Goodbye Kiva!

Last week was my last week as a Kiva Fellow. As I sat in the cold air of the bar Emprender took me to celebrate the end of my time with their offices and the national Dia del Trabajador (or workers day), I realized how far I have come. And how hard it would be to sum up the personal aspect of being a Kiva Fellow. And equally hard to sum up what microfinance looks like to me.

Here is an effort to show what I mean. Take a look at an album I made of my favorite entrepreneur photos from my placement in Honduras and in Bolivia.

I had just spent a solid hour learning the lilted, stomping, righteous traditional dance steps from Emprender’s regional directors and office managers. I was casually discussing (in imperfect but newly fully functional Spanish) the future of Evo’s MAS party. It was at this moment, during a pause in the live band’s flute playing and guitar strumming that I realized I have learned this city from the inside out. That is, I can tell you where the used clothes come from and how much a cow stomach has been marked up by the seller (35%). Microfinance can be a problem and I worry about over indebtedness, and irresponsibly lending to people who can’t repay. I worry that perhaps we still aren’t reaching the poorest of the poor, and perhaps there is a better way to relieve poverty. Is lending just a construct of “The West” (whatever that is) that shouldn’t be exported to “The Rest” (whatever that is)? I still don’t know.

Looking back on my 6 months as a Kiva Fellow, the sum total is positive. Enthusiastic, creative loan officers and entrepreneurs. Shiny new ideas and optimism. Smiles, laughs and hope. Microfinance doesn’t just change the material position of a family, but their self-image. This idea of self-image bleeds into the national consciousness. It changes women, and it inspires a community.

Flora bakes bread and now sells directly to a school with a monthly contract. Her loan allowed her to commit to a certain amount of product resulting in this contract that evens out her income and lends some predictability to a life wrought with uncertainty. She told me to pass along specific thanks to Kiva lenders.

Flora with her oven

Ramiro was robbed and lost the material he needed to run his tire replacing business. His Kiva loan puts him back on his feet. He spent the whole interview talking about the future. A bigger store. Transmission replacement. Employing his brothers.

Ramiro

Story after story like these two have warmed my heart, and made me believe.

Personally, I learned that I can’t stop my feet from itching, and will probably spend the rest of my life in a constant state of building a home and then taking it down again- and that I like that as much as I hate it.

Morning in La Paz- Sierra cleaning house

I’ll never find a solution to poverty that fits in every way, and I’ll always have my doubts. Still, the fight for equality moves me, connects me, and I’ll never stop trying, thinking, working and exploring. Thank you Kiva for this opportunity.

**This blog now turns from a chronicle of my time as a Kiva Fellow, to my time as a traveling American. In one week, I’ll pass through Peru to Pisco where I’ll spend at least the next 3 weeks working as a volunteer for 2007 earthquake victims with MAD Volunteers. After that- the open road. Join me.**

Fotos from the Fellowship

Today is the last day I’ll spend as an official Kiva Fellow. I would like to have a clear sense of what I’ve learned or done, but I’m left today with a wash of images. Here is an album with some of my favorite images. The color of my time as a Kiva Fellow.

Sierra’s Favorites

Best for Bolivia

Bolivia’s political conflict, antics and struggle are very much a part of the day to day. But somehow, I haven’t really felt it. I know that in September of 2008 the situation was much more tense. Violence was on the rise. The US Ambassador was expelled. A potential civil war between the highly indigenous west supporting Evo Morales and the more politically conservative, often land-owning east seeking autonomy? Throw in the simplifying and mystifying fact that in Latin America, right now, you are with Chavez or you are with the US, and I am left constantly talking about Evo’s policies and in equal portion, American sins.

Chavez and Evo

This was true this week when I met Don Lorenzo, who with a loan in his wife’s name, makes cholita hats. He asks me within the first five minutes a simple question: do you believe in the indigenous people of Bolivia? Simple. Yes.

Don Lorenzo and His Hats

So why does my government choose to burn down the coca fields, not only an ancient custom but also a competitive product on the capitalist global stage? I’m well versed in this- first, Don Lorenzo, I disagree with the US government’s war on drugs. But I can help explain some of the complex internal politics that have led to our obsession with curbing supply, and often ignoring demand. Second, we should make a distinction between the government of a country and the people of a country. I will do the same in the way I view the Bolivians.

An error. NO! Don Lorenzo sees himself perfectly reflected in his government. Evo is the face of the people. He understands their culture, their dreams, their hopes. He is one of us. Don Lorenzo says he has been molding, steaming, cutting and selling these hats, an image of indigenous Bolivia for his whole life, and Evo makes him even prouder every time his wife dresses in her pollera and sombrero and hits the streets to sell these beautiful products. I am Bolivia, says Don Lorenzo. So, by extension, Sierra is the US. The US government that is. Will it work to explain that electing an African American in some ways carries the same meaning for us as electing Evo was for them? I hesitate to call Obama an indigenous leader, but will “community organizer” transfer?

