Excerpt from recent conversation with Archibald Shodeke, Finance Manager, SMT:

Archibald:  “Would you like to participate in a market survey of the Waterloo district near Freetown?  We are considering a partnership with a U.S. based organization called Shine on Sierra Leone that may enable us to open a branch office there.  They heard of us through the Kiva website.”

Me: “Definitely!  Can you tell me more about it?”

Archibald: “Well, I think it was founded by an American artist or actress…Stephanie Parsons? Or, Tiffany Spears?  Something like that…”

Me: “Britney Spears?!”

Archibald:  “I’m not sure.  We’ll have to check the website.”

For a moment, I actually thought Britney Spears might know where Sierra Leone is on a map of the World, never mind the possibility that she was part of anything meaningful, like a partnership with a microfinance organization.  Alas, the founder is not Ms. Britney.  And no, I’m not disappointed.  The organization sprang from the creative mind of filmmaker Tiffany Persons.

The partnership Archibald referred to has the potential to be a very special one.  Shine on Sierra Leone is “a human service foundation that provides education, mentoring, and nutritional support to African diamond mining schools.”  A partnership with Shine on Sierra Leone (visit http://www.shineonsierraleone.org) will allow SMT to expand into the Waterloo market.  This is a very exciting opportunity for both organizations.

During a recent trip to the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) School in Waterloo, we interviewed 23 parents of FAWE girls – 21 moms, 2 dads - to get a sense of whether they are interested in the services we provide.  Their daughters are particularly vulnerable to the poverty trap.  At any given moment, they may have to be removed from school to work, to generate income for their families in the Waterloo area.  Providing microfinance services to their parents improves the daughter’s chances to stay in school. 

The results of the FAWE survey were as follows:

• All 23 were interested in SMT’s microfinance services
• 5 of 23 have borrowed from other MFIs, but are willing to switch over to SMT
• Most common loan amount needed = 500,000 Leones ($167 USD)
• 22 of 23 would prefer group loan product versus individual loan, seeking cohesiveness and building community relationships

These results verify the potential to provide a much-needed service to these hard-working parents.  More importantly, their daughters can continue their education in a positive learning environment found at FAWE.

Thanks to Kiva and the people at Shine on Sierra Leone (heck, you too Britney, if you’re reading), there is a very good chance Kiva will be able to provide their services to the FAWE parents and the broader Waterloo market.  This is just another wonderful example of Kiva’s reach and mission to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. 

Wow, this Kiva world is small. The other day, while I was attending a United States Presidential election-day event with a good portion of the other expats in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I noticed a woman just as teary-eyed as me as the results rolled in for President Elect Barak Obama. Both overwhelmed with emotion, we gave each other a hug out of pure joy. Then we just started talking, launching into a familiar round of questions you ask when you live or travel abroad.

Kiva Fellows at the Foreign Correspondence Club in Phnom Penh (left to right): Teresa Dunbar, John Briggs, Sanjaya Punyasena, Kieran Ball

“So are you traveling or do you live here?” “Where are you from?” “Where have you traveled?” “Do you recommend any countries or cities to visit?” “Are you traveling by yourself?”

After about 15 minutes into the conversation, the question that might have opened it all is asked. “Oh, and by the way, what’s your name?”

We introduce ourselves to each other. Her name is Erica, and she’s traveling with her husband Joe. Erica asks me, “So what are you doing here in Cambodia?”

I say, “I am a Kiva Fellow. Have you ever heard of Kiva?”

I’m about to give her my 10-second Kiva pitch, but she beats me to the punch and says, “Of course, my husband and I are Kiva lenders.”

Completely surprised, I say, “Wow, really? How long have you been lending on Kiva?” I’m expecting they’ve been lending for six months or less, since Kiva has only been around for about three years, and is such a young organization.

She says, “Since about 2006, I think.”

Surprised even more I ask, “How did you hear about Kiva back then?”

“We saw a piece on Frontline, and have been lending ever since,” she replies.

When Erica and Joe first visited kiva.org in 2006, they found that all the loans had been funded. But they persisted and revisited the site a week or two later, lending their first $25. Since making their first loan, they have made more loans. As the loans are repaid by Kiva-funded borrowers, they have re-lent all the money that Kiva has credited back to them – so far their money has been through at least two or three cycles of loan funding and repayment.

So — a Kiva Fellow meeting a Kiva lender somewhere like Cambodia. What are the odds are of this happening? If there are 6.72 billion people in the world (per Wikipedia), and there are about 360,000 Kiva lenders, then the odds of me meeting a Kiva lender are about 1 in 18,611, but I think the odds of a Kiva Fellow meeting a Kiva Lender are more like 1 in 14.4 million. Then again, since I’m a very social person, let’s just put the odds at 1 in 15,000 or 1 in 14 million.

Not so accurate back-of-the-napkin statistics aside, my point is that our meeting seemed like a rare thing. So I thought is I’d take the opportunity to ask Erica and Joe if I could interview them for the Kiva Fellows’ blog. They graciously agreed.

Erica had mentioned that she and Joe were not feeling well the day of the elections. They had caught some nasty bug, and I offered any help or advice on Cambodian medical facilities I could since I had been sick not so long ago. We emailed back and forth a few times, checking to see if they needed anything, but eventually they recovered and we went out a few nights later.

