Farewell, Dear Continent!

For nine months I have believed only in the most abstract of ways that this day—the final day of my fellowship—would actually arrive. Now that it’s here, I want to travel back to the glory days of my stay and do it all again. A few weeks ago, you indulged me as I ranted about that which I’m looking forward to returning home to. Now, as I depart from the continent, I sense an onslaught of nostalgia for the life I’m leaving behind. If only I could pack all of these up and bring them home with me . . .

• African English. Just as British English is different from American, so African English is an entity unto itself. The style, intonation, and phrases can at first cause confusion to one, such as myself, who thought I knew English. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll find yourself agreeing “so is me!” or “even me!” (aka “me too”), commiserating that you’ll get “worried when I’m 35” (aka “married when I’m 35”), and describing how you are “somehow tired” (aka “a bit tired”). You’ll introduce stories with the phrase “by the way” even when the story falls no where near “the way” and when a friend gives his regards he may send you “blessings all over your face” (the latter is courtesy of Jenna—thanks for sharing).

• Coke tasting like the nectar of life. Never before have I cared about Coca Cola. In the U.S. I have shunned the full-sugar soda in favor of its calorie-free counterpart. But here, an ice cold, sucrose-filled Coke is a thing of miracles. If everything else seems to be going wrong, Coke never lets me down.

• Head luggage. Many people say that life in Africa is lived on the streets. Roads are always crowded with human movement and there is a blissful chaos that results and astounds as people dodge each other, moving vehicles, potholes, and cows simultaneously. The wildcard to add to the steady pulse of life on the roads is that which people carry on their heads all the while. I’ve seen everything from a single shoe to a sofa, a sewing machine to 30 brooms, all on the heads of pedestrians. To carry a 100 kilogram sack of potatoes on one’s head is the status quo. And why roll a suitcase along the ground when you could instead put it on your head and eliminate that obnoxious scratching noise where rocky road meets mediocre wheel? Why use your hands when there is a perfectly good surface ready to distribute the weight across your body?

• Big is beautiful. Here it’s not just an expression that borderline emaciated people made up to make the fat kids feel better. Rather, fashion and image revolve around a round physique. Posters in tailor shops show lines of models in potential dress shapes, each of which requires a hefty rear-end to fill it out. Walking through shops, you see clothes on hangers stretched as wide as possible to show off its shape on a womanly curve. I am not anxious to get back to a world where hangers are ergonomically designed to give the shopper both the illusion of svelte and the conception that the way that clothes actually appear on one’s body is suboptimal.

• African Tea. Admittedly that was an obvious one given the poem I wrote in its honor, but I couldn’t omit it from the list.

• Homemade toys. Lego’s are not here yet, nor are obscene collections of action figures. If you want a toy, go make it yourself. Have nothing but an old tire and a stick? What more could you need? Want a toy car but you have nothing more than some string, a wire, and a couple of water bottle tops? Go to town. If you’re aching to play soccer, get yourself some partly disintegrated plastic bags and either some tape, string, or rubberbands and you’ve got yourself a game. Now this is creativity at work.

• Utter exhaustion. For the past nine months, every day has been the absolute most exhausting day of my life. Regardless of what I do, how much I accomplish, or the distance I travel, invariably every single night I go to bed utterly unable to keep my eyes open for a second longer, melting into bed. There’s something satisfying about leaving it all out there, with nothing more to give once the end of the day arrives.

• Two-handed waves. I love a good two-handed wave goodbye. It’s enough to make a person feel like she’ll really be missed once she’s walked away.

• Non-verbal communication. This includes eyebrow-only expressions, grunts instead of answers, and the wheels that turn seemingly without conversation. Seated in a car, I could swear that none of us spoke for an hour. Then out of no where the car is stopped, the driver gets out and the branch manager explains that we’re stopping because he needs tea. How did the branch manager know this? How can a plan be executed when the planning stage has been eliminated? Could he tell by the look on the driver’s face? Were there inaudible grunts that didn’t enter my psyche?