Bolivian Congressional Building

Probably not. I steer clear of the conversation, sweeping a wide arch that includes questions about where felt comes from and how his father learned the trade, but inevitably land roughly on, “so you are in support of Evo?”. “Are you?” he returns. Flat.

Well. I don’t know. Like most places, the truth about what’s best and what’s worst lies somewhere in the forgotten in-between. Do I think Evo is good for Bolivia?

Several little points, primarily as anecdotes, come to mind. First, every person over the age of 65 gets 200 Bolivianos a month. This is practically nothing, but it feels like something. It feels like the government gives a shit and that’s not nothing. He is fighting for literacy. Signs everywhere say, “Un Pais Libre de Analfabetismo”, a country free of illiteracy. Good effort, but I know several illiterate people. Still, they can take classes for free…if only they had the time.

A rebirth of kids speaking Aymara. I love the thought that languages can be preserved, and something in me lights up when I hear Atajo’s lead singer rapping in Ayamara, even if it’s against the Yankees stealing his identity.

More people than ever are employed by city governments to clean up and preserve immaculate plazas. And aren’t they pretty? Makes me proud to be here, like I know a secret- Bolivia is really beautiful.

San Pedro Plaza

But there are several little things that worry me. First, that he keeps changing the constitution so he run again. And then maybe again and again. Hunger strikes, Evo sitting on his floor munching coca, are an effective way to get congress to pass his measures. Corruption hard to measure but still a real force.

And the grey area. A perfect example is the fractura system. Each person in Bolivia has a section of their salary withheld and they can only use it in places that offer fractura. Or a receipt. To be able to offer a receipt, and thus attract customers, the business must both register with the government and pay taxes. This encourages the formal sector, and raises money for the state. A good thing. Except its hard to offer fractura, and most small businesses can’t. And it hurts. Not the woman on the corner selling just a few dozen oranges a day, but it does hurt a Kiva client who dries and packages chili peppers and wants to start selling to incorporated supermarkets. Plus, it seems to infringe a bit on one’s liberties to be told where they can shop. But oops, that’s my American-ness again.

Kiva Entrepreneur's Chili Peppers

And really, how does the political situation here affect business? For Don Lorenzo, his business is, in part, a political expression. Still there aren’t that many jobs, and people become business owners not because they want to, but because they have few options. The market appears saturated, but how could I possibly measure that with my limited tools- a camera and a notepad? I found out partway through my visit that his wife, Mercedes wasn’t at home because she was in a big march down the main street expressing general support for Evo. I asked how often she does this, and was surprised with the answer. Whenever her association requires.

Most small businesses like Don Lorenzo and Mercedes’ are part of a neighborhood association, that pools money to keep the street they sell on safe, and mostly clean. The have meetings once a month and are organized. Its one of the parts I like most about small businesses here. But whenever the director (a member of Evo’s MAS party, always) says they have to march, or blockade, they pick up and do it. If they don’t, the association issues a fine -they can’t sell their products for 1-3 days. Political participation in support of Evo is thus compulsory. Good thing Don Lorenzo and Mercedes believe in it. Otherwise this would be corruption, and an infringement on individuality. But oops, that’s my American-ness again.

After saying goodbye, and eliciting a few friendly laughs with my attempt to bid farewell in Aymara, I was in a taxi on the way to visit a friend when we bumped into Mercedes’ march. It was big. Lots of color and guns. A zebra is knocked down by the crowd. People dressed as zebras direct traffic in La Paz with happy faces and fancy dances. This is Evo’s attempt to “re-educate” people about traffic manners, and its harder to fight a zebra than a police officer. I open the door of a cab to help the zebra up when a riot cop sprays the mob with tear gas.

Zebra hard at work

Burn. My nostrils afire, my eyes burned shut. Have I really just been tear-gassed in La Paz? Where did the plaza with the flowers go, and my favorite egg lady? Where are the tuba players and the children with the icecream? A different world descends and my nearly blind taxi driver drops me above the blockade, near a gorgeous church where a friend is waiting. I’ve been told cigarette smoke binds to tear gas and helps. A non-smoker, I chock back two, trying to blow the smoke into my own eyes and sit it out. I was 100% fine 20 minutes later.

The zebra was fine. I went to find an ice cream and to digest the fact that there is a conflict here, but support of one side or another is at least partially compulsory. He does good things and bad things. People seek definition, and are frustrated when I don’t give it to them. I am frustrated too.