The weather was perfect since it was the tail end of the rainy season, and we opted for a low-key night of art, food, and conversation. We met up at The Meta House which is an art gallery/ movie house, and enjoyed a series of short films. After that, we headed to a lovely outdoor restaurant quiet enough for me to hassle them with questions.

Erica and Joe left Brooklyn behind in June to travel around the world for a year. So far they’ve been through parts of Africa, and India, and Thailand, and are now traveling through Southeast Asia. When I met them, they were staying in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, for about a week. Prior to traveling, Erica worked in the non-profit sector with low-income housing initiatives, and Joe was a software engineer for an e-commerce company.

“How many borrowers do you think you’ve lent to over the years?” I asked them.

Humbly, they say, “We’ve lent to about 30-40 entrepreneurs,” without disclosing the amount of money they’ve lent.

Erica and Joe say that from the loans they’ve made, they have received about 5-6 journals, updates on borrowers posted by Kiva Fellows or partner MFI staff. While they don’t remember any journals distinctly, Erica and Joe say they find them interesting. However, they consider journals to be the icing on the Kiva cake, and not the reason they actually lend.

“So how do you choose who to lend to?” I asked next.

They said at first they started to lend to entrepreneurs that live in countries to which they had traveled. So they split their loans 50-50 between Latin America and Africa, and at the same time they split their loans 50-50 between men and women, to reflect their gender division as a couple.

Joe said for a while he was fond of trying to fund loans to completion, topping them up and enjoying the moment when the loan is completely funded. However, that’s more difficult to do now on Kiva because loans are completed more quickly, and because of a $25 per-lender cap. Now Erica and Joe just want to keep as much of their money lent out as possible, so they can continue to have an impact.

When I asked why they lend, Erica and Joe said that they simply to want help effect positive change in the world. They said that when they’d traveled in Latin America and Africa and talked with people who owned businesses, they heard many stories of how people were being charged very high interest rates by moneylenders. When they heard of Kiva on Frontline, they thought of the small business owners being taken advantage of, and thought that lending through Kiva could provide a great alternative for entrepreneurs in the developing world who needed loans

Erica stressed how she appreciated the difference between what Kiva does and what many charitable and philanthropic organizations do. Access to money from Kiva for developing world entrepreneurs is simply faster, and hopefully easier, for them to get.

Kiva money is channeled through partner microfinance institutions (MFIs). MFIs require all loan applicants to fill out an application, and requirements for Kiva-funded applicants pose little additional burden – a photo, and a follow-up interview. So for entrepreneurs, great effort isn’t needed to get a Kiva-funded loan, and they are able to use their time to get done what they need to do.

This is something philanthropy just doesn’t seem to know how to do, with its numerous application forms and individualized reports that each foundation and lending body requires. They ultimately keep the person from doing what they were given the money to do, which is just not a good use of the person’s time and a drain on financial resources for everyone.

While we sat, a late night monsoon rain hit. We headed for a covered area of the restaurant, and continued our conversation in between moments of shared laughter with the waitstaff of the restaurant as we watched them maneuver between puddles, trying not to get to wet. They were quite skillful and resourceful.

Multi-purpose table umbrellas, I knew I should've packed one.

While Erica and Joe are the first Kiva lenders I’ve met by chance since I’ve been a Kiva Fellow in Cambodia, I’ve met others here. Since the MFI I work with is Kiva’s oldest field partner in Southeast Asia, they have received a few requests from lenders to visit borrowers they have lent to. The MFI is open to the idea, so when a Kiva lender made a request a few months ago, the MFI agreed, and we took the lender into the village to meet the borrower he lent to.

With that story in mind, I had to ask Erica and Joe if they had a desire to ever meet the entrepreneurs they’ve lent to, especially since they could do so while traveling around the world. Their answer was a quick and firm, “No.” But, they also feel that their answer might not reflect what most lenders would say.

Erica said she thought such visits would be a drain on MFIs financial and staffing resources. Moreover, she said that borrowers would likely become overwhelmed, depending on how many lenders came to see them, and that the visits would take the borrower away from his or her work. Erica and Joe said that the money it would take to travel and visit borrowers would be better used on Kiva to fund more loans.

I had so many questions for them, but it was getting late in the evening. And the torrential rain was finally pausing, providing us an opportunity to get home without getting soaked. So I asked one last question, quickly.

“Would you consider taking your money out of Kiva since the economy is doing so poorly?” I asked.

“No,” they said, after thinking it over a bit.

Erica and Joe said that they would only withdraw their money from Kiva if things got really dire — if they really, really needed it. But they just do not foresee themselves needing the funds more than the people to whom they lend.

We finished our food and drinks and paid our bill. As we parted, we wished each other happy travels. I hope Erica and Joe are enjoying their travels, and are doing so in good health. From what they told me, I think they might be in Vietnam about now. I wonder if they’ll meet up with any other Kiva fellows along the way? What would the odds of that be?