• Having no idea what’s going on, and just riding it out. Though I complained before about the obliviousness with which I live my life in a land of foreign language, it does have its perks. In particular, it’s enabled me to let go in ways that would be impossible if I were able to ascertain what’s going on. I don’t like to be that foreigner who’s constantly asking “Where are we going now? What happens next? What are we doing?” so instead I ask very few plan-related questions and just go where I’m told. It makes the surprise at the end all the more rewarding. It’s sort of exhilarating to be able to completely let go of your own fate and trust that whoever is leading you has your best interests at heart. And yet, amazingly, they almost always do. Detachment in regards to where my legs are taking me also translates into a general ability to completely zone out. I can be physically present but mentally absent all because I wouldn’t know what they’re saying anyway.

• Cultural Awakenings. One day I learn that a Rwandese friend will not eat in restaurants because when he was a child growing up as a refugee in Uganda his mother taught him never to eat outside the home—the Ugandans would poison him. Another day I discover that a reason for my difficulty in connecting with Rwandese women could be because sisters are the ones they turn to for camaraderie. Moments of realization and bits of understanding have dotted my time and I have been constantly stimulated by the prospect of learning more. I am leaving this country with much more to learn—so much that it is enticing me to come back and further my education.

There’s so much more, but my flight is boarding so it’s time to wrap. Farewell, Rwanda! And thanks, everyone, for reading!

Contradictions, Complications, Juxtapositions, and Genocide

It’s easier to make sense of Rwanda if you erase the human element of the Genocide that happened here fifteen years ago. If we could just pretend it wasn’t actual people who perpetrated the one million unthinkable acts, it would simplify the dynamics of the country. Afterall, if we acknowledge that it was not only people but fellow Rwandese who held the machetes, we need to also see that they still exist—and not in an abstract way but in a day-to-day, walking down the street, drinking milk for breakfast, and sending children to school kind of way.

Many perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide, or genocidaires, are in prisons throughout the country. It is likely that many others are not. Either way, those who committed the Genocide still live amongst those who survived. Prisoners do manual labor all over the country, working on plots of land, building brick walls along roads, and doing various other public works projects in plain sight. Their blue, orange, and pink uniforms (each prisoner is in one color which signifies the gravity of their crimes or status in prison) dot roads and farms throughout the country as they serve their time while the rest of the country looks on. They pass through lives as they stand packed in the backs of trucks and taken between their projects and their cells. It is a testament to the discipline and ingenuity of President Kagame that he has those who ripped the country apart now manually putting it back together. As he drives to develop his country, he is making use of those who, through violence, instilled the urgent need.

I have told some people back home about this, about the uniforms, about the prisoners, about their constant presence and my inability to grasp even a fraction of what it must be like to be a survivor and see them every day, because I’m here fifteen years later and as an outsider and even I shudder at the sight. Those back home are always shocked. “You mean you see them!” Well, yes. This is recent history—very much within the memories of those still living. One of the most complex issues this country faces is how to go on, develop, heal, when the painful past remains present. After a horrific divisiveness, how is everyone supposed to come together again?

I cannot begin to answer that question—far more gifted people than I are still grappling with it—but I would like to try to convey a sense of the impossible complexity of the issue. In January I went to visit a client in a rural part of Rwanda. We spoke to a woman who proudly showed the many ways in which she has expanded her business since receiving the Kiva loan. Afterwards, I went to the Kiva website to post a journal update on this woman but couldn’t find her on the site. A few weeks later I went back to the branch and told them she must not be a Kiva client. “Oh,” they responded, “the loan is in her husband’s name, not hers. He was just away that day.”

A month after that I discovered that “away that day” was a euphemism for “serving time in prison for perpetrating the 1994 Tutsi Genocide.” This time, the husband who had been away was now back so we were going to go see him for a Journal update interview.

I generally don’t get anxiety before meeting with microfinance clients. In my experience, there is little to be anxious about, minus some possible awkward moments or silent staring at one another if the translator leaves the room. This time, I began to panic. I knew that if I saw him as a microfinance client, he would have to be human. Previously, I saw genocidaires at enough of a distance that I wasn’t forced to remember their humanity or look them in the eye. I’m not proud to admit: I preferred it that way. This would complicate what I had been trying to simplify. A question that comes up repeatedly here is how so many “normal” people, non-violent people, certainly not killers, could have been moved to pick up weapons and kill their neighbors. It makes no sense. I knew that meeting one of these complicated individuals whose motivation I would never understand would confuse the idea in my head even more.