Now amidst Evo’s crys for international investigation of a plot to assassinate him, I find myself wondering still, what is best? The only conclusion that I can come to is, like the surreal moment when I’m helping a man dressed as a zebra move out of the street of half-hearted protestors, facing a cop in full riot gear spraying gas generally through a crowd, I am out of my element. I am not in a position to evaluate what is best for Bolivia.

Although, I did like sharing in Don Lorenzo’s pride, and will forever remember his smile more vividly than a blurry taxi ride.

Don Lorenzo and Sierra

How Sierra Found Her Glasses

Emprender has two offices in Cochabamba and three in Santa Cruz. Both these cities have a distinct character, and reputation that precedes them. The Cochabambinos, or “ “Bambinos” (best nick name ever right?) are known for their gigantic plates of food. Everyone tells me that I would eat a lot in Cochabamba, and that I would find the climate perfect. In Santa Cruz, I would find people of a totally different culture. The kind that whistle at the women in the street, take off dancing at a moment’s notice, men with mojo and women with hot blood. All ferociously against La Paz’s beloved Evo Morales. I’m told that when I travel to the other parts of the country, that I would understand the background of Bolivia, what goes on behind the scenes. They couldn’t have been more correct. In the last few days, I’ve really learned about what goes on behind the scenes….and…under the table.

I was ushered into the station at 7am in the morning by screaming, bartering women in the Cochabamba station and rapidly found myself down 30 Bolivianos, and carefully stowed into the top seats on a bus, or floata, to Santa Cruz. The seats directly above the driver are incredibly beautiful. A huge surround seat window gives you the feeling you are flying above the road, and the panoramic views simply take you’re breath away. I wondered, how did I score this!! I soon found out.

Window Views

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The beautiful windows in this seat don’t open. Though I had space, a comfy seat and of course the view, I have never been so hot in all my life. The windows acted as a green house, and the little space got hotter and hotter and hotter. People, bags, food and even a dog in a box filled the aisle- there was no where to go. Luckily, in Bolivia, people come running to the window to sell you coolish jello at every stop, so I slurped my way down the road. The worst part though was that my glasses kept fogging up in the humidity became unbearably slippery, so I hung them on the curtain.

Nearly 16 hours later, I arrived in Santa Cruz, flopped out of the bus covered in sweat and filled with jello to wait in the heat for Julio, Emprender’s regional director to meet me at the bus station. I normally keep my cool (pun intended) in these kind of situations, but something unnerves me about Santa Cruz. Everyone has told me that this is a really dangerous station, and I’m just a little flustered. Which pocket has the big bills and which is the small? Do I have all my electronics? Did I keep that tiny scrap of paper they handed me when I boarded, and now inexplicably want back? When I get to the hotel, I realized that in my fluster, I left my glasses on the bus!

Though I’m not supposed to be running around a bus station at night, I pop into a cab and rush over for the price of 30 Bolivianos, double what it should be. I can’t wait, and the driver is from a company the hotel tells me is safeish. I run around the whole station looking for someone from the Trans Copacabana line. I find a friendly worker who after asking me to marry him, or provide sexual services, tells me that I arrived in bus 81, parked down this alley way. Keys between my knuckles, taxi driver following me at the rate of 5 Bolivianos, I make my way down the ally way plastered with anti-Evo posters. The drivers are at dinner, and are probably drunk, says a neighbor driver. I can return by 6 am to catch them.

Chasing Buses

The next morning I am there by six with another expensive taxi driver waiting in the parking lot (other taxis aren’t safe at this hour apparently) in the pouring rain trying to find my bus. Its not there. The ally is, but the bus is not. Trying to be as quick as possible, I run towards toward the main terminal to ask for information and I run right into a line of barbed wire mysteriously strung between two trees. Maybe I should mention that without my glasses, I can’t see.

The bus has gone on an unexpected trip and won’t be back until night, several loads of passengers have been collected and everyone, six different people I’ve consulted, tell me there is no way they are still aboard. A pair of frames like that can be sold easily here. A last ditch effort, I leave my number with Juan, an assistant with Trans Copacabana who seems helpful, has told me I’m beautiful, and I make my tired, wet, bloody, dirty way back to the hotel to rush into the shower before I have to leave for the office.

Like modern miracle, at lunch, Juan calls – they found my glasses!! For a fee.

