Posts tagged ‘microlending’
The Kiva Fellows Phenomenon
“Goodbye. I love you. I’ll miss you but I know how good what you’re doing is, and I want you to be there”. Suddenly I was on through security, on the plane, and the engines whirred into life as we accelerated up the runway. And it dawned on me what I was leaving behind in London, to spend the next few months in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Why am I doing this…?”
Let me introduce you to the Fellows Phenomenon.
Continue Reading 13 February 2011 at 12:00 Gareth Davies 6 comments
Hitting the Road with Kiva
By Leslie Kincaid, KF 13 Sierra Leone
Last week I had the opportunity take a trip to visit three of ARD’s branches outside of Freetown. I spent five days traveling around Sierra Leone with Jusu, the Kiva Coordinator and MIS Manager, and our driver, General. We traveled to Bo, Kenema, and Makeni, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest cities in Sierra Leone.
I enjoyed the trip and was excited about the opportunity to see other parts of Sierra Leone. It was fun working at the other branches of ARD and meeting their staff members, who were all very friendly and welcoming. Before leaving Freetown, I considered our working conditions at the head office pretty poor. Now, I consider the Freetown office a bit luxurious after attempting to work for four days with no fans, AC, running water and unreliable internet and power!
Continue Reading 16 December 2010 at 08:00 Leslie Kincaid 2 comments
Navigating the Social Performance Jungle
By Charlie Wood, Kiva Fellow in Kyrgyzstan
One of my first projects as a Kiva Fellow has been to work with MCC Mol Bulak Finance as they further develop their program of data gathering to quantify social performance. From my perspective as a lender, I imagined that measuring social performance would be a primary concern in the development of the microfinance industry, but in fact social performance management (SPM) is just emerging in the last several years as a best practice. In many ways this is because the lack of either a standardized methodology or ideology in regards to what constitutes social performance. One of the attractive features of Kiva.org is that Kiva vets microfinance institutions (MFI), seeking out organizations that adhere to multiple bottom lines. While some argue that the simple act of supplying credit to individuals without access gives clients financial freedom and should be given blanket encouragement, numerous examples of profiteering and mismanagement have marred the image of microfinance over the past several years. A ballooning belief that microfinance is the panacea to poverty alleviation has been closely echoed by a ballooning in client over-indebtedness. This is due at least in part to a lack of adequate client protection principles(see SMART Campaign). These problems fuel the argument that unfettered microfinance is merely a tool to spread debt burden to the poor while sucking profits from marginalized groups. So how can one measure and present particular MFI social performance in a transparent way? (more…)
A Promising Loan
By Nick Whalley, KF12, Philippines
As I noted in an earlier blog, the bulk of the Center for Community Transformation’s loans are made to small variety store owners for inventory restocking. While this capital is necessary to sustain these businesses, and at times allows owners to diversify their offerings, it is clear there are few opportunities for growth. Competition is rampant, and demand local and limited.
It was inspiring then to meet a “round rag” maker in Manila who had developed partnerships with two companies interested in purchasing her rags. The companies needed thousands, and the borrower was having difficulty satisfying the new orders. A single employee working with a single sewing machine was simply insufficient. The production process is quite simple: scrap fabric from a local t-shirt factory is sewn into two sunflower shaped pieces six inches in diameter. Smaller pieces of colorful fabric are placed in the middle of one of the sunflowers and the other is sewn on top creating a thick, ravioli-like rag (see below). The borrower mentioned she had spent the last week looking for an affordable new sewing machine (she would purchase it with a CCT loan) to help her expand production. She also intended to hire an additional employee.