Kiva Fellows and Kiva Lenders hanging-out (Left to Right: Teresa, Erica, Joe, and John

       ]]> http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/11/20/the-odds-are-1-in-14-million/feed/ wholologist cambodia-election-day-0421 2008-11-10-kiva-lenders-and-wedding-005 2008-11-10-kiva-lenders-and-wedding-014 http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/11/19/portrait-of-a-client/ http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/11/19/portrait-of-a-client/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:58:31 +0000 nklin http://kivafellows.wordpress.com/?p=1975

The noon-day heat of equatorial sun beat down on tin roofs and dirt roads. It was quiet, the sounds a little muffled outside the paint shop of Rwandese Kiva client Marie Chantal Mukasafali.

“The business is good here,” she says, “thank goodness our inventory doesn’t spoil.”

Marie Chantal, operator of this small enterprise for well over a decade, has kept her eyes open for opportunities. She chose to begin a paint shop, she says, because housing construction became a large market in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which many buildings were appropriated or destroyed.

“I got the seed capital for my business by selling my former house.”

Today, Marie has bought another, larger house than the one she sold for her business, complete with a dining room and indoor plumbing.

Marie’s story is by no means an anomaly among the many Rwandan micro-finance borrowers funded by VFC. All around, the clients visited demonstrated keen business acumen, quick to take advantage of any opportunities they could find.

One farmer on the Rwandan-Congolese border-town of Gisenyi has taken advantage of his location to export tomatoes to Congolese merchants. A retail seller of clothes and shoes near Kigali treks to Kampala, Uganda (a nine-hour bus ride) instead of the nearby capitol to get cheaper goods to sell in his shop. An owner of a fabric store in the south of the country sells not only to her own neighborhood, but also across the border to land-locked Burundi.

Entrepreneurs who have some more savings plow their earnings back into the business, often with master strategies.

Small grocery shop owners invest in wholesale purchases of goods – beans, rice – during the harvest season, so that they can sell them for higher values during the later months. “This grain was 250 RwF per kilo when I bought them,” says shop-owner Yvette Mukamana. “Now they are 350.”

Irene Nsabyimana, a cook for a children’s school, has even invested money in school dormitories, so that more children can board at school and eat from her business.

This diversity of business strategies is no oddity. Many clients are involved in several businesses at once. For instance, one shop owner conducts buses in his off-hours. Another drives a motorcycle-taxi to make some extra money.

The work ethic encountered in the clients I have interviewed in the past few months is matched only with their generosity. A majority of families in Rwanda (almost all of the clients interviewed) are taking care of foster dependents. Many are teen-age orphans who lost their families in the 1994 Genocide.

“The vulnerable children come from so many places,” says John, my Kiva colleague here at VFC. “Some of them, their parents were killed. Others, the parents are in prison for what they did.” Then there are offspring born of rape. Families have taken in the children from all sides, as many as could be provided for, though the associated cost is often difficult.

“The school fees are very high,” says Marie Chantal.

But for the entrepreneurs, and the families they care for, Rwanda is a nation of hope and growth.

“I want to take English lessons,” says Claudette Nyiragicari, a fabric-store owner. Rwanda has just recently moved to eliminate French in favor of English in public schools. “And when can I get another loan? This loan was not enough.” She has already made enough money to pay off her current loan, months ahead of schedule. Gesturing to the bundle at her feet, she says, “I was only able to buy a few bundles of fabric.”

The call for financing is echoed all over the country. Many shared their future plans and hopes.

One convenience shop owner expressed her desire to start a hair-salon business. Another wants to start a wholesale trade, which offers better returns and faster turnover than retail.

Even John, Marie Chantal’s husband, shared his goals. “I’m going to driving school now, and want to buy a car for a taxi-service.”

Each in her own way, the clients interviewed in Rwanda are modestly working towards a better standard of life.

“I’m able to buy some more food for the kids,” says Domina Ngirimana, a mother of nine.

Yes, as I am leaving. Julie Ross, the next Kiva Fellow to be placed in Rwanda, will take over with better and I’m sure more consistent postings here. But in the meantime, a quick note on some of the staff here at VFC, whom you will soon meet in more detail:

The Managing Director, Shem, is a genial and humorous man from Uganda. He is a new director here, having done previous work in other accounting and finance positions, including the largest microfinance institution in Uganda. He joined World Vision, the Christian international umbrella organization for Vision Finance Company, as Senior Financial Specialist in Africa, then moved to Rwanda to help with financial management. At the same time, the previous MD for VFC resigned, so Shem stepped in.

Antoinette is the head for administration and human resources here at VFC. She is a graduate of Butarye university, the nation’s best university in the south of the country. She studied public administration there, and joined World Vision right after college; she hopes in the next few years to start up a training center of her own. The target population is vulnerable orphans and widows – Antoinette hopes to teach them vocational skills they can put to use in making a living.

Patrick is the operations manager here at VFC. Having studied finance in university, he has been with World Vision for fourteen years – starting with a program for orphaned and vulnerable children. His involvement in this program led him to the calling of serving the poor and disadvantaged. True to nature, he can always be found with a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye.

Donat: the finance manager here at VFC. (The name does not derive from the sticky sweet, but rather the French for “Donate.”) Donat exudes energy at all hours, even late at night while slogging through paperwork generated by external auditors. “This was supposed to be over with last month!” he complains loudly, in good cheer.