I ask how much, he says, “a small amount” and my phone cuts out. Rober, the Emprender loan officer I’m with, kindly accompanies me to the bus station, and waits with his car while I follow Juan to the bus. An error. I should have gone with Rober, who might have known what my glasses would cost. When I get there, they bring me down my glasses, and putting them on, the world seems clearer. I have no idea how to pay a fee, or a bribe, or whatever it is I have to pay. Not expecting to have to pay this kind of thing, I don’t have the best denominations. I have a 20 B note, or about $3, and a 100 B note, which is about $14, which is a bit of money here. I rarely spend 100Bs in one setting. I give the driver the 20. He looks at it, scoffs throws it in the mud and trumps off. I feel terrible I want to do whats right. Is it right to pay? Is it right not to? Juan picks it up, tries to make me feel better, but explains that the driver was expecting at least 50, and that he himself expects an additional amount. Can I ask for change? 100 Bs is a lot of money for me, and I’ve already spent hours in the mud, I’m all cut up from the barbed wire, I was at the station late last night, and at 5 o’clock this morning and now this!? I miss the lost and found boxes so common in the US. Where is the little drawer behind the counter?

Rober and Me Before the Call

The driver won’t look at me, or stop grumbling loudly to his buddies “Gringa blah blah blah Gringa blah blah”. I leave the 20 B plus the 100 B (because I have to pay Juan something) with Juan asking him to share because the driver now won’t take anything I hand him and keeps throwing it in the mud. Will Juan share? I feel like a bumbling cultural idiot, I ashamed I can’t do what seems to be normal all over the world, and what looks so easy in American crime movies- passing slippery money from hand to hand, no one noticing. At the same time, I’m furious that I should have to. Who knows if it resolved. Glasses in hand, or rather, on face, my last pair of pants thoroughly wet, Rober and I take off for the next Kiva client.

Later, I met a group of women today who really brought it all into focus. One of them sells cosmetics for Avon and needed a loan to pay a fee to them that she feels is unfair. One of them was unfairly fired from her job as a babysitter and is trying to make ends meet by selling sweets from her home. One of them has a husband who is a bus driver who is constantly working more hours than is legal, and because his company doesn’t pay insurance for the truck, only the cargo, a recent accident has devastated their family, and they needed a loan. Rober and I have a long conversation about how lawyers are all crooks and their only ability is to suavely do what I couldn’t – pay bribes.

New Friends

Its not that the country is so ramp with corruption that small businesses can’t get ahead, but rather that it happens often enough that it appears no one trusts the system. They don’t trust the political system, or the economic system or any of the promises that have been made to them by most institutions. But at the end of the day, as Rober helped me over a slippery slope, I realized, maybe trust can begin with your solidarity group, and then with your bank. Maybe after that with your neighbor, your employer, your political party, and with your country. I felt a little bit more cheery, and felt like I could see.

Davis Enterprise and Kiva

Thanks to my mom’s probing, the Davis Enterprise wrote an article about my work with Kiva. Unfortunately, to follow links on their website, you have to have a subscription, but pasted here is what they wrote! Thanks Davis!!

Davis native working with microfinance company to help alleviate poverty in South America

By Philip Riley | Enterprise correspondent | March 30, 2009 07:01

Sierra

Sierra Visher poses with some KIVA clients in Honduras. She visits with the clients receiving the microloans, so she can tell their stories on the KIVA Web site. (Courtesy photo)

What do a young clothing saleswoman in Honduras and an Australian psychology student have in common? Thanks to Sierra Visher, more than either would have known.

Visher, who grew up in Davis, is working in South America for KIVA, a nonprofit microfinance company that allows people to lend to entrepreneurs in the developing world to alleviate poverty. On the KIVA Web site, potential investors can view profiles of entrepreneurs – from auto mechanics to farmers – and lend as little as $25 at a time. An entrepreneur will use the money to establish a business and eventually pay back the loan.

‘KIVA uses technology in new and important ways not only to move capital, but to create networks of people much like a social networking site does, but for the general good,’ Visher told the Enterprise in an e-mail interview.

Visher, 24, is now in La Paz, Bolivia, visiting loan recipients at their businesses and homes. Since November, she has been traveling throughout Honduras and Bolivia talking to entrepreneurs about their businesses and lives.

She posts their stories on the KIVA Web site ( http://www.kiva.org) for lenders to see and also works in KIVA offices to communicate with banks and Micro Finance Institutions facilitating loans in the area. She also runs a blog ( http://svisher.wordpress.com) about her efforts to help borrowers, lenders and banks better understand what is going on at each step of the process. ‘In short – I’m a connector,’ Visher said.

‘Visiting clients and telling their stories is an incredible responsibility,’ Visher said. ‘To bring an image and a story to life for each borrower is something so hard to scale that only the Internet could do it, and KIVA harnessed that power.’