Continue Reading 24 October 2010 at 00:44 nwhalley 2 comments
Behind the Scenes: Kiva in South America
by Carlos Cruz Montaño
Within the Americas Region, spanning from Chile in South America passing through the Caribbean and all the way to the United States, Kiva currently has 39 partner MFIs in 15 countries and about one third of all Kiva loans funded so far. Last Tuesday the Kiva Summit of the Americas took place, the Kiva team in charge of managing all these partnerships met with a group of representatives from some of these institutions for the third time in Montevideo, Uruguay. As a Kiva Fellow, this was a great opportunity to participate in the discussion of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead on Kiva’s path. The topics that stirred the most discussion were…
KIVA EN SUDAMERICA
Dentro del continente americano, desde Chile en Sudamérica pasando por el Caribe hasta Estados Unidos, Kiva trabaja con 39 instituciones de microfinanzas (IMFs) en 15 paises, además esta area ha recibido la tercera parte de todos los créditos financiados en la historia de Kiva. El martes pasado se llevó a cabo la Cumbre de las Americas; el equipo de Kiva para esta región se reunió con representantes de varios socios por tercera vez en Montevideo, Uruguay. Como Kiva Fellow esta fue una gran oportunidad para participar en la discusión de los retos y oportunidades a los que Kiva se enfrenta. Los temas que tuvieron mas discusión fueron…
Non-Financial Costs and Benefits of a Kiva Partnership to an MFI
By Zerrin Cetin, KF12 Ghana
Like any business partnership, a partnership with Kiva brings both financial and non-financial benefits and costs to a Microfinance Institution (MFI). I believe that partnerships, whether personal or business, need partners’ values to align in order to succeed. So I will analyze this topic within the context of Kiva’s values – dignity, accountability, and transparency. The question I’d like to discuss is “What are the non-financial costs and benefits to an MFI in aligning with Kiva’s values of dignity, accountability, and transparency?” Since this blog represents my observations of one MFI partner (Christian Rural Aid Network – CRAN, in Ghana where I’m currently serving), I’d like to invite others to share their observations and enrich the discussion on this topic.
Continue Reading 10 September 2010 at 04:00 zerrincetin 8 comments
aMAIZEing
By Peter Marchant, KF12 Zambia
Microfinance is a powerful development tool, but by no means the only one. In southern Zambia, Empowerment Microfinance Institution combines the power of microfinance with a crop warehousing program to help small-scale farmers weather seasonal price fluctuations.
Sharing my Desk with a Tractor…
By Vanick Der Bedrossian, KF12 – Armenia
“What in the world is a diesel earth tractor doing in my MFI’s office!”, I thought to myself as I walked into Nor Horizon Credit Organization’s central office here in Yerevan, Armenia. Being a bit nervous on my first day at work, I did not ask.
Continue Reading 11 August 2010 at 00:16 travelkebab 4 comments
Leaving behind Oscar Wao for real wondrous lives
By Magdalena Malinowska, KF11, Dominican Republic
After successfully (read: finally!) completing the first year of a PhD program a few weeks ago, I am pleased to (again: finally!) find myself in the role of a Kiva Fellow. With much joy I exchanged the ice-cold confines of the library for the warm embrace of the Caribbean climate in the birth-place of merengue and several all-star baseball players: the Dominican Republic. And it is with great excitement that I am leaving behind the pages of Junot Diaz’s comical rendition of the Dominican culture and embarking on the challenge of discovering the lives of real inhabitants of this island, through micro-finance. From Oscar Wao to real wondrous lives, from Hispanic Literature to Hispaniola, here I come!
Continue Reading 8 June 2010 at 18:21 Magdalena Malinowska 6 comments
Liberia: Tryin’ Small
Liberia is tryin’ small. This common expression can be heard everywhere here: it means “I’m okay” or “I’m getting by” and is the equivalent of how many Americans reflexively answer “Fine” to the greeting “How are you?” But many in Liberia are tryin’ larger, thanks to microfinance institutions, many of which have set up shop since 14 years of civil conflict ended in 2003.
Continue Reading 4 May 2010 at 13:48 John Briggs 13 comments
Why am I going to Kenya?
Since we spent most of our time volunteering in developing countries, we saw a lot of poverty. From favelas in Brazil to slum settlements in South Africa to beggars in Calcutta to subsistence farmers in rural areas (including Kenya) poverty was pervasive… but it wasn’t hopeless. In the midst of poverty, we met some inspiring people… Why am I going to Kenya as a Kiva Fellow? I’m going for three reasons…
Continue Reading 29 April 2010 at 18:00 stevensgrey 23 comments
Meet a Loan Officer!
By Leah Gage, KF10 Ukraine
When you make a loan to a Kiva borrower all the way in Kenya or Cambodia or Ukraine, do you ever think to yourself, “I wonder who took her picture?” Do you ever wonder, “Did someone ask her if she was okay with going up on Kiva?” Have you ever asked the question, “How am I getting repaid on this loan, anyway?”