Ben and Providence are the directors of the MIS (the computer record-keeping) department. Ben is technically above Providence in rank, but let’s not talk about these things over-much, as the two just got married in September. They get teased about this a respectable amount.

Jean-Paul is called the “baby brother” Kiva coordinator. But don’t let the name trick you. Jean-Paul is indispensable to the Kiva process. When loan officers come to the headquarters, bringing photographs, stories, repayments and journals, he is the one who single-handedly posts it all onto the Kiva website, producing the content you see today. Jean-Paul, as are several other members of Vision Finance staff, is still in university. He holds this full-time job during the day, so that he can finance his education; then he attends classes at night.

Then of course, there is John Gasangwa. John has been absolutely instrumental in helping with Kiva work in my time here. Responsible for all donor relations (and now, also duties as a loan officer), John was the one who accompanied all my visits out to the field, whether for training, journaling, or just plain travel. John is, of course, as loud, crazy, and energetic as befits his position. Born in Uganda in a refugee camp (his parents left the country in the 1959), he has since returned to Rwanda to “be a part of the solution,” as he puts it, with a hope to serve the disadvantaged in his country. Having graduated from Butarye with excellent marks, he aspires to go to business school in the states – but is certain, by all counts, that he will come back to Rwanda to help solve the challenges that the nation faces.

For more about the kind and wonderful and generous staff here at VFC, stay tuned for Julie! There is sure to be more to come.

With 7 weeks past and 8 weeks to go, my Kiva Fellowship is moving right along.  As my colleagues around the world, from Cambodia to Uganda to Peru can attest, much of the Kiva Fellow’s life is spent in motion.  Already I have had two days where the number of hours spent on buses to number of clients interviewed, if imagined as a see-saw, would make for one very boring recess hanging on a plank suspended in the air.  But if my last post dealt with my feelings on productivity (see “Buses and Productivity“), now I am considering the more general implication of movement and capital and Kiva.

Financial institutions like EDAPROSPO function as intermediaries that allocate capital from those who have it to those who need it.  In the for-profit world, this allocation occurs for its namesake: profit.  In the nonprofit world, however, the allocation is done with a double bottom line: profit (just enough for the institution to cover its costs) and social impact.  Lenders on Kiva lend their money for no profit and thus can be said to be interested solely in social impact.  The desire to see lives changed for the better powers the movement of capital on Kiva from lenders.

Nelly Ruth Guerra de Donayre

And what of the borrowers?  Entrepreneurs, at least here in Peru, join in by moving capital once dormant or confined to the house into the economic sphere.  I have seen this phenomenon with one lady I interviewed recently in Puente Piedra (a northern exurb of Lima, Peru) named Nelly Ruth Guerra De Donayre. She decided that the lunches and soups she makes for her family could easily be sold to her neighbors.  Now that a large military base is being built two blocks away, she has the incredible opportunity to sell to the hundreds of workers who will be building the base and later the hundreds of soldiers who will live there. 

Lupita Rodriguez Torres

Another woman like Guadalupe ‘Lupita’ Rodriguez Torres first built a network of clients by selling products from an Avon catalogue and  then utilized that network to sell her homemade leather goods and build informal savings and loan groups.  She has gone even further by preparing breakfast and lunches to sell to the workers at the leather factory where she buys the leather for her aforementioned leather products. The entrepreneurs on Kiva move capital from the household to the economic sphere and thus use these goods and services to create the possibility of profit for them and their families.  Borrowing money from Kiva through the Field Partners often allows them to overcome constraints that impede their profits or to create opportunities for faster accumulation (ie loan to buy a taxi rather than renting it, ability to buy more goods to sell, etc.). At the heart of most of the stories I hear are the motivations to provide a better future and education for their children and to build and improve their house (process described in “Buses and Productivity“).  Thus, the desire to see lives changed for the better powers the movement of capital by Kiva borrowers.

So what I have seen is that the twin movements of capital, from excess capital to loans and from deficit capital to loans, are powered by a common desire to see lives changed for the better.  While the outcome is assuredly right, I believe that the process is beneficial as well.  There is something to be said about joining (the) movement.  If this movement of capital for the sake of improving individual lives can be likened to a stream, then there are several possible parallels that can be drawn.  Like entrepreneurs draw out personal items into the marketplace and gain profits and improve the lives of themselves and their families, so too will we change and be changed by bringing our personal talents and abilities into society.  CS Lewis in The Four Loves talks about how each of us draws something out of each other; when one person enters the group, everyone has something new drawn out of them.  In the same way an entrepreneur creates new capital for the entire economy, so too do we each add something new when we take a step outside of our private world.

A second parallel with a stream mimics Heraclitus’ famous saying: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.  As the lenders on Kiva continually have new options on how to allocate their capital for the sake of changing lives for the better, so too do we have the option of allocating our capital – our talents and abilities – everyday to someone or something new.  No relationship is stagnant; history accumulates everyday. No interaction with a person is ever the same; people change and so every interaction is a new opportunity to invest in someone else.  And like the capital invested on Kiva, the effects of our invested time and abilities can have a cascading effect: a loan to one woman allows her to  her invest money into the education of her children who may one day use their accumulated knowledge to transform not only their household but their community or even their nation.  Imagine if Barack Obama’s paternal grandmother had received a microloan via Kiva to raise goats in rural Kenya, which led to enough saved money to let his father travel to the States which eventually led to the first African-American president (He didn’t but there could be someone today is starting a similar process).  As springs become rivulets become creeks become streams become rivers become seas, a single movement into motion can become an ocean.