In November, Visher visited a borrower in her 20s named Senia who was using KIVA loans to run a clothing business inherited from her mother. In addition to selling clothes, Senia is studying toward her university degree in psychology. Senia was caught in a hard place when she realized she would need to take six months off her job for an internship required for the degree.

One KIVA lender working toward the same degree in Australia read the profile of Senia that Visher posted on the KIVA Web site and left an encouraging, heartfelt comment. Visher translated the comment and showed Senia how her story had affected someone all the way in Australia.

Thanks to KIVA lenders, Senia saved for months and was able to start an internship in January counseling children and their parents at a cancer ward.
From La Paz, Visher soon will travel to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. She has already visited hundreds of entrepreneurs and will visit many more before her work with KIVA is done in May.

‘I just love Bolivia. It has such a sense of national pride and identity and the landscape is just sweeping,’ Visher said. ‘I work really long, hard hours with KIVA, but when you want to let your hair down at night or on the weekends, Bolivia really allows it.’

Visher graduated from Davis High School in 2002 before attending UC San Diego. In college, she honed her Spanish by studying abroad in Spain, and interned at the Nicaraguan embassy in Washington, D.C. She also volunteered with a program that teaches English to immigrants, eventually becoming head of the program.

‘She has this compassion for helping people in other countries,’ said her mother, Lorraine Visher of Davis.

After college, Sierra Visher moved to Washington, D.C., hoping to find a job in international development. After realizing she would need more experience to land a job, she became a paralegal to earn money for her trip. She found out about KIVA by looking through microfinance organizations online, and the trip should give her the experience she needs for jobs or graduate school.
‘Paying for this is really hard and I’m really broke,’ Visher said. ‘We cover everything – our equipment, our accommodation, food, airfare and even the cost of buses to visit all these clients, some of whom are hours outside of town. … Some people have helped me out through the ‘HELP SIERRA’ button on my blog.’

‘She was extremely frugal,’ said her mother about saving for the trip. ‘She worked overtime.

‘Sierra is someone that the Davis school system and city can be proud of,’ her mother said. ‘She is a product of this city.’
Visher’s work with KIVA will end in May, and she hopes to continue traveling in South America for part of the summer. She will be back by September in time to decide which graduate school to attend from among the international relations programs to which she has been admitted.

‘I think now, more than ever, we have to make sure globalization enriches our lives rather than simply complicating and frustrating (them),’ Visher said. ‘We have to understand each other better.’

Home Cooking

Cooking here is a sensory overload. The market just below my house bustles every day with women calling “comprame senorita!”. Stalls overflow with onions, potatoes, carrots, fruits of all shape and fragrance. Star fruit. Giant avocados. Figs. Pears. The desire to buy can be overwhelming and I must resist the gorgeous dirt-cheap wooden bowls and tea pots. No one needs 6 pounds of honey….move on Sierra.. you already have meat in the fridge….move on…I never know if I’m paying a good price but a few cents here and there don’t break me. For a pound of tomatoes I pay 3 bolivianos, or $.43.

The Rodriguez Market (I live upstairs)

Everything has to be peeled before you can eat it, and women here, casually sit, peeling and chopping in the palms of their hands. A skill I could NEVER master, and all the Top Chef contestants should take note that they are nowhere near as bad ass as the cholitas of the Rodriguez Market. I recently went on a hunt for a peeler since I feel I’m always loosing half the vegetable I’m trying to peel with the giant cleaver we have. I was promptly laughed out of two shops. “Silly Gringa, use a knife!!”.

So Pretty

Despite the bountiful piles of food all around me, I fear the actual cooking isn’t as good. Fire doesn’t burn as hot, and my rice is always crunchy. Everything is almost the same, but not quite. Salt is salty but different, eggs are tasty but gigantic, cheese crumbles and doesn’t melt the same. All just a little different. Parecido, but different. Despite these difficulties, I decided to invite a friend to dinner last night, just to find that the fridge was broken when I got home from work. I looked at the ingredients, how can I eat all of this right now? Curry!

I set about chopping, pealing, when the repair man came. How did he know it was broken? A mysterious question still unanswered, though I expect it has to do with my saintly, fatherly roommate. He awkwardly moves around my kitchen, between piles of chopped onions, bottles of wine (quickly going down the hatch), peels with too much vegetable still attached. Butter in the pan, fresh garlic, fresh ginger and…sizzle. The gas tank runs out. Today I spent several hours under the sink attaching another one that I lugged 4 endless blocks.

The Site of the Disaster

A little bit of pouting later, we’re off down the cobbled road to an asian fusion restaurant and the repair man sets off in his own direction surely feeling sorry for the cups he broke. I’m going out to eat at a nice restaurant (not a stall) for the first time in months, and I’m simply beside myself. I order a green curry and a nan, and somehow it manages to taste like home. But different.