By putting a ceiling on interest rates, are we protecting the borrower?
Nicaragua is in limbo of a new law as we speak, one of the mandates is an interest rate ceiling for microfinance institutions. So I did a little research to keep up with the current events.
The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) published a donor brief titled, “The Impact of Interest Rate Ceilings on Microfinance”. Because I know how intoxicating the title is and the temptation to read is nearly unbearable, I will take the liberty to highlight a few key points.
So, if we put a cap on the rate will we protect the borrower?
Research says no. Here’s why…
Continue Reading 8 April 2010 at 08:13 Monica Ann Bernadette 7 comments
Loan Officers get schooled on Kiva
By Leah Gage, KF10, HOPE Ukraine
A couple weeks ago HOPE Ukraine invited me to their bi-annual national conference to give a presentation about Kiva. This is the sort of thing Kiva Fellows dream about. Fourteen seated and listening loan officers, whose sole purpose is to sit and listen to you talk about Kiva?! Obviously I jumped at the chance to take my third night train trip to Kiev to generally explain the ever-confusing Kiva “concept” to these hard-working individuals.
My job was made more difficult by my utter lack of Russian language skills, and my teeny-tiny awkward stance in a room full of burly Ukrainian loan officer dudes. But I found that everyone was really engaged in the presentation. They had lots of questions. After going over topics like gaining consent to take a client’s photograph and post it on the internet and strategies for gathering compelling borrower profiles and journal updates, to my dismay I realized that these loan officers did not understand how or why Kiva works.
HOPE Ukraine's loan officers stand to thank me after my presentation. Luckily, they thought I was kind of hilarious.
When Borrowers become Lenders, and Heroes in the process
Yuryi and Tatyana Syomkin own an auto parts and body shop in the small village of Mikhailovka, Ukraine. They’re the only business in the area that can provide quality auto parts and vehicle repairs. Last month, the mayor of a neighboring village called Tatyana when their school bus broke down. The mayor asked if Yuryi would be willing to fix the bus on credit, the village government wouldn’t be able to pay the Syomkins for the job until later. In such a small community, Tatyana told me, it’s hard to say no when you’re asked for help. Not to mention when the mayor calls and asks you to fix the village school bus. And so Yuryi and Tatyana obliged, as they always do; they’re still waiting for the 7,000 hryvnas they’re owed for the job.
Tatyana and Yuryi Syomkin waved to me from their shop
D-Day in Liberia
In Liberia, D-Day is a regular occurrence. Disbursal Day, that is.
Microfinance is a key part of the post-conflict recovery, and LEAP, Kiva’s Liberian field partner, is at the forefront. LEAP (the Local Enterprise Assistance Program) is Liberia’s oldest continuously operating microfinance lender, and the largest by number of borrowers and amount lent.
Continue Reading 22 March 2010 at 09:12 John Briggs 8 comments
Borders, borrowers and the art of connection
Through Kiva, lenders are able to reach out to the far corners of the planet and in a very tangible way affect a change. With teleportation technology or a truly global financial system still being a way off, it’s not like your $25 instantaneously appears in your chosen borrower’s hand. There are MFIs who act as facilitators, this fact has given birth to a multitude of discussions concerning distinctions and degrees of P2P, these however will not be the subject of this blog entry. For my purposes it is sufficient that a connection is made – and one is, whichever way you chose to slice it.
Video: Follow Your $25 to Vietnam!
Dear Lender,
Have you ever wanted to see what happens to your money once you press the “LEND” button on kiva.org? Well, wonder no more as I take you on a visual person-to-person experience into the rural provinces of Hanoi, Vietnam. Every couple of weeks, I will be posting a video blog of what happens to your money from the ground up. Enjoy this first episode as a teaser of what’s to come!
Get Involved!
Kiva, Transparency and P2P Microlending
by Zev Lowe, KF8 Indonesia
I never knew when I signed up to represent Kiva for 10 weeks in Indonesia that I was also signing myself up for a much longer-term commitment as a Kiva Ambassador. But all jesting aside, as someone who has gone behind the curtain and seen the inner workings of Kiva and one of their MFI field partners, here’s my own personal opinion (not endorsed in any way by Kiva) on whether or not Kiva is actually peer-to-peer microlending.