One of the things that drew me to Kiva was that it allowed me to put my idle capital into motion for the sake of better lives around the world.  The cascading effect is particularly appealing.  One person’s decision to let an extra $25 be used by another can lead to a changed life for the better.  Another person’s decision to share their lunches with others can lead to a changed life and lives for the better.  While economists have been slow to move away from the classic labor/capital divide to embrace the hybrid concept of human capital, I think Kiva captures that sense of that new word fantastically.   Lenders and entrepreneurs on Kiva are engaged not only in that movement of physical capital but also in that broad societal movement of human capital.  With profit, the word human capital becomes a hybrid – what matters is how humans fit into your enterprise for the sake of profit; you cannot separate the two.  In fact the economist’s term ought to be humancapital.  I believe the negation of profit for the sake of social impact allows Kiva to be in the movement of HUMAN CAPITAL.  We are investing in each other, changing others and being changed ourselves, and the result is more humanity, more lives changed for the better.  I believe that this is right type of capitalism, one that adds to the reservoir of capital in humans.  Whereas profit treats capital solely as a summation of money, social impact treats capital solely as the summation of quality of human life.  And as my job as a Kiva Fellow is to strengthen Kiva’s movement of capital, I like to think of it as building the strength of this brook so that it can join other brooks and form streams that will form rivers that will form an ocean that can cover the world.  If this capitalist movement of capital facilitated by Kiva can be said to be linked to the bigger idea of HUMAN CAPITAL, then I could say my role as a Kiva Fellow is moving right (capitalism) along…

To move capital to fundraising clients of EDAPROSPO on Kiva, click here.

Well here I am! The sweltering, tropical, humid jungle capital of Pucallpa. I just moved here from the coastal town of Trujillo three days ago and I’ll be starting the second and final stint as a KF6 fellow for Manuela Ramos. A former Kiva fellow hooked me up with a family here in the heart of the Amazon and I’m staying with them for the next couple of days.

The father picked me up from the airport and ushered me (mercifully!) through the hoards of mototaxi drivers out to the main road where we caught a ride a less then half the price hawked at the airports front doors.

I notice immediately that almost all transportation here is via mototaxi- where Trujillo had seven taxis for every car on the road, Pucallpa has the same ratio of mototaxis to single motorcycles or regular cars.

The sun was setting just as a arrived and the air was muggy, but still fresh. It’s hotter than a Florida summer here and I think my existence here is going to be defined by a constant and hopefully light sweat.

As we buzz down the road in our mototaxi I notice how different this town looks from Trujillo. It’s much newer having sprung up since the 1950’s when the paved highway linking the rivertown to Lima was completed. There are no colonial buildings or pedestrian byways around here. It’s dusty and full of people walking, running, chatting, eating, laughing.

Winston my host and I arrive at his house where he generously offers up his daughter’s room as my quarters for a couple of days. He and his wife entertain me over a couple of cold mangos and dang they’re delicious!

The next day, Sunday, I trekked all over the city looking for housing. Here in the Amazon basin where the temperature wavers around 85-95 degrees on a daily basis, rooms with air-conditioning are double the price of rooms with fans.  The prices are surprisingly high and I decide my budget will allow for a non-AC room only.  I will think of my new home as a breezy sauna where I’m sweating out all of my toxins nightly. I traipsed around town for several hours and finally - a bucket of sweat, a heat rash and a few breaks in the shade later - I decide on the Hotel “Happy Days”.  The name bodes well doesn’t it?

After my marathon trek around the city I settle down in happy days and take a quick glance in the mirror - phew I’m looking beat! This heat is going to wilt me daily, I cant tell!  The weather channel always says, 85 degrees but feels like 95 or 96 or 98 with the humidity.  That hot sun is no joke and only gets better when it rains.  I got caught in my first rain shower yesterday and it was a ducha abierta or downpour the likes of an “open shower” as they say here.  I was caught totally off guard and literally had an ankle deep dash through streets in mid-miniflood as I raced for my hostel and my umbrella.  From now on I’m carrying around my raincoat and sneakers should the skies open up and let loose on me again.

On Monday I was presented most graciously to all the women of the Manuela Ramos branch here in Pucallpa.  The office is located in the city’s center which is humble as far as downtowns go.  That afternoon I took my first trip out to the asentamiento humano Bolognesi.

Asentamientos humanos, or legalized squatter settlements, are formed when immigrants from other parts of the country invaden, or literally “invade” an abandoned section of land outside the main urban perifery.  These immigrants may come from other Peruvian metropolises or more often from villages in the nearby jungle; but, all come with the dual purpose of finding work and owning their own home.  The groups of families - two to five hundred people at a time - organize among themselves and form a neighborhood council that is charged with dividing the unused land into equally sized lots, one for each family.  Once the land is equally partitioned, the families purchase the lots and register titles with the city government.  Invasions have been occuring in Peruvian cities for half a century; some asentamientos are decades old while others, like the one I visited Tuesday are only two or three years old.  These days families are paying around $400 for a 2,300 sq.ft. dirt lot.