In general I feel like I’m home. But not.

Tired Sierra Triumphs

A day in El Alto

El Alto is the place where microfinance pretty much started in Latin America and it has held my interest for years. This cold, wind-swept city is an incredible phenomenon of urbanization, globalization, and pretty much any other -ization you can think of. La Paz, the city proper, sits in a bowl high up on Bolivia’s altiplano. Here, the city is protected from some of the bitter cold and wind. High up above the city, the flat plateau-like city of El Alto, is where the city’s poorest residents live, work and get by. A place washed by persistent, filthy, rotten poverty.

On the Edge of El Alto

Despite the cold, the sun at this altitude not only burns me instantly but imbues everything with a surreal light. Perhaps this is why El Alto struck me as one of the most colorful, vibrant places I’ve ever been. Markets are pouring out of windows, stands, corners and the very faces of El Alto residents. This desire to sell, to move, to change seems to me the very essence of El Alto. Most residents have come from “el campo”, or the country, looking for a better life. They stopped here and did their best. Now this sprawling, freezing metropolis of nearly a million people is a city unto itself boasting an apparently famous youth hip hop movement (must learn more about this), industries budding on every corner, a re-constitution of traditional art now mixed with urban vibes, music, family and of course- the market. Here is where we find Kiva funded clients.

El Alto Market

I met Saturnina and her husband Eufrin. She had so much to say about how Emprender needs to lower their interest rates, that I couldn’t get a word in edge wise. I had the long list of Kiva questions to run through, but standing there talking to her, the sun searing my back, through the shirt I have, the sweat slipping down my back and soaking the top of my jeans was hard to sit through. I recently learned you can sunburn through your clothes. This is a first for me. I suddenly felt my eyes tracking, my mouth cracking and my feet swelling. Too much walking in too much sun for too long with too little water. I ended the conversation, walked promptly to the juice lady behind me and drank three glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. I learned from Saturnina, dressed in colorful clothing and mysteriously with some sort of leaves stuffed in her ears, that she has several loans from many MFIs and while Emprender’s interest rates of 39% annually are the lowest she pays, they are still too high. Duh. How do we lower them? She is over-indebted and I’m reminded again of the limits of microfinance.

Saturnina and Eufrin

For lunch, I had the single foulest food I’ve had yet. And I have had goat head soup. Charquecan is llama meat dried in the sun until it resembles beef jerkey. The word jerkey, coincidentally, comes from charque. Then you shred the llama meat and serve it over homily and dehydrated potatoes, or “chuño” with a chunk of what appears to be mostly rotten cheese and a hardboiled egg. It comes to you looking like a big bowl of hair with an egg. I sat with Alberto, a really nice, unusually single loan officer who is probably the kindest person I have met here. Loves charquecan, and is stoked that I’m shovelling it in my mouth with equal proportions of fanta. He says he’s worried about the poverty in his country and wonders how long it can go on like this. “Estoy orgulloso de ser parte de la solución”, or I’m proud to be part of the solution. It was like he was speaking straight to my heart.

Alberto, an Emprender Loan Officer

We return to the office where I pull myself together, organize a bit, and prepare to leave. Suddenly the confusion. Its my first day in this particular field office and everyone is worried. How will she get home? Can she understand the buses? She has her computer, can she make it to the bus stop? I knew what I was doing. I could see the stop from where we were standing. I just needed to get going so I’d arrive back home in the La Paz, or “the hole” before dark. After some commotion, a kiss on every face I’m off.

Except. The security guard truly cannot handle me walking alone and insists on putting me in a bus to take me two blocks to where I catch the other. He flags one down, opens the door, negotiates with the bus driver and literally helps me into the front seat like my dad on the first day of school. I have never felt so white, or so incapable of organizing my own time. The bus immediately turns down a different road. I ask to get out and the bus driver says, no, he has to first make a U turn. Suddenly I’m lost. Its getting dark. I am carrying a camera, a computer, a video camera and some money in the middle of El Alto. Sigh.

About 45 minutes later, after many conversations I get to a bus that takes me mostly in the right direction. I’m in. Its steaming with people’s warm breath in the frozen air. Cholita’s bowler-hats blocking my view. Its warm and as I start to drift off BAM! We blow a tire. Standing in the hail 45 minutes later somewhere between El Alto and La Paz, trying to catch another bus with the throng of Bolivians, I am reminded of how convenient everything in the US is. The metro with its predicted arrival times, clean and orderly. I’m frustrated, but I have some sort of inner calm that comes with knowing that I’m going home to a warm house with food in the fridge. Not just tonight, but always.