I spent the car ride to his remote home trying to imagine what he would be like and bracing myself to be professional despite biases. My preparation was cut short as, along a dirt road, the staff told the driver to stop the car and exclaimed, “This is our client!” He was pushing a bike with a load attached to the back, headed towards town. It had just begun to rain so we ushered him into the car, squeezing four across in the back seat of our pick-up truck.

My immediate reaction was that he had such a kind face. I noticed his warm smile and friendly greetings to the staff. Then he shook my hand and it was just like so many greetings I’ve exchanged here before. I tried to eliminate (or at least delay) my judgment so that I could focus on the Journal interview. It was brief since I had previously met with his wife and learned about his enterprises. After a few laughs and a few more questions, we were shaking hands again and he was back in the rain, pushing his bike.

It was a jarring interview for how totally routine it was. It forced me to wonder how many other genocidaires I’d spoken to, worked with, passed on the street without even realizing it. He was not a man you would pin as a killer. He was free because he had confessed his crimes, his confession was accepted as true by the gacaca court (a court system that has been established to process trials for accused genocidaires on a local level), and he had completed the assigned community service. Now he was back at home with his family, dressed in civilian clothing, and working in his businesses.

This client was the closest I’ve come to the reality that ultimately all genocidaires will be free. He put a face to the abstract impossibility that this country is facing as it frees prisoners from overcrowded prisons and reintroduces them to society. Just down the road from his house is a church in which thousands took refuge as the Genocide began.   More than 10,000 people were killed in and around the church between April 10th and April 16th 1994.  It’s an eerie juxtaposition.

I have no neat conclusion for this blog entry. I’ve been trying to come up with one for 3 weeks. Instead, I keep adding paragraphs that turn into ramblings but in no way neatly tie up my thoughts. Now, nearly a month after I started writing this piece and during a week commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide, I’ve decided that if I wait for a proper conclusion, it will be many many years before I post this. So I’ll end it here, no conclusion, no answers, no neat sum-up and no lesson learned. I end it with more questions than I started with.

Let’s Get a Round of Applause for the White Girl Running Aimlessly, Folks!

I am accustomed to stares. I bargained for them when I first started running in Rwanda. But the rest of it was surprising. At first it was an obligation to greet everyone I saw—which happened to be hundreds of people because of the busy residential neighborhood I chose as my route. Then came shouts of “Bravo!” from onlookers, encouraging me for my aimless feat. A few minutes later, a motorbike pulled up next to me and gestured that I should take a load off and let his bike do the work—I obviously looked tired. I laughed and tried to politely decline through the panting and language barrier. Then another one stopped. I must have really looked in pain.

I passed a young teenage girl dressed in a skirt and high-heeled slides walking with a friend. Except I actually didn’t pass her, because at the moment when that would have taken place, she instead began running alongside me. She lasted until a fork in the road divided us, more than seven minutes later. When a girl in high-heeled slides can keep up with me for seven minutes, I know I’m not working hard enough.

As I bounded down a hill towards the end of the run, a man began to applaud at my passing. I must have looked triumphant at having achieved the long-awaited declining slope. And I was. By this point, I was happy for any encouragement I could get. I gave a flourish, as though to take a running bow, and continued on.

Never alone for long, this time a young man, maybe a late-teen, started alongside me, but he wasn’t just enjoying a quiet workout on his way to mass. No, he was excited to practice his English and expected me to act as tutor. He soon found out that at that point there was no oxygen left for such a lesson.

I passed two kids twice, both times with that mischievous face with “up to no good” written all over it. The second time I found out why: they’d decided to pass the time by throwing stones at birds.

My favorite, though, are those people that do not start running with me, per se, but who see me running from down the road, across the street, what have you, and as though they suddenly remember it is something they want to do, they start running as well. They are probably on their way to work or to meet friends, they are dressed, composed, clean, and yet they see me and take off. Inevitably, they keep up their pace (which is usually faster than mine) until out of my sight. There are Rwandese who go running, dressed in the requisite running shoes and sporty attire, but I can’t quite guess what the others—the commuters-turned-joggers—are thinking as they see me pass and then take off on their own personal jaunt.