This photograph was taken in the asentamiento Villa Oriente where an al fresco meeting of the Damas del Oriente was held Tuesday.

The socias (bank members) are listening to Rosa, the loan officer, explain the five “P”s of marketing - it’s like business school classes all over again!  These women own and operate all types of businesses: roadside restaurants, door-to-door beauty product sales, lingerie shops, fish shipping, cheese making - you name it and a Manuela Ramos socia is doing it.  I am continually impressed by their creativity, energy and sheer will to work several jobs, take care of several children and support this unbearable heat!

I met 71 year old Asuncion Rengifo Marin (pictured above) at the Damas del Oriente meeting yesterday and interviewed about her Kiva loan.  We talked about her restaurant business where she works seven days a week from dawn to 11:00 pm preparing and selling breakfast, lunch and dinner.  She tells me her daughter asks her all the time when she will retire and that always responds: “when my fingers and arms fall off my body, I’ll quit the kitchen!”

After a month in Trujillo, I’m really looking forward to being in the office with a little bit more experience under my belt.  I’m so excited to go find the bank members and find out about their lives, their families, and their business plans.  Mirtha, Winston’s wife tells me that the women of la selva (the jungle) are dangerously beautiful and fiercely hard-working.  After this first meeting, I see it and believe.

What originally started as a college senior’s feeble attempt to plan his future has finally become a reality: I am now in Sudan. After a 21-hour flight from Los Angeles to Uganda, three days of waiting in Uganda to get a Sudanese visa, and a one hour (scary) flight from Entebbe to Juba, I finally made it into the country that I will be calling “home” for the next several months.

My home does not have running water or electricity; a candle has now become my new best friend. I do have a shower, an amazing shower that slowly drips the Nile’s water from a tank on the roof to the top of my head. Although my new home isn’t as comfortable as my home in California, it is definitely habitable. At first, I was constantly plagued with the idea that there was no way I could ever live in such conditions. But as I continue to remind myself that nearly half of the world’s population, over three billion people, lives on less than $2.50 a day, I realize that life in Sudan won’t be too difficult.

Throughout the course of my fieldwork, I will be interviewing various people who are pertinent to my experiences here in Sudan. In order for you to fully understand the context in which the stories are provided, I have created a small video outlining a fraction of Sudan’s lengthy history. Having some knowledge about Sudan’s past will allow for a better understanding and appreciation for the situations the Sudanese people are currently facing.

ankush.dhupar@fellows.kiva.org

In 2004, the International Criminal Tribunal ruled unanimously that the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia in 1995 was genocide.

I visited Srebrenica last week. I put together a video with a little history, photographs, and an interview with a Kiva Borrower whose husband was killed in the war and whose life has never fully recovered. I hate to sound cliche, but the entire experience broke my heart.

I have been in Peru for two weeks now, but I have been struggling to blog about my experience so far.  I’ve been waiting for a remarkable moving microfinance success story to share, or some powerful insight into the people of Peru or an individual that I have met that I can write about.  Unfortunately after two weeks, neither of these have come to me as clearly (or as quickly) as I would have liked, and I have had to remind myself that that’s O.K. and the experience is still worth sharing.  I am now in a small town called Huancayo and slowly but surely things are picking up speed.  Over the past four days, I have met about 10 individual clients and seen the formation of a Solidarity Group (I will explain more in detail later).  I know this is going to be a great experience - but as I have had to remind myself, sometimes things in the underdeveloped world simply don’t always move as quickly as you might like and sometimes you just cant control it!

Thursday was the first time that I went out and met with clients.  It was very exciting to finally get started.  I went to an area known as Justicia, Paz y Vida, located on the outskirts Huancayo.  While I don’t know an exact population there, I am fairly confident it can be no more than 100, 150 at the most.  As we arrived to Justicia Paz y Vida, I was immediately shocked by what I saw.  Having come from Lima, earlier in the week, it was a stark contrast to say the least.  No buildings, no hotels, no restaurants, well no roads even.  We walked further and further away from the main road and it did not take long to feel the difference.  There are no street names, no addresses.  You find people only by asking the people who you come across.  “Conoces la Senora Maria Contreras Sanchez?  Tiene una restaurant por aqui?” (Do you know Mrs. Maria Contreras Sanchez?  Apparently she has a restaurant around here). If the person knows her, you’re one step closer.  If the person you ask doesn’t know here, you’re right back where you started.

We arrived to the home of a lady named Cecila.  Her business is selling beer and soda.  I have been so excited to start meeting with clients and suddenly, once I am there, I feel quite nervous.  I let Roxana, the Kiva coordinator who I am working with, take the lead to begin.  I almost feel like I’m in a dream world.  All the questions that I had intended to ask suddenly float out of my head.  I find myself at a loss of words - this doesn’t happen often - and since I don’t have the words to say, I step back and listen to what is being said around me.