Journals- A Kiva Fellow Responsibility

A client visit serves a few purposes. First, it allows us to verify that the client is getting the full amount of money the bank is requesting. This is what I call “auditing light”. The time with the clients, and the questions I ask, help explain to the loan officers the kind of information that Kiva lenders require. Being with the client helps them understand what Kiva is. They have all (hopefully) signed waivers and have heard of Kiva. But, for someone who has probably never worked with a computer, its really rather abstract. A human face can really help.

Finally, the results of these conversations are written up into a journal update which I upload onto the Kiva website. They all accumulate in Journals. Also, they get sent to the individual lenders to that particular person. I recently visited a client that my aunt has invested in. The journal I posted for here was this:

As a Kiva Fellow working with Kiva’s local partner MFI in Bolivia, Emprender, I recently had the opportunity to visit with Juana, a Kiva funded entrepreneur.

Juana was very shy and also very busy, so our conversation started and stopped several times, but I really enjoyed meeting her and learning a little more about her business. For me, Juana’s business is particularly special because my aunt is one of her lenders. I always find when I meet clients that we have something in common and that there is a connection, but this time, it was very obvious and fun. Juana was less impressed with this fact than I was, but each client is different. Many are more reserved, and like Juana, don’t open up quickly to foreigners.

Juana is one of the only people who operate a snack business on the Esquela de Militar Ingenieros, or the Military School of Engineering. Students here are not all in the military, but its run with the same precision and discipline as a military school, and the majority of the students have parents in the Bolivian armed forces. When they get out of class many stop by Juana’s kiosk to buy snacks, drinks or cigarettes. Without a loan, Juana does not have enough to stock her store. She hopes to get to the point where she can restock with her own savings, but for now, she relies on loans for her livelihood. Emprender has built in savings plans with their loan repayments, and because Juana is a Kiva client, she receives a lower than normal interest rate, so hopefully this independence can come soon.

Juana has six children, most of whom are in school. Her youngest daughter, three years old, accompanies her to work and plays next to her. She is trying to learn to tie her shoes and it looks like she might get it soon.

On Saturdays, when there is no class, Juana sells tucumanas on various street corners. These are a particularly delicious Bolivian snack made similar to an empanada where meat, potatoes and spices are wrapped in dough and baked, but these are deep-fat fried and eaten with a very watery peanut sauce, a regular spicy sauce or an olive sauce. To me, this seems like dinner food, but here, it is a mid morning snack. I am getting used to it, and woke up this morning craving tucumanas for the first time.

It was a pleasure to meet Juana. Thank you for supporting her, Emprender and Kiva.

To see a short video showing my conversation with Juana, please click here.

Disbursement- Some Mechanics

I have been rushing faster around this city than I ever thought I would, visiting clients in a whirlwind of efficacy and excitement. In the past 8 days, I’ve visited nearly 40 clients, which, as far as I’m concerned, is a huge success. Keep in mind that visiting a client not only requires a bit of pre-office organizing where I review their files, but several chaotic mini buses, often an uphill hike and long long waits. One out of three times, we arrive and the client isn’t there.

Two clients we did make it to. They think its funny how tall I am. Tall?

The good part is the wonderful time I spend with the loan officers at Emprender. These are saintly, interesting, accomplished people. The women hold a special place in my heart. Estela, is very reserved, quiet and efficient. Older, meaning the hikes are harder so she memorized the routes of thousands of minibuses. Cecilia, the director of the Chasquipampa office, and also a loan officer is outgoing and hilarious. We immediately following a conversation about terrorism we reviewed the differences between Bolivian and American men. Ironically, I had the same conversation with Leonela, another loan officer, not too much older than me. They like the blue eyes, and soft hair. Shocked to hear that Northern Europeans are more likely to have blond hair and blue eyes than many Americans- who are really from all over the world. Unlike in Honduras, these loan officers are older, wiser and often times…a lot more intimidating.

Emprender Loan Officers

A few days ago, they were so busy that they couldn’t take me out for visits. Though drowning in their apologies uttered in the strange sing song voice of both beggars, apologize-ers, and sales people, “Discuulpa..senoooorita…”, I was happy to have some time to catch up on all the stuff in my cyber life and to watch the office in action. They disbursed three different group loans that day.

Thinking about opportunity

Before a loan is disbursed, each person must provide copies of their identity cards, a fully complete form (Emprender offers transcribing assistance for those clients that are illiterate), at least one guarantor and a whole host of other little details. Groups are designed as a way to both guarantee the loan and to develop support networks. This network aspect, the community involvement, is what most tickles my toes. The groups of people meet several times with Leonela to discuss the risks involved in taking out a loan and their options for saving.