Running has always provided a unique, half-speed glimpse of the world. Walking is slow motion and riding in a car is full speed, but running is the perfect medium of observing without participating, being in a place long enough to see a scene play out but not so long that there’s downtime between scenes. Here in Rwanda, life happens on the streets, and while my runs are less zen than in other places I’ve lived, they are infinitely more entertaining.

Microfinance Not Your Thing? How About Cards From Africa?

Since arriving in Africa, my focus on microfinance has extended to a general interest in small and medium enterprises in developing economies. While microfinance is a great way to provide capital to those without access, it is small scale. As a result, money is put into the informal sector but the economy at large is rarely infused with cash. It often does not provide jobs for people other than the individual receiving the loan and tends to lead to market saturation of basic services. How many small shops selling soap, cooking oil, and flour do you need on one block? I am still very much a believer in microfinance, but I also accept that it’s not a cure-all, it’s not right for everyone who is battling poverty, and other solutions need to come in to play to truly reshape an economy.

To that end, I’ve been intrigued by enterprises in Rwanda that are serving to provide jobs to those previously without and improve quality of life for a larger segment of society. This is where Cards From Africa (CFA) comes in. CFA was started by a Brit named Chris Page and his Rwandese partner/card designer Gabriel Dusabe in an attempt to create jobs for children orphaned during the 1994 Tutsi Genocide and now responsible for younger siblings. He saw that the subsistence farming they were doing was not generating enough income to send them or their siblings to school or sustain them with a decent quality of life.  He wanted to find a way to create jobs that could help these young people to support themselves and their younger siblings.

I recently visited the office and got a tour of their operation. Every step of the way, they are creating their products from scratch, from the paper, to the card designs, all the way through the tiny cut-outs done with nothing more than scissors and a steady hand, and on to the gluing and packaging. If you want to check them out yourself, go to their website at www.cardsfromafrica.com.

A few things that particularly impressed me:

• CFA gets its paper by collecting large sacks discarded by big office buildings. This office trash becomes the raw material for two CFA employees to make new, recycled paper in a variety of colors (through the use of dyes) and textures (by adding grass, flowers, or pressing the wet paper with other objects).
• There are currently 30 full-time Rwandese orphans employed by Cards From Africa with many more part-time employees who come to help when special orders are made and large quantities of cards are needed quickly (i.e. wedding invitations or office Christmas party invitations). The majority of their business is overseas so they largely export their cards to international buyers. They hope to continue to increase their sales to the point that they employ 300 Rwandese orphans in the business.
• CFA is committed to Fair Trade principles, and is a member of the International Fair Trade Association and the Fair Trade Federation.
• In 2006, Cards From Africa was the runner-up in the BBC World Challenge. World Challenge looks for projects around the world that show innovation, enterprise, and social consciousness. The winners are grassroots projects that are improving lives in the countries in which they operate.

When I visited Cards From Africa, they gave me a shot at making some paper out of recycled material, just as they do.

The professionals were a bit incredulous at my absence of talent. They would not tolerate the air bubbles that I was permitting to form.

Finally getting it, I'm working on my own! (And also wearing my decoy wedding ring, in case you're confused by the shiny object on my left ring finger)

The paper stock room, in which all different textures and colors of the homemade paper are organized so that the correct one is chosen for each card design.

Here, two Cards From Africa employees make the card pictured with the hippo on it. That is their assignment for the day, and they will be paid based on how many cards they complete.

The staff is divided into groups of three who sit at the same table and work on the same card design. A master tally is kept of how many cards each group completes.

The work requires incredible attention to detail and some savvy with a pair of scissors.

The stock room, where they put completed cards.

Final products, on display in the small store to the side of the office.

Here is a close-up of some of the cards they produce. You can see here both the variety of materials they use (paper, yarn, wire, etc) and the extraordinary attention to detail they employ

Who Needs Personal Space When We Could Hold Hands for An Awkwardly Long Amount of Time Instead?

As I waited for a bus to depart recently, I looked out the window and saw amid the steady pulse of an active city, two men sitting on a small stool. Plural men. Singular stool. They accomplished this feat by having one man in the back, or on the outside, while the other one sat inside his straddled legs. It was like seated spooning. What was remarkable about it was absolutely nothing at all. Or at least from a Rwandese perspective. An American might see it differently. We see personal space invaded, a seat meant for two being shared by one, and we cringe at the thought of not having resolved the sharing of the seat by taking turns. Why won’t they just take turns??! But here, both men wanted to sit, so why should they have to choose which is the lucky one?

