, again, sitting down to dinner in a little café on the main street of Panajachel. I had just gotten an iced tea and was writing in my journal, and a little girl approached me, basket upon her head, another one in her arms, begging me in her sad voice to please buy a bracelet, she hadn’t made a sale and couldn’t go home until she made some money. I said no, sorry, they’re beautiful but I’m not going to buy any. She persisted, lowering her prices, showing me everything she had to offer. I looked up this time, and said no thank you, not tonight. She didn’t seem fazed; rather she sat down, and asked what I was doing. I told her I was writing, and asked if she liked to write. She said she did very much, but even more she liked to draw. We talked for a few minutes, she had several questions; she wanted to know how I could write so many words, and what tea tasted like when it was cold. After a bit she got the courage to ask if she could draw in my book. I said of course, and her eyes turned huge with excitement. She took my pen, opened to the first blank page, and began to draw a picture of the Lake Atitlan, with a smiling sun rising over the mountains (the sun was happy because it was morning). She drew pictures of her house and her family, flowers and hearts and birds. I asked her if she could write her name, to which she answered, of course! She then wrote down a little poem, and signed it ‘Para Maren, De Maria Guadalupe’. Clearly, this eleven-year-old was being educated. At this point I decided it was okay if I bought a bracelet from her. Figuring she’d leave after she had my business, she instead continued to draw, talking away, hardly even noticing the money in front of her. A friend of hers approached, basket in hand, and upon seeing us drawing, dropped her basket and pulled up a chair. She wanted to draw, too, and after a minute we were playing games—one person begins a drawing, the next has to add to it, and the next finishes it, ultimately deciding what the object will be. Somewhere in here, my pizza arrived, and I felt quite guilty and a little rude eating in front of these girls. They weren’t about to ask for any, but you could see hunger in them. I didn’t know if it was okay or not, but I shared the pizza and hoped for the best. I felt as if I were sitting down to lunch with friends- they were so grown up, and had so many questions. They both go to school regularly- Maria Guadalupe wants to be a teacher (and when she heard that’s what I had studied, I was amazed at the questions she had for me), and Veronica wants to be a tour guide because she loves to travel.
The girls drew and played games and recited poems for close to an hour, part of me feeling guilty for keeping them from work, the other part kicking myself for feeling guilty. They so eagerly abandoned their work, and transitioned so naturally into being kids. I fought with this, wondering if it’s okay for them to work, or if it’s okay because it’s not taking them away from their education, but wondering if it will eventually keep them from studying, when their parents see they’ve brought home so much money… The two girls decided to show me how they make the bracelets, and did so so quickly and skillfully. I thought they would try and sell me these new bracelets, but instead they tied them on my wrist as gifts. I almost lost it. I think I wished I could adopt them more than I wish for a puppy.
I have no decided point to this story, simply meanderings about what to do in situations like these. Does giving to children encourage their parents to put them on the street? Is it okay for kids to work if they’re still getting an education? Should we buy from kids even if it does encourage child labor- for how will they eat if we don’t? What’s more important, that the child eats or that we make a point? If you have any thoughts or ideas on the subject, I’d love to hear them…
Changes
By Maren Misner, KF3
I’ve found myself lately in a state of peace I can’t seem to explain nor justify. But peace is much preferred to chaos, and I’ll take it, no questions asked. For the first three months of my fellowship I was based in Lima, traveling from there to the different branch offices around the country. While amazing to experience the intense variety of Peru, it can be unsettling to be in a constant state of movement- just as you get used to a place, you have to leave, wondering what you could have accomplished with a bit more time, what relationships you could have formed. So, with much eagerness and gratitude, I spent my last month in Peru in the amazing city I’d fallen in love with in December, Ayacucho. For the first time since I had landed in Peru, I was able to not only unpack my bags, but actually put my things in a closet, on hangers, in drawers! The excitement was too much! But Ayacucho proved to be much more than a place to simply ‘hang my hat’. It became my temporary home, complete with friends and family.
I was lucky enough to have my month in Ayacucho correspond with the country’s massive festival of Carnaval. I believe Carnaval is celebrated a bit differently in each city throughout the world, and here, in Ayacucho, they celebrate with water. Each day in the weeks leading up to this great celebration presented a challenge. The children nearby the house where I lived had a scope narrowed in on the gringos, and thought the best way to pass their summer vacation was to hide behind whatever door, wall, or car they could find, and spring an attack of water balloons whatever chance we gave them. And so it turned into a covert operation, constantly on the lookout for little hands clenching all too maliciously to purple and green balloons, ready to pounce. And then one would hit, and by the time you could shake off the shock and turn around, all that was left was joyful squeals, relishing in their triumph. Something had to be done. So dinosaur water guns were purchased for 50 cents. Although cute, they were not enough. And so, the right of passage to becoming a true Ayacuchano took place. Water balloons, and lots of them. And so it became, fully armed at all times before venturing into the dangerous streets, true participants in Carnaval.