Continue Reading 11 November 2009 at 08:50 zevlowe 9 comments
this is not aisle 3
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
One of my first posts was titled ‘recession proof’’ in which I described the resilience of micro-businesses and the integrity of micro-lending. This time around, I want to detail a theme I had only painted with large brushstrokes.
Although EDPYME Alternativa’s borrowers are scattered throughout the region, I live in Chiclayo and it has become the backdrop and the context of my life. To me, one of the most fascinating parts of this small city is the dearth of big box stores. In their absence exists a constant buzz of small-scale commerce.
Let me describe this vibrant economic landscape. In the center of the city, around the main plaza, there is a mixture of restaurants and shops devoted to clothing and electronics (especially cell phones). As one ventures further from the center, the streets become organized by economic themes.
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- A shop selling paint or glass on Avenida Cuglievan
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- Another shop selling glass on Avenida Cuglievan
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- A string of shops selling paint on Avenida Cuglievan
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- An endless stretch of candy shops on Bolognesi selling King Kong*
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- A row of salons on Avenida Arica
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- Four corners and four pharmacies at the intersection of Balta and Pedro Ruiz
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- In the Mercado Modelo – one of the largest semiformal markets in Perú – there is a seemingly endless amount of organized commerce. For example, the footwear section
(more…)
Unsung Heroes
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
‘Connecting people through lending,’ precedes ‘alleviating poverty,’ in Kiva’s mission statement. I have come to believe that the goal might actually be of a higher as opposed to a simple aesthetic preference. I mean, maybe we could eradicate poverty individually, but with the concerted effort of a community it can be done more effectively. In a community one can share ideas, efforts, problems, solutions and risks.
And last week that is exactly what Kiva’s partner institutions in Latin America did. For the second year in a row, nearly all the MFIs who work with us in South America sent a representative to our Cumbre (summit, or in this context conference). For a full day we talked about new site features, challenges to the microfinance industry, new organizational efforts and new collective ideas.
Kiva connects people - on many levels
To Have Illusions
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
What do you want to be when you grow up? What are your hopes? What are your dreams?
Throughout my childhood, these questions constantly attached themselves to the most prosaic daily interactions. In a sense I, and most of my peers, were conditioned to be ambitious dreamers, convinced of the limitless possibilities our futures held (and still hold).
When speaking with borrowers one of our unstated goals as Kiva Fellows is to uncover their latent sense of possibility and excitement at the prospect of success. During interviews I attempt to understand what aspiring entrepreneurs want for themselves and for their children. But one of the harshest realities that I confront concerns the occasional and precise absence of aspiration.
In no way am I implying laziness or even a lack of imagination; rather, survival tends to distract many Kiva clients from the potential realities that accompany success. And then I had an a-ha moment. While interviewing Yesenia Esmeralda Bances Morales (click to contribute to her loan), who seemed bemused when she heard the question ‘what are your hopes or dreams in life’ it dawned on me that it might have been the first time anyone had ever asked her that question.
Yesenia Selling at the Market
Necessity Entrepreneurship
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
On August 22nd the New York Times published the article On to Plan B: Starting a Business describing the unexpected spike of new entrepreneurs emerging from the wreckage of the crisis. They quote the Kauffman foundation and bring the term ‘necessity entrepreneurship’ into the mainstream. And in so doing they articulate one of the misperceptions that surrounds the incentives behind starting a business.
Sometimes I really get the feeling that the talking heads, professors, text-books and pols just don’t get it. And by ‘it’ I mean anything remotely human. To think that greed gets elevated as some sort of miraculously innovative force in the ‘opportunity entrepreneurship’ model, where interest rates adjustments can fix anything, still boggles my mind. As far as I am concerned, nearly all entrepreneurship is ‘necessity entrepreneurship,’ whether in the US, Egypt, Armenia or in Chiclayo, Peru.
Walking to Angelita's Shack
The will to live and make a better life for one’s children are the driving economic forces in most places. People’s businesses are too small to fail — their families depend on them. The phrase ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ contains a truth lost on contemporary economic thought. Luckily it is not lost on Kiva Lenders, whose generosity grows when ‘opportunities’ dry up.