Examples of the absence of personal space abound. I’ve experienced it in my own life countless times, with gradually decreasing discomfort. The first time I shook someone’s hand here I was genuinely worried that they’d forgotten we were still touching and thought that we might be attached forever. I mean it—people say that all the time, the awkwardly long hand-shake–but you haven’t truly experienced it until you’ve been to Rwanda.

At first I didn’t like it. Handshakes here are not like those of Washington. They are not power shakes. People do not take pride in how tightly they can squeeze their opponent’s hand. No, instead it is just another means for us all to make contact, physically acknowledging that we’re conversing. For the first several minutes of a conversation you will likely be maintaining a handshake. If you’re not, then every few words you go back in for the shake to acknowledge something funny one party said, something the other person agreed with, or almost anything at all. A one-on-one conversation is as much conducted physically as it is orally.

Greetings in general carry more weight here than I’ve ever felt elsewhere in the world. To greet my coworkers is no casual thing. A mere nod or a generic call of “good morning” to whomever is listening would never suffice. Instead, the person entering the room must approach each person already present, shake their hands, probably hug, pat each other on the back multiple times, and exchange several minutes of pleasantries. You should expect to have hand grasped throughout. The handshake and simultaneous back-pat are quite common.

A co-worker and I exchange greetings at a bus stand in Kigali. Here, proof of the importance of a lingering shake.

I’ve come to enjoy such greetings. I’ve taken pride in emulating as carefully as possible the behavior of others during greetings. I want to do it right. One thing I’ve learned is that the amount of affection a person has for you is directly proportional to the velocity with which he or she slaps your hand to kick the handshake off. There is no polite sliding of hands together. Instead, we wind up, gain momentum, and bring hands together with a loud smack. The louder, the better. And the louder and better I get, the more people enjoy greeting me. I love that.

Physical proximity exists not only between friends and colleagues, however. Rather, if you are taking a bus with 15-40 strangers, you will likely have to make physical contact with at least five of them at any given time. Yesterday morning I was on a school bus-style public taxi and they had 6 people sitting across each row where there were meant to be four. That meant two of us had two inches of butt cheek on the seat and the rest was balancing precariously in the aisle. Or was it? We would have been thus balancing, except we used what resources we had and just leaned right up next to each other, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, to hold each other up. If I’d tried to rub up against someone’s thigh on a bus in D.C., I’d probably have been shot.

A comparable acceptance of closeness occurs in every facet of daily life. Walking down the street, if someone is in your way you do not say “excuse me” and wait for the person to move. Rather you walk right up to where you need to pass and gently take that person by the shoulders and physically move him/her out of your way. The first time this procedure was practiced on me I was indignant—what does a stranger think he’s doing just moving me like that! A few days later, I moved my first pedestrian. Breakthrough.

I’ve felt myself gradually become accustomed to the erasure of personal space but my moment of conversion came when I was speaking to an Italian man recently. Two friends and I were stranded in the forest (literally)and needed a lift. An Italian priest drove by and pulled over to check on the three damsels in distress (I swear this is not the beginning of a bad joke). He subsequently offered us a ride and ultimately charged us nothing for his 20 kilometers of kindness. As we bid adieu, I took his hand in mine and held it there, thanking him for his compassion and wishing him a good trip. I was rather effusive. I held his hand throughout. Then I felt something very unfamiliar. I felt him pull his hand out of mine in what felt like disgust—or perhaps just discomfort. Either way, that was the first time anyone had ever reacted towards me as though I’d held on for too long. That’s when I knew I no longer needed my personal space.

Taking Off the Rose-Colored Glasses

A friend recently told me that he thinks my blog is too rosy. I believe the word he used was “nauseating.” I’m fairly certain he was kidding (I can already here some of you standing up in my defense. Thanks, Grandma!), but in the spirit of creating a well-rounded body of work, I am going to write today about things I miss. This will soon be followed by a Things I Will Miss piece which will focus on all that I love about Rwanda, but in the spirit if curing my friend’s stomachache, here’s to pessimism:

I miss that feeling of accomplishment. That which one gets from a task completed in a timely manner, from an item crossed off a list. There are days when I get things done. If I look at the total sum of what I’ve done for the past 8 months, it is certainly not a void. But the fact of the matter is, it took me a really long time to do it all, and there were innumerable frustrations along the way. I hope someday soon to set a goal, resolve how I will achieve it, and actually do so without being thwarted repeatedly.