We head onto our next client, a lady named Rosa.  Her business also is selling beer and soda.  I think to myself, is it practical to have two of the same businesses, fairly close to each other, in an area this underpopulated?  Im not here to judge though, so again, I give Roxana the lead and listen.  Roxana asks similar questions as before: What is your business?  How is business going?  How have you used your loan?  What motivates you to keep working so hard?  A second similarity arises between these woman.  In response to the final question, both have answered, “Para Mis Hijos” (For my children).

We head out to find our next client.  As we walk, I start seeing a theme.  We pass at least two more beer and soda shops.  We see at least three internet shops.  And I see at least 5 other stands that sell beer and soda and (insert other product here - be it tools, cigarettes, candy, chips).  In a town this small, which certainly doesn’t attract tourists and the only clients a store might have are the towns inhabitants themselves, it just doesn’t seem practical to me to have so many of the same businesses.  Surely it must deter customers.  As Roxana and I walk, we discuss the women’s responses to her questions.  Both women have told us that business is doing well and growing.  Both women have told us that they are grateful for the loans they have received and both of them, in one way or another, told us that they are proud of the progress they have been able to make with their businesses.  We spend a few more hours walking, trying to find other clients, but we strike out the rest of the afternoon.  Everyone has either gone to the market to sell their goods, has traveled to the next town to sell their goods, or simply cannot be found that day.

As we prepare to call it quits for the day, I cannot help but compare what I have seen to what I know.  In a time of economic uncertainty in my own country, where corporations are desperately demanding relief and lamenting over the “dried up consumer market,” its ironic to see towns where the only clients an entrepreneur has is his or her “vecino” (neighbor) and yet both of the individuals who we have met are clearly very pleased with how their businesses are doing.  Even though each of them might only make one or two sales a day, and sometimes none at all, they still report back to Roxana and I that business is booming.  They celebrate that this year they have made a profit, although be it minimal and for the first time in their lives they have something called, “savings.” They have never experienced this before. It leaves me wondering; are things back home really that bad and should the entrepreneurs I have met today take a lesson from us in what defines a successful business?  Or on the other hand, is the economic reality back home not quite as bad as we allow ourselves to believe and should my country be taking a lesson from the entrepreneurs I have met on gratitude instead?  My instinct is the second.

Despite a slow and sometimes frustrating first couple of weeks, the day’s experience reminds me of what I came here to explore.

They seem to always be where you are, which is to say everywhere, as repellant and inescapable as a maelstrom of gnats. Step around one and you bump into another. You politely wave them off and mumble “no, thanks” with a disingenuous smile. Making eye contact might suggest interest or intent; or worse, invite confrontation. So you learn to ignore them. Faceless, nameless, spiritless ghosts you look right through and beyond. They don’t appear in travel magazine teaser shots or in the imaginations those publications sell. Their sole purpose, it seems clear, is to detract and annoy and chip away at an otherwise fine day. You wish they would just go away and leave you alone.

In actuality, their purpose is survival and the well being of their children. I don’t imagine anyone aspires to be a street vendor, or enjoys the profession once it becomes them. Hawking is the exclusive domain of peasants. It is not a particularly dignified or satisfying means to an end, but one mandated by necessity. Hawking requires no training and little skill, except perhaps pushy persistence and physical endurance - this is a 14- hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week job. Hawkers own nary a thing of value - no shop, no land - just the bag of goods on their back which, in itself, is practically worthless. I can imagine few jobs more miserable.

In fairness, Uganda’s street vendors are not a nuisance; to the contrary, they are the most passive and unobtrusive hawkers I’ve experienced anywhere. They truly are ghosts - they are present and ubiquitous, but one hardly notices them, except for the sidewalk congestion they create. They are certainly not assaulting. Like all Ugandans, Kampala’s hawkers are respectful and courteous. Their presence adds color and energy to the city.

Kiva Fellows witness difficult things every day and we could easily fall prey to indifference. My job would indeed be easier if I could be purely analytical. But I can’t be. Instead, I’ve developed some tools for coping. One is bedside manner, which enables me to connect more personally and deeply with clients as they walk me through circumstances which are inevitably more wrenching than mine. Another is shifting my notion of ordinary, which of course is a relative state of being. What is ordinary half-way through my Fellowship would have seemed sensational six weeks ago. It’s easier to deal in ordinary. And finally, balance. Empathy is fundamental, but emoting pity is condescending and counterproductive. It’s almost always a delicate trade-off.

Still, interacting with borrowers in a dignified manner without falling apart is sometimes challenging and often depleting. Take Florence, a Pearl Microfinance borrower I interviewed last week. Florence is a 45 year old widowed mother of seven children who recently lost her small grocery shop, her only asset and sole source of income, to a senseless and random act of arson. As I prompted her to describe how she’s depending on Pearl to re-build her life, tears streamed down her cheeks and at times she was too choked up to speak. I found it difficult to push through the interview, but my task had a noble purpose and I came with my toolbox.

Some stories are even more difficult.