Leonela discusses the loan process

Each person is required to pay a small amount extra during every loan payment which is put into an interest bearing savings account they can access at the end of their loan cycle. This amount of money is supposed to help instill the value of savings and also prevent the urgent and immediate need for another loan. The hope is that they won’t need to jump right back in to debt to continue their business. From my informal conversations, this does seem to work. Its nice to see, especially since the criticism that MFIs lead to cycles of debt no different than a loan shark, has haunted me.

Finally, after all the paper work is submitted, everyone is checked against a mostly functioning national credit rating system. No more than two people in a group can have any credit problems. If they meet this requirement the loan is eligible for approval in comité, or a meeting Emprender’s staff, where they decide together which loans are approved. I look forward to attending comité on Thursday. It seems so…democratic.

Each person’s business or home is visited. The group chooses a name, a president and a secretary. They choose the time they are going to meet every week to repay. They haggle over whose schedule should dictate this timing. They joke and smile, and sometimes look worried. The loan is approved, and for one brief moment, everyone looks around at each and appreciates where they are, and where they hope to be going. Pork is good luck, and most groups prepare a lunch to share to celebrate the disbursement of their loan.

A few chola's negotiate roles

Outside of this whole bulging, chaotic process, Emprender also has a health clinic, financial literacy courses, after-school activities for children, savings plans and loan services specific to the agricultural secotr. Don’t forget that Bolivia has three languages, Spanish, Aymara and Quechua. No one speaks them all and every one must navigate these barriers. In this sense its nice not to be alone.

I love that Emprender feels like a place that addresses the integrated needs of their clients. They are big, creative and effective. Of course this leads to my psychotically unstoppable questioning…”what is effective?” and is this over-indebtedness in such a poor country a good thing?

Mixed in to all of this is endless soul searching, constant confusion about why I have so much wealth and some pretty great weekend trips.

The Road to Coroico

A Question of Faces

I find myself thinking about friends and short-term lifestyles in DC, most transient place in the U.S., and here in Bolivia, also somewhat transient.

Home...for now

Through my new roommate, I quickly plugged in to a network of NGO workers from all over the world the moment that I arrived. Beautiful apartments paid for in dollars, euros. Each person, I truly believe, making a small difference. Some older, some beautiful, all interesting. But I wonder would the rent money just given to a regular Bolivian make a bigger splash? I don’t know. It’s certainly not sustainable. A Kiva concept so pounded into me that I hear my heart beating its rhythm as it struggles to power me up steep hills. “Sus-tain…sus-tain”.

Everyone hangs out pretty much every other night. There is a goodbye party tonight for one of them. A life where everyone you know is in and out. Here for a contract. In this way it really reminds me of DC, but somewhat more miraculous. When people arrive its like they’ve just managed a feat. A breathless gait, a wind-chapped cheery smile, bright eyes. A quick desire to make friends, and to share. We share everything- food, company, experience. When people arrive in DC, albeit for a two year stint just like in La Paz, they arrive like it was an inevitability. “Yeah, it was time”. People look hardened, as if they are all ready to play poker… and to win. Ruthless.

I certainly have never had a good poker face. I like to win, and find that I can, but I’m tired of playing the game. When I try to conceal, I just look angry, and I am because I am unable to be myself. This has caused much confusion in my life as it leads people to think I’m harsh, pointed and rigid when in fact I’m just uncomfortable and trying to hide. It was only after a year there that I could let the poker face down. It was at that moment I refused to play the DC who-do-you-know-what-do-you-do game. It may have been a bad decision, but it did precipitate several true friendships.

In DC it was hard to make friends, people don’t jump easily at intimacy particularly if you don’t offer a professional boost, but despite my short “contract” in our capital the friends I made are blessing I could never easily give up.

This lifestyle internationalism and cultural exploration (or is it voyeurism?) is by no means an inevitability- but it could easily be mine. Is it what I want? It would be fun, but potentially lonely. After two weeks here, unless I dramatically change my lifestyle, I’ll continue feeling like a visitor. In Honduras, I was a daughter, a sister and a Hondureña. Paradoxically, I was also very lonely. I was lonely for a connection where I could be myself and here I am lonely for a connection that forces me to be someone else, to wear their shoes.

I find myself looking forward to a night of drinking Bolivian beer chatting away in Spanish, the only common language with my new French friends. But I can’t help but wonder, if we met outside of this alpine reality, would we even like each other? Are we actually wearing a poker face. It turns out, that despite my infatuation with other places I find that what I mistook as frustration, exasperation and complete shame about my country is actually profound love. I am an American, and perhaps I belong there. Or maybe I belong here, and there, and forever wandering.

Views of La Paz