I miss technology working as it should. When I get into the office in the morning, it should not take 41 minutes for my computer to decide to wake up. My wireless card should not suddenly stop being recognized. Power outages should not occur somewhere between every few minutes and every few hours (but most definitely every day). And when they do, my laptop should not be paralyzingly confused by suddenly having to resort to battery power. I want internet that permits me to load a page, any page, of the web in less than 2.76 minutes. I want internet that does not cut out every single time I am about to accomplish something (see above re: accomplishments).

I miss showering—the concept of water falling on one’s head from above without manual labor and buckets. Hot water is an added bonus. I will never again for as long as I live take for granted the magic that is a hot shower.

I miss walking down the street and going unnoticed. Not having to spend the entire time I am in public focusing on looking like I know what I’m doing because I know full well that every single person in public at that moment is trying to figure out exactly that. I miss flying under the radar, being able to duck in to a shop and buy a bottle of water without being a laughing stock purely because I look different from the other people in the store. It makes me want to stop drinking water. I want to be able to take public transportation just like everyone else, without people commenting every single time I enter the bus at how surprising it is that I am on it.

I miss eating what I like. I never liked cooking, so I don’t miss that. But I miss the variety of food that exists in the U.S. I miss enjoying eating and not getting irritated every time I feel a hunger pang come on.

I miss my family. I miss having family around. I miss the support that we try to emulate via email but that can only fully be realized in real live hugs. They define the exact opposite of loneliness.

I miss making a plan and having it come through. I have quit planning in order to combat the initial frustrations of failed plans, and I don’t miss planning necessarily. But on the odd occasions where I do still make a plan, get my hopes up, or count on something I really wish that it would actually work out.

I miss speaking a common language. I miss being understood when I speak, not having to slow down my speech to the point where I bore myself, and having to eliminate all impressive vocabulary words from my vernacular in order to be understood. I miss knowing what people are saying about me when they do so right next to me, or knowing why 11 out of 15 people in the minibus are (seemingly) angrily fighting. I don’t want to get nervous before conversations anymore simply because I know that the likelihood that the nature of my question is properly understood is slim to none. And I miss being able to talk to whomever I choose without having to rely on a translator to be there at the right moment or to include all details, even those he deems extraneous. I am a language person. I miss being able to use it.

Of course, I can’t leave it at that. I’m too devoted to rosiness I guess. So I’ll close by saying that despite it all, I am fully confident that my list of things I’ll miss about East Africa will be equally emphatic. . .

How Do You Run a Shop in a Neighborhood with No Cash?

I’ve always been curious about what happens when microfinance clients open businesses in places where there is very little capital. Many operate small shops of household necessities but the placement of such stores is generally based more on proximity to home than a strategic evaluation of which part of town is most profitable. So how do they cope if their customers can’t afford to buy anything? Last week, I got my answer: credit.

Pen and Paper: How to issue credit, the old fashioned way

I was in the field with the Kiva Coordinator, John, collecting journals. We were meeting with a client who sells vegetables in a small neighborhood in Kigali, Rwanda. After a series of preliminary questions, I asked the client if he was having any difficulties with his business.

“Creditors,” was the translation I received for his answer.

I paused, trying to re-translate it into something that would make sense. I couldn’t quite guess what he meant, so I just asked. Without going back to the client for more of an explanation, John expanded upon the client’s assertion,

“His customers owe him money but they’re not paying.”

Ahh so he may mean “debtors,” in which case this microfinance client is both a credit-receiver and a credit-giver. Could it be? People always speak about Africa’s cash only economy and I have yet to meet a Rwandese with a credit card so it hadn’t occurred to me that there was a widespread grassroots credit system sans plastic. I shared my surprise with the Kiva Coordinator who gave me the dreaded answer:
“You didn’t know that! Everyone knows that!”
“No one ever told me!” I exclaimed in my defense.
“That’s because it’s so obvious!” John countered. Touché.