In the end, I cannot help but laugh out of frustration when I read statements like this: “But research on what is known as post-traumatic growth has found that some people become more resilient when faced with adversity, says Shawn Achor, a Harvard researcher. Creativity surges, he says, as they adapt to a new situation.” I read this during the evening, while during the same day I had been out to visit Angelita Loconi De Teque who is 47 and perseveres through ‘adversity’ to make a better life for the 4 children still in her care.
Chia Buồn
By Hanh Tran, KF8 – Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (FPW) – Vietnam
I never leave home without my camera these days. But there are many instances when I fail to pull it out in time to capture some of the interesting things I pass on the street everyday.
Peddling Bamboo
Then there are times when I am tired of filming or when I capture a moment on video and find myself debating what I should do with it. When you are interviewing people each day and they trust you with their stories, it’s a great privilege – and at times overwhelming. I had one of these moments last week.
Chief Credit Officers, Ms. Ha, whom I’ve grown very fond of, and Ms. Hanh gave me instructions to meet them at Nuoc Mam Thanh Huong for a borrower meeting. This is the area where the popular brand of nuoc mam (fish sauce) is made in Thanh Hoa. I hopped onto a Xe Om (motorbike) and told the driver to take me there. I knew immediately when we had reached the vicinity of our final destination…distinct harsh and pungent whiffs of fermented fish floated through the heavy, humid air. Nuoc mam is a staple of Vietnamese cuisine. I grew up eating many meals with nuoc mam, and still, the scent is too strong for me. I was glad that I had recently caved in and bought a facemask to avoid breathing in the dusty Thanh Hoa air…and in this case, the strong fermented fish odor.
Ms. Ha and Ms. Hoa at a borrower meeting
Pissed Off Kiva Lenders
By John Briggs, KF8 Kenya
Update on sentiment shift: On June 23, Tom, the team captain for the (formerly) Pissed Off Kiva Lenders, changed the team name to Unhappy Kiva Lenders. Tom explained the name change in a posting on the team page: “I want the day to come soon when the team name will be ‘Delighted Again Kiva Lenders’ but the step above in the name change reflects current progress.”
Some Kiva lenders are pissed off about Kiva’s recent launch of loans to borrowers in the United States. Their angry cry has been heard in Kenya.
I arrived in Kenya two weeks ago to work with new Kiva field partner KADET. My marathon orientation-and-training tour is in full swing: this week I met dozens of KADET branch personnel in the western cities of Kisumu and Eldoret.
Successfully setting up Kiva-related operations poses many challenges for MFIs, but my new KADET colleagues made quick work of it. Both branches were able to post borrowers to Kiva on the same day they were introduced to it: Kisumu posted Maulyne’s loan and Eldoret posted Monicah’s loan.
Both loans were funded overnight, and the KADET staff was jubilant. At the Eldoret branch I joined KADET staff in poring over the Kiva lenders and lending teams who had supported Monicah. One lending team for Monicah’s loan jumped out at us: the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders.
Pissed off lenders? People at KADET were surprised. This wasn’t in the Kiva orientation I’d given them. Stephen Makanga, KADET’s integration and donor relations manager, and I decided to open the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders team page to find out more.
Image from the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders' team page
A statement on the page announced, “Kiva’s stated mission is to ‘alleviate poverty’. Poverty is defined as: ‘the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions’. Does that sound more like the situation for US Kiva borrowers or borrowers from the Third World countries?”
Stephen gave the page an incredulous stare and kept reading.
Through Sickness and In Health
My First Center Meeting with Antique Southwest Group
By Sloane Berrent, KF8, Philippines
Just five days into my Kiva Fellowship, one thing I already know, this is truly an amazing experience, no two ways about it. I am learning things, going places, meeting people that never in a million years would a normal traveler experience.