It continued like this with no relief, being drenched became the norm. I became very good at repeating to myself ‘it’s just water, it will dry’. And then arrived the true Carnaval. No longer innocent water balloons, but buckets full, followed by baby powder and an insane amount of spray foam. And, to the unlucky, paint and oil. I could no longer reassure myself with ‘it’s just water, it will dry’. But somehow, even the paint was welcomed. Seldom have I laughed so hard, or seen so much pure happiness in every direction.
I had the great privilege to be a part of Finca’s ‘comparsa’, singing and dancing in traditional dress for six hours through the streets of Ayacucho in one of many Carnaval parades. Desperately trying to learn the Quechua (native language) songs, and proudly belting it out whenever the Spanish lines came along, we twirled through the streets, with spray foam and baby powder in hand, ready to engage in war with the thousands of awaiting spectators. It was fantastic.
The staff at Finca amaze me. I feel so honored to have been a part of something so important to them, and so sad to have to leave them so soon. The work they are doing has an incredible impact. Every socia I got to talk to willingly conveyed their immense gratitude for the loan officers and staff of Finca, that more than money, Finca gives them hope and teaches them how to live as strong and loving women. Skeptics ask if microfinance really works. I have not a single doubt. And it is so much more than finance. It is life.
I had to say goodbye to Finca last week, and they gave me a going-away party I’ll never forget, one that touched my heart and deepened my understanding of what the thousands of socias see. After my short visit to Ayacucho in December, I wrote a blog about the city, post terrorism. One of the things that struck me most was how, in a city that had been destroyed by evil less than two decades ago, there was no indicator that the town had ever been anything other than peaceful. Finca has been an alive presence for fifteen years now, and I have to believe that they are a strong factor in the community’s ability to rebuild and thrive. I can’t wait to see what they accomplish in the next fifteen years.
I was so sad to leave my temporary home and move once again to a new and strange place. But Guatemala has a story of its own, and a people who love it like Finca loves Ayacucho. And slowly, I’m seeing the beauty in this, and finding the courage to uncover the miracles that Friendship Bridge creates every day.
Have I been here too long?!
A few years ago I was told a story of how to tell a first, second, and third time missionary. If you are drinking a glass of lemonade, and a fly lands in it, a first time missionary will ask for a new glass of lemonade. A second-timer will simply remove the fly, but continue to drink the lemonade. And a third-timer will look at the fly, and without interruption, drink the lemonade, fly and all, giving thanks for the extra nutrition! Last week I left Peru and moved on to Guatemala to begin my fifth month as a Kiva Fellow. Sitting down to a delicious lunch of tortillas, chicken, and rice, I reached for my glass to take a much-needed drink. After the first sip, I looked in the glass and noticed several dozen tiny ants floating on top of the could-be-so-refreshing pink beverage. I pondered for a moment, having already swallowed that first sip, and set the glass down, reflecting on this story I had once been told. I wasn’t about to ask for a new glass, as the others seated around me seemed to have the same added ‘nutrition’ in their glasses, so I figured it must be standard around here. I thought of scooping them out, but it wasn’t just a single fly, there were dozens of these little creatures, and I didn’t want to be rude. So… I acknowledged that I’d already surely downed a few of them in my first sip, and had noticed nothing– so far I was still alive and well… what harm could the rest of them do?! It would just be like eating cow-stomach soup in Peru—just close your eyes and hold on to the fact that it’s not going to kill you. And after all that hot salsa, I was just so thirsty! So, what could be done? I picked up my glass, and brought it to my lips, and began to drink my ant-seasoned lemonade. As I did this, by the grace of something almighty, my hostess got up and left the table, leaving me with the only other gringa around. I took the opportunity to inquire about the ants, (she’s lived here for some time and would know if it was normal) and to my great relief, it’s not normal, and she swiped the glass away and said ‘don’t drink that!’, and my taste buds breathed sighs of gratitude. A few minutes later all pink beverages were off the table, with fresh cups of ant-free coffee in their place. While I was quite relieved to not have to ingest more ants than necessary, I couldn’t help but smile with a small amount of pride that I’m now okay with doing so if the situation requires!
A Little Book on the Women of Friendship Bridge
We’re back in the US now, but Nancy and I thought you’d like to see our little book. We were so taken with the wonderful women of Guatemala and their inspiring stories that we compiled the stories and pictures into a little book. It’s only 40 pages, not much of a book, but it does a pretty decent job of capturing what’s really happening with Friendship Bridge and Kiva.
