I have arrived, and am continuously amazed by the friendliness and hospitality of everyone here. I am staying with the director of FAPE for this week, after which I will be moving to the seminary. He has a wife, who he only refers to as his amor, and a two year old son.  You  know how sometimes kids are hard to understand while they are learning to talk?  Well, it’s near impossible to hear anything other than jibberish when they are learning to talk in another language.

Today, I went to the organization’s office, and was intorduced to loads of people, from the loan officers, to the accountants, the secretaries, and everyone else.  Except for the people who get loans.  Tomorrow, I am going to San Martin to see this and collect some payments.  Also today, I discussed how to better use Kiva, and how everything works in the office.  On the way home, I drove a diesel pick-up truck through the streets of Guatemala City.  In order to change lanes, the turn signal and hand wave out the window are both requirements.  It was a little nerve racking, but all things considered not too bad.  Sorry I don’t have any pictures or video, the day was too packed.  Hopefully later this week I will have them.

At the end of every meal we say, “gracias,” to which someone responds “buen provecho.”  To you all, I say gracias and good night.

The people I come in contact with

The people I come in contact with.

This is how Kiva works.  You give a loan.  The loans goes through Kiva.  It goes to an microfinance institution.   They give money to a lender.

I will working with a microfinance institution Guatemala City (FAPE) to help them better work with Kiva, and get more loans to those who need them.  Most of what I will be doing is helping FAPE understand the way Kiva works better, and helping them to post more loans on Kiva’s websites.  The barriers will be cultural, financial, temporal, and who-knows-al.

Another important job of mine is maintaining transparency.  I am going to work with FAPE to help them put more information on Kiva’s website on exactly who their borrowers are.  In this role, I will be meeting and interview the individual burrowers.

A social critic named David Rodman has recently written about Kiva, critisizing its transparency.  Among his points, many of which I take issue with, he takes aim at the Kiva Fellows program and the process of interviewing borrowers: Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, hey.  What’s up from before?

For those of you who are still confused as to what I will be spending my time doing in Guatemala, here are a list of my primary activities:

-Learning words and concepts about microfinances in Spanish, as I have never learned them in English and proceeding to forget everything about Biology, the brain and the science of celestial mechanics.  Also, there are about 22 indigenous languages in Guatemala, and neither Spanish nor dolphin speak will help me here.

-Interviewing borrowers and updating journal entries on Kiva’s website.  The main reason Kiva is so spectacular is that the people who lend money receive information of where their loan went and what impact it actually had.  It’s about creating a personal relation, not just a one-way flow of money.  I will be meeting with individual entrepreneurs, having a “hands-on cultural experience,” and learn more in one day than I did during three months of studying for the  MCAT.  I will do my best to translate and passionately and accurately articulate these stories to the lenders.

-Adding my humble thoughts to the fellows blog and this blog.  I promise to tell everyone just how much a 6′3″ white person sticks out in Guatemala.   As height largely depends on nutrition and, according to the World Bank, about 75% of Guatemalans are living in poverty, I might look different from other people.

-Social Performance Monitoring.  Is microfinance actually helping these Guatemalans move out of poverty?  I’ll be looking at non-monetary factors to see if this is actually the case.

-Empowering others.  There is nothing like giving someone the ability to fulfill their dreams.  With Kiva and this fellowship, we are giving with the expectation that others will give their effort in return.  It is not a blank donation, but a call for action.  The entrepreneurs are not given money to sit back and relax, but rather to step forward and achieve.

Finally, the shameless offer.  For every dollar that you contribute,  I will do a shoulder stand for that many seconds. That means, if you give me a Kiva gift certificate for 25 dollars, I will be doing a 25 second shoulder stand.  How many seconds do you think I can do it for?  If you would like me to videotape this as proof and send it to you, let me know and I will.   Ways to contribute are outlined below and on the side bar.  I hope to go to Guatemala with your help and support and a firm set of abs.