It’s also quite frankly, hard. This isn’t like jaunting in my solo travels around the world, being carefree and on my own schedule, meeting fellow travelers on the road and taking my own adventures at every turn. It’s a hard mattress on the floor, a cold shower that consists of filling a bucket with water and throwing cups of it over my shoulder and in my hair, it’s no air-conditioning and tossing and turning at night in my sleep waking up sweating. It’s spraying copious amounts of bug spray and those suckers still getting my ankles, my knees, the back of my neck. It’s taking multiple forms of transportation every day, on this motorbike, off that jeepney, into another taxi. It’s SLOW and unreliable Internet when all I want to do is post a blog post like THIS and respond to the most urgent emails and be done with the computer again for the day. But fighting for each page load. It’s meeting new people every day and they are so excited to meet me and I have to fight through the heat and exhaustion of all of the above and show the same enthusiasm back.
It’s hard. It’s also, in just under a week so deeply gratifying in the most pure and honest way I could ever describe.
It’s tears brimming in my eyes multiple times a day getting out in the field and meeting woman after woman who has benefited from my field partner, ASHI. It’s learning about microfinance in this region and meeting some of the most committed and passionate people I’ve ever had the privilege to come in contact with who chose to work at an NGO despite the long hours and lack of pay because they believe in the power of microfinance. It’s walking through villages, up hills and through fields to meet borrowers in their homes who always accept us with open arms and enthusiasm. It is these women who tell me how they’ve been able through one loan after another to slowly be able to send their children to better schools and afford college. It’s seeing the camaraderie in women who tell me that before ASHI (and in turn Kiva) they were shy and didn’t know their neighbors. It is these women who tell me that being part of a group of borrowers they are now like sisters and they are accountable to each other through sickness and health. It’s hearing about how they have a positive view of the future for their children. They tell me this all the while talking and laughing louder than the woman sitting next to them. These women shy? I truly can’t believe it.
(more…)
Upending microcredit: Cambodians use Kiva to lend to U.S. borrowers
This Wednesday marked a watershed moment for Kiva.org: borrowers from the U.S. made a well-publicized debut on the person-to-person microlending website. It left no doubt that microcredit, seen by many as the province of the poor, had arrived to serve Americans in need.
The floodgates are open, and they sluice both ways.
Kiva’s launch of lending in the U.S. has impassioned many, including a group of people in Cambodia near and dear to me — the staff of Maxima Mikroheranvatho, a Kiva partner microfinance institution where I was a Kiva Fellow from October 2008 to February 2009.
As Kiva ambassador-in-the-trenches at Maxima, one of the things I’d tried to impress upon them was the satisfaction I get out of being a Kiva lender. So when my posting at Maxima ended earlier this year, I’d settled on the perfect gift to help them understand this: a Kiva gift certificate.
Over our farewell dinner in Phnom Penh, I pulled out a printout of the Kiva gift certificate page and presented it to the senior managers at Maxima. As they’re in the business of microlending, minor disbelief ensued. Kiva!? Who would they lend to? When I told them that Kiva was considering launching in the U.S., excitement erupted.
The Everyday Exotic
Call me a skeptic, but I’m generally not one for clichés. You know how sometimes you read about situations where even though people don’t speak a common language, yet somehow, everyone understands each other? That’s not exactly my experience in Senegal. While the official language here is French, which I speak passably, the more common language is Wolof, which is spoken by the Wolof people and increasingly, almost everyone else in Senegal, though depending on where people are from, they may speak one of a dozen other languages on a regular basis. I spend a lot of my time confused.
Take last week. I went out into the field to a village called Mbousnack. When I first got out of the car, and a few women broke into spontaneous dance of welcome, pointed to their hearts, smiled widely, and said “amie” (“friend”, in French), well, yes, that I got. I was clearly a welcome presence, though I’d done nothing to deserve this. But later when several of them pointed to their knee, I could only guess: Knee trouble? Kiva loan paid for knee doctor? Or perhaps it’s Serer (the language spoken in that particular village) charades – “sounds like knee”?
I have to admit, I had no clue. In these situations, I smile enthusiastically, take whatever info I have, and fill in the gaps based on my best guess. I’m sure they did the same. I can only imagine what they think I said all afternoon.
The agenda for the day was a monthly meeting, and there was a lot of business to be conducted –- 5 month loans repaid, monthly intra-group loans settled and commenced– all in all, quite a lot of money changing hands. The meeting dragged on for quite a while. With a group of 50 women and meticulous hand-written record keeping to keep track of it all in three separate sets of books (Caurie’s books, the village bank’s books, and each woman’s individual book), this can take many hours.