Apparently, small shopkeepers all over Rwanda accept credit in the form of an IOU from their customers. If I was going to be the last to know (did all of you already know this?) I wanted to at least fully understand it, so I dove in. What John and the client explained is that most of his customers are regulars. They live nearby and he knows them well. A lot of them don’t have cash in the middle of the month but they still need vegetables so he keeps a record of what they have purchased and at the end of the month he presents them with their tab. He keeps careful records to know exactly how much each customer owes him. When I asked to see the records, he produced three notebooks with pages and pages filled with customers’ bills.

Here, one page of his careful notes of what his customers owe

Lately, he says people aren’t paying. Unfortunately, he doesn’t feel that he can stop accepting credit. If he did, “he wouldn’t sell anything,” John explained. But how does he ensure repayment? How can he get the money if his neighbors insist there is none? He didn’t seem to have an answer. The difficulty with grassroots credit, I suppose, is that there are not systems to ensure that the creditor is ever paid. He could refuse to sell to his customers until they pay, but then they could go to another vendor. He could employ some sort of social pressure since he is based in a small community and try to make it a social taboo not to pay, but if many people in the community are in the same position, that won’t necessarily work.

I don’t have a good solution as to how to get the client his money. We all talk a fair amount about the principle of credit and debt. We debate whether it is wise to purchase things if you don’t have the money to do so. As a shopper myself, I have attempted not to purchase goods on credit unless I knew I would have the money to pay for them at the end of the month. So are this client’s customers wrong to buy vegetables when they’re not sure if they can afford it? If he stopped accepting credit, sales would decrease because clients couldn’t afford the goods or because there would only be a few days each month that they could. The credit keeps his sales more constant which from a stocking perspective is wise in a perishable goods market. But if his customers are buying without knowing if or when they can pay, then credit isn’t being used properly. For me, a large credit card company would be the victim and they would ultimately sock it to me through large fees. Unfortunately, this client doesn’t have that kind of leverage. So what’s the solution? Is there a scenario in which he can keep his business profitable in a neighborhood where customers can’t pay?

The Importance of My Fellow Fellows

Not every day as a Kiva Fellow is a good one. There are days when I wait for seven hours for a credit officer to be available to take me to the field to collect journal updates for only two clients. There are hours of intermittent internet in which I am able to load less than one page. There are the clients I meet about whom I would be inspired except that after doing the math I’m not convinced they’ve found a way to run their businesses with a net profit. Luckily, after more than 7 months of victories and setbacks, I think I’m in the black.

Small moments compensate for unpleasant hours. A coworker’s delight at a weak attempt at their local language can be contagious. The look of recognition on the faces of loan officers to whom I just presented a new template keeps me going for days. And the shy request by a client to have a picture taken with me makes me feel that my presence is appreciated.

On top of the ups and downs of the day-to-day, though, there is another secret to my contentment: my fellow fellows. In ways both tiny and massive, unexpected and enormously appreciated, having a virtual community of fellows makes my life infinitely better. During training in June, I left four days at Kiva HQ disappointed that after meeting so many fascinating and fun people I would ultimately embark on this fellowship solo. I only wished we could all be placed at the same MFI. Kiva said no—that would sort of defeat the purpose. Time and again, however, I’ve been able to turn to them for all manner of support despite great distances between us.

Three Fellows (Nabomita, Zack, and me) in Mombasa, Kenya--brainstorming about Kiva and how to save the world

Not sure how to shrink a photo? Wondering if anyone has an effective training Power Point presentation? Curious about coping mechanisms for language barriers? For all manner of information—from the recreational to the professional—fellows have proven to be an essential resource.

And as it turns out, Kiva has good judgment. As my Fellows class, KF5, has gradually finished up in the field, I despaired that I’d be left alone without my network of compatriots. I was entirely wrong. When I risked deportation from Tanzania, I was able to call on a KF6 and stay with her in Kenya for a week—all arranged having never met. From there I went on to intrude on another Fellow whose acquaintance I had never made but who quickly became an indispensable friend. The prospect of Christmas and New Years alone in Africa was depressing so three KF6ers and I ignored the fact that we did not know each other and made plans to travel Africa together to be in the company of people whom we knew would soon be friends.