The book is a free pdf download that you can read on your computer (or print out if you want).
A women’s group meeting in short
Here’s a little video of a more average women’s group meeting at Friendship Bridge. The women meet, pray, have a little team-building exercise, have some “informal education”, this time about how to vote in the upcoming election, then pay their “cuota”, the monthly payment, and figure out about the next meeting. The informal education is one of the facets of Friendship Bridge that they’re most proud of. They want the credit program to be a path to educational growth.
The Friendship Bridge women attend these meetings every 28 days (4 weeks). They’re not on a monthly schedule because the 4-week schedule makes it much more practical for the loan officers to schedule the meetings.
Some of the women deposit their money directly in the bank, and others bring cash to the session, which means that there is often a need to go right to the bank after the meeting.
A Women’s Group Paperwork Meeting
Ever wonder what a real women’s group meeting looks like? Here’s a Guatemalan example, a paperwork meeting for Friendship Bridge in Tecpan. This is where they make the all-important and sometimes stressful decision about how big a loan they want to ask for. Everybody has to come and bring their “cedula” or national identification card. There were 30 women in the group last time, and this time they’re adding four new ones. All 34, with various children and other relatives (and the occasional dog) are crammed into a little unfinished room with a dirt floor and a table set up in front. In case you were wondering, these women speak the Cakchiquel language, one of the 21 or so Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala. I got to interview 7 of them for Kiva loans that will go up in the next couple of days. What an inspiration these women are.
A Not-So-Good Interview in San Francisco Javier
This morning we woke up at 4am to catch a microbus from Nebaj, Quiche, Guatemala to interview a group of women in San Francisco Javier. The reason for the interview is to write the story of their business and lives in order to help obtain microloans on Kiva.org for Friendship Bridge in Guatemala. The rain was pouring as we made our way through the deep puddles of the dark streets. Only a few people were out at this time of the morning, walking in the rain underneath thin plastic sheets and clogging along in the total rubber boots so many of the campesinos wear in the fields. A few men hid in the shadows trying to stay dry or sobering up from the night’s celebration. This week is the town’s annual festival for its patron saint.
We got on the bus a little after 5am. It plowed out of town and followed a rough dirt road for about an hour. The darkness was made more intense by the low clouds that surround this incredible volcanic landscape. The morning light seeped though the misty morning. Clouds obscured most of the surrounding mountains but we got an occasional glimpse of the top of a-not-so distant volcano. They sure reach up into the sky.
The bus arrived at the end of its route after the hour ride and we walked the rest of the way, about an hour up to the village. We saw only a handful of people in the early dawn: a few children running along the road heading to school or running away from these strange gringos, several men walking to work with various field tools and even a mule strolled down the muddy road fully loaded without an owner in sight. We enjoyed the trek up through the hills, way above the village of Salquil. I especially enjoyed the quiet stillness of the wet, lush green terrain.
We only had a name for the group leader and weren’t sure if she’d been contacted by phone. We finally found Juana´s house in San Francisco Javier. Her new concrete block house stood out amongst the neighboring tile- roofed adobe homes. Chickens wandered everywhere, the pig was tied out front and the multiple dogs checked us out to see if we had any food. Though we where unannounced, due to cell coverage being out, they got two chairs for us, and served us coffee and rolls out on the front porch. Juana scrambled to get the women together so we could interview them and take their photos. 
The women were quiet and reserved – normal for the first few minutes, but this was different. After 15 minutes we could not get them to open up, so we started the interviews. They grew potatoes, raised animals for sale such as cows and goats. When we asked them about the upcoming loan, they told us they were discontinuing the program. When we asked why, they said they had raised enough money and grew their businesses to a point they no longer need the micro-loans. At this point Randy and I looked at each other and realized that there was no reason to continue the interviews. The purpose for our visit was to help raise the funding for their next loan. There was not going to be a next loan, at least not for now. Of course we were glad they’d had such success, but it wasn’t turning out the way we expected!
At this point we decided to take a group photo and head back to Nebaj, another two hour voyage down the rutted roads in the northern part of Guatemala.
The walk through the hills was as beautiful as the hike up. Just about every man stopped to shake our hands and say have a nice travel. The young children either yelled “gringo” from the safety of their mothers’ skirts or ran to find those skirts. And the women smiled at us as they continued their walk with a basket of corn or bread or tamales balanced on their heads and a baby slung on their backs. We caught a microbus at the crossing of two dirt roads and piled in with the 20 other passengers. We arrived back to the hotel at about 1:00 and had a nice afternoon map.
We had learned an important thing. Next time we will try to ascertain in advance whether the group plans to continue. If the answer is no, then we will find another group of women to interview. Of course, in this case we never could have known. And what a delightful morning it was!