Specioza is an attractive and demure woman, not five feet tall. Her face is gentle and soft, almost youthful, and it does not reveal decades of hardship. She is soft-spoken and shy; yet she’s inexplicably inviting. She is pleasant and polite and gracious. The members of her BRAC borrowing group admire her - Specioza is one of its elected officers. She is dignified and commands an understated respect, not through her words but how she carries herself. Her strength, I sense, emanates from a lifetime riddled with loss. There’s a depth in her eyes not found in innocence and her smile signals anguish more than peace. Specioza is the kind of person you would want as your friend. I wanted to know more about her and felt cheated that time would not allow for such pleasantries.

Specioza is also a ghost.

Like most women in Uganda, she married young and began having children immediately. At the time, she and her husband were farmers in Mbarara, a town in rural southwestern Uganda, not far from the Rwanda border. There must be something fertile in the water in those parts - Specioza delivered an astonishing four sets of twins! One boy and one girl in each set, none of them identical. That same fertile water, however, must also be toxic - she lost half of her twins at birth and nearly perished herself during one particularly difficult delivery.

Uganda’s civil war was in its fragmented twilight shortly before Specioza’s youngest surviving twin was born. The family farm was doing well and Specioza and her husband wanted a way to help refugees in their country’s war-ravaged northern regions. They joined a program administered by the UN where they sold crops to the World Food Program for distribution to IDP camps in Gulu and surrounding districts. Occasionally, her husband would accompany the WFP on the 9-hour drive to Gulu and help distribute the supplies. On one such trip, he never returned.

When his convoy of WFP trucks arrived at Gulu, it was ambushed by LRA rebels in a well-orchestrated and bloody attack. The LRA was intent on preventing aid from reaching the people it was determined to eradicate, and it wanted the provisions to fortify its own forces. Like the parents of the orphans he was trying to keep alive, Specioza’s husband died a brutal and unceremonious death on the side of a road in an act of unthinkable savagery (the LRA’s use of inhumane and gratuitous torture is legendary).

When a wife loses her husband in Uganda’s rural villages, the late husband’s family - by a mystifying and disturbing tradition - excommunicates the widow from the family (and often community) and seizes the family assets. Women have no value unless attached to a man. So that she wouldn’t also lose her children to this twisted fate, Specioza fled Mbarara and left behind the only life she had ever known. She migrated to Kampala where the best prospects for work and her children’s education existed. She arrived with just the clothes on her back and her 4 children - scared, broken hearted and broke. She had never been to the city before. She was disoriented and terrified.

Specioza’s farming skills were useless to her in the city. In desperation, she took up hawking as her only viable and immediate source of income. The entry barriers are nil, requiring no land, machinery or skill and very little capital. She bought her first bail of used clothing at the Owino market near the public bus station the day she arrived, using borrowed funds from a money lender. Money lenders are legal loan sharks. They require full repayment within a few days and they charge exorbitant interest rates. Specioza sold that first bail in time to repay the money lender, but had barely enough left to feed her family. She didn’t like hawking, but figured it was only temporary and the most practical means to an end under the circumstances. She had no sales experience. Promoting her wares and competing against armies of peddlers made her uncomfortable.

In time, she learned where to find the most buyers and how to optimize her selection of used clothing items. As her sales climbed, it became easier to repay the money lenders and more was left over for family expenses. Eventually she could afford school fees, although it was always a struggle and frequently caused her to forego eating so that her children could. Not once did she accept charity.

Her first break came sometime later when a BRAC Uganda credit officer came to her village conducting a survey to identify new recipients for its poverty alleviation programs. Specioza fits BRAC’s profile: she is very poor but she’s economically active with a stable track record and she comes recommended from her community borrowing group. The latter is not insignificant. Since each borrower in a group is responsible for the total repayment of the group’s obligations, a recommendation is a vote of confidence by one’s peers and a testimony to their character and abilities. With the help of small loans from BRAC (300,000 Ush or $170), Specioza can now avoid money lenders. This improves her profits, which enables her to keep her children in school without sacrificing meals. It also gives her a buffer for bad sales days. Perhaps most importantly, she has the support of her group and the world’s largest microfinance NGO has her back. For the first time in many hard years, Specioza has hope.

I don’t want Specioza to go away. She is not a parasite. She’s just a very hard-working mother trying to raise her kids and help them thrive under profoundly difficult circumstances. She has a face - a beautiful face, and a name and a soul. She, like all co-called ghosts, is a living, breathing human being who’s doing her level best with the bad cards she’s been dealt. She has purpose, hopes, dreams, thoughts and feelings and a voice, just like you and me. Perhaps she’s selling something I want to buy; if not, she would certainly offer a smile. But if I treated her like a transparency, I would never know and I would forfeit a unique opportunity to connect with a wonderful human being.

Specioza is not trying to annoy anyone; she’s only trying to eat. Ultimately, we’re all selling something, whether trying to convince others of our ideas or get people across the room to notice us. Trade connects people across continents and cultures. Supply would not meet demand efficiently without promotion of goods and services and, thus, markets would not work. It makes no difference to me if sellers are pedigreed “suits” sitting behind desks in San Francisco skyscrapers or uneducated peasants like Specioza trying to survive on the bustling streets of Kampala. Hawking may not be the most dignified profession, but successfully raising a family in the context of Specioza’s life is the most honorable thing I can think of.

I’m thankful to BRAC for recognizing Specioza’s needs and supporting her determination. And giving me the opportunity to meet her.