On the job in Kisumu, Kenya--I met and stayed with Sarah

New Year's in Kigali, Rwanda--in the good company of fellow Fellows Ankush and Sarah

Whether it’s crossing African borders to see one another or participating in email chains that gain momentum and garner nearly 50 responses from Fellows in the same boat, I couldn’t live without my fellow fellows. It’s possible that I’ll never actually be in the same room as some of the fellows with whom I’ve been in frequent correspondence. Others I’m quite sure will persuade me to cross one or more countries just to see them again. Whether in Cameroon or Cambodia, Bolivia or Tanzania the fellows play a significant role both in helping me to get through the day and in helping me to add the most possible value to Kiva and my microfinance institution placement. There’s nothing like a real, live human resource to advise, commiserate, support, and amuse. Thanks for keeping me sane, Fellows!

Jara and I did a joint staff training when we were both placed in Tanzania

I'm so excited to be with the two other Fellows in Tanzania that I can't stop talking

New Pictures Are Up!

For my Rwanda pictures, I’m using Picasa instead of Flickr because I received feedback that Picasa is easier to use and better for viewing.  The only downside is that there’s no way to publish thumbnail teasers on the right hand side of my blog.  So I will announce the appearance of two new albums with their very own blog entry.  Check out my Rwanda albums here.

For those of you who require a teaser in order to be enticed to check out an album, here is my thumbnail-equivalent:

This was likely taken right after I almost fell, which happened repeatedly during a hike through Nyungwe forest

I Bless the Rains Down in Africa

View from a wooden shelter created for people like me, scrambling along an abandoned street when the rain hits. Here, rain in the Southern Province of Rwanda

I’ve always thought that the lyrics to Toto’s song were “I miss the rains down in Africa.” I had prepared to write a blog entry based on that premise only to learn, upon looking up the song’s artist, that those are not the words. I am convinced that once I leave here, the rains are one thing I’ll miss about Africa.  But in keeping in line with Toto, for now I will focus on blessing them–or at least describing the way in which they are deserving of awe and their own song. The rains here are distinctive and debilitating. They fall like a blanket, washing from the streets all movements, commerce, and conversation. When I woke up this morning, the first thing I heard was heavy rainfall and I knew I could press the snooze a few more times before rousing myself. One cannot go to work when it’s raining.

Rain is to East Africa what snow is to the northeastern United States. The only difference is that here we have no weather reporters telling us that school has been canceled or offices are closed. We have no way of projecting how much is expected or when it will end. We cannot navigate through it with plows and heavy-duty ice scrapers. Instead, the unspoken rule is that when it is raining, you need not go anywhere, and when it stops you are to carry on. During the rains, motorbikes take cover at petrol stations, minibuses stop running their routes. A whole population that uses these or their own feet takes refuge under shelter, watching the rain fall and waiting for it to subside.

During my first few heavy rains I realized that it was not feasible for me to get where I was supposed to be while it was raining. I felt the need to call someone and tell him or her that I would be late, that I couldn’t get there now. What an American mindset. I soon learned that such a call is not a revelation nor is it necessary. Absence is a given when it rains. This morning, I began my trek to the office as soon as the rain stopped, but once I arrived, coworkers asked me not why I was late, but rather how I was able to come here in all the rain. Just like so many things in Africa, we try to make plans or lay out a meeting schedule but if the rains come, all we can do is wait and see when we will be able to resume productivity.

There are two major differences in rainfall here vs. that in the U.S. One is the frequency. Since the end of January, it has rained nearly every day in Kigali, and by all accounts that is quite unusual for this time of year. I can think of no comparable regularity of rainfall back home. On the contrary, I remember when I used to complain about three back-to-back days of rain. I can recall only two days in the last 37 in which it did not rain. A second difference is the weight with which it falls. It falls with gusto, with conviction. There is no drizzling nor does the rain show any trepidation. Rather it falls blindingly so that you can’t see more than a few feet in front of you. It can keep up this level of downpour for anywhere from one to four hours, and there is no way of knowing which it will be or if, once it stops, it is finished for the day or merely taking a break.

Despite the inconveniences, changes of plan, and mess associated with the rain (think a country of dirt roads under the weight of daily rain), I will, as Toto does not say, miss the rains down in Africa.  There is something magical about being so connected to nature that daily activities depend upon nature’s compliance.