For you, dear readers, I will spare you the full process, and show you just a clip:
This went on for a while.
I’d gone to Mbousnack to interview some Kiva clients for journal updates and also to get some video footage of a group meeting. The value of the electronic equipment I brought into the village was twice that of Senegal’s per capita GDP: my trusty (and now dusty) Macbook (to show Kiva’s clients their profile page on the website), a professional-grade video camera to take footage for media purposes, a cell-phone sized Flip video camera for journal updates, and a digital SLR to take still photos.
Within the first half hour, I’d completed the client interviews, a special challenge in this village: in order to write the journal update in English, I’d ask questions in French, which were then translated by the driver (also engaged as my translator) into Wolof, and then the client would answer back in Serer (another major language in Senegal, and the one most widely spoken in this village). Later I had to ask the Caurie accountant (who is from a Serer-speaking area and therefore understands) to translate from Serer back to French so I can write my English language update. A tower of Babel indeed.
This is the one that started it all. She looks like a troublemaker, doesn't she?
Well, I’d done all that, and the payments and repayments were still going on. So I pulled a chair into the shade, bought some peanuts from a Kiva entrepreneur, and took a seat to wait it out and started chatting (if you can call it that – a few words and a lot of hand movements and pointing) to the women next to me. I had a good time miming various things and each of us talking to the other in a language we knew the other wouldn’t understand. When in doubt, smile widely at a young child, and hope she doesn’t run screaming. I showed the women my digital camera. One of the women asked me to take a picture of her baby. This started a bit of a trend.
One hour and 120 frames later, I’d taken the picture of every child under the age of 2 in the village (except for the one that cried whenever her mother brought her within 10 feet of me), and thanks to the wonders of digital technology, was able to show them their portraits as soon as I’d taken them.
After my tour of duty as the village photographer, I took my seat again. The payments were still going on at the table in front. I surveyed the scene in front of me. Maybe started to nap a bit – the day was heating up and I hadn’t slept that well the night before.
Then it struck me: “holy crap, I’m in the middle of a National Geographic spread.” It’s got all the elements – women in colorful traditional dress with babies strapped to their backs, sitting on the ground under a shady tree, chatting to their neighbor, next to a thatched-roof village, surrounded by a dusty plain of brush and baobab trees.
Right out of National Geographic, no?
Village bank meeting in Mbousnack
Kiva entrepreneur Mai Astou Sène and her wares. I bought peanuts.
Only it also struck me that it didn’t really feel so foreign to me. One, because I was there. That kind of takes away from the exoticism. But also, because I realized that even though I couldn’t understand a word these women were saying, it really didn’t seem all that fundamentally different from any other gathering anywhere else in the world. People get bored, chat with their neighbors. Nurse their babies (OK, that was different – some women went to pick up their payments with a baby still attached to their breast. Just try that at your local Bank of America branch). Put some money in. Take some money out. Munch on snacks. Joke around. Go to the bathroom. Stretch.
Yes, there are differences. Big ones. I can’t email the photos because there are no computers. And even if there were, there’s no internet connection. And even if there were, there’s no power. There’s poverty, health issues, lack of infrastructure, the list goes on. But at the end of the day, everyone pretty much wants the same things: some money to live on, good health, an education for their kids. Maybe a color TV.
As Kiva Fellows, we’re fortunate to have a unique window into places to which few travel – El Alto, Bolivia… Koumantou, Mali …anywhere in Tajikistan, and meet people whom few meet. Because this is our day to day, it’s easy to forget how unique an experience this is. But because we’re here for several months, we also have the time to digest our encounters, to put them in context, to get over the shock factor and dig beneath the surface a bit more than if we were just passing through.
It’s a cliché to say that people are the same the world over. But even this skeptic will concede that there’s some truth in that.
(Just to end this post on a cute note, here’s a selection of my mother and child shots from Mbousnack. All together now: “Awwww…..”)
Mothers & children of Mbousnack
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Liz is a Kiva Fellow, working with Caurie Microfinance in Thies, Senegal. Learn more about Caurie, or view all their currently fundraising loans here.
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