What am I actually doing here?

People keep asking me what I’m actually doing here, and the reason I haven’t really written about that yet is because it’s taken a while to figure it out. This is a really interesting time to be here because we are in the process of merging with a huge international organization, but that presents a lot of challenges as far as my internship, because no one has time to give us things to do, and authority is so diffuse that we never know who to ask. So there were many days of waiting around for meetings that never happened, but now I have a project! So here it is. (For people who don’t know, I’m working with a microfinance organization, which gives small loans (generally between $20-$100) to Rwandese people in order to help them start or expand small businesses. It’s an awesome idea, started by a guy in Bangladesh who won the Nobel peace prize for it in 2006. If you want to know more about microfinance in general, there are great documents and information on the following web pages: www.grameen-info.org, www.cgap.org, www.opportunity.org which is the organization we’re merging with, www.villagebanking.org, www.brac.net, and www.themix.org.)

I am working on assessing social impact. The clients obviously have economic change in their lives when they receive the loans, but I am personally more interested in the social change that occurs. Social change is far-reaching, it impacts not only the families who get the loans, but their entire communities and maybe eventually entire countries. Obviously, there are many areas of convergence, and some things like education are equal parts social and economic. But in my own studies and future work I really hope to work with the way that economic development affects the societies in cultural, interpersonal ways. It works out for the people at work as well because they have a lot of documentation about economic impact, but do not have a social impact study, which they really need in order to apply for grants and show to stockholders. So I’m working with one of the other interns on doing a study. We wrote it last week, and this week we’ve been working on the kinyarwanda translation with some Rwandese interns. Yesterday we tested it with clients in Kigali to identify problematic questions, and for the next two weeks we will be interviewing clients in the field. After that, data coding and analysis. I’m excited to do it, I think it will be a good jumping-off point for some research that I can use for my thesis. But because we didn’t really do anything for the first month, we now don’t have a lot of time to finish it, so there are some things that the report cannot include. It’s too bad that we couldn’t get on this right away, and time is so short now it will be a minor miracle if we actually have a final report by mid-August, but I think that even if we have to finish editing the report after we leave, it will be worth it.

It is challenging to figure out how to get things done here because the business climate is so different. It's a cultural thing that is partly in my favor, because they are pretty relaxed about things and want us to enjoy ourselves, but it's also extremely frustrating because something that would take a 1-hour meeting in the US takes a week to get done here. As with anything big and exciting like this, there will be a re-evaluation of expectations once it actually starts. And what I am realizing is that due to technological/financial/cultural/linguistic constraints, this internship is going to be much different that what I had expected, as far as what I will get out of it academically and as far as how much I will be able to make myself useful. They are really busy with the merger right now, and it feels like it's too hard for them to take the time to give us things to do, so we can't be very useful unless we do things on our own. Which is really hard, given that we don't know our way around very well, that we don't speak kinyarwanda, and that every time we try to do anything, they worry because we are women doing something by ourselves. It is also extremely difficult to comminucate because no one will give us a straight answer (cultural thing) and authority is so diffuse that we never know who should have the final say (merger thing). So, I am re-evaluating what is realistic for me to try to do while I'm here. I think the impact assessment will be the best mix of useful for them, useful for me, realistically accomplishable, and not mind-numblingly boring (as in, sitting in on meetings conducted in kinyarwanda for 5 hours a day.) Basically, the most intersting thing I'm learning is how to conduct business in an environment that seems to be un-business in every way. This something that I am slowly getting through my head, and something that I need to understand if I plan to work abroad in a development-related field. I didn't realize coming into this how deeply the cultural issues would impact my work experience. So, that is turning out to be what I am actually learning. Just as important, if not more, but very different.

Microfinance is so interesting because it is a relatively new concept in development, and it was originally conceived to reach the poorest of the poor. But it has morphed into something that reaches the poorest of the working poor, but not necessarily the destitute (people living on less than US $1 per day). But, it has caught on all over the world and seems to be generating some results. However, there are problems with repayment rates (it varies greatly by organization) and the long-term sustainability of the organizations is questionable. Most of them rely greatly on donor money right now, and do not turn enough of a profit to be self-fulfilling and sustainable in the long term, which is the problem that a lot of NGOs and aid organizations experience, and one of the reasons why more people don’t get the aid they need.

Culturally, all aid is touchy because sometimes it is hard to preserve culture when you “help” certain communities. Microfinance is especially tricky, because in some ways it helps preserve culture, but because it is so financial, it also necessitates huge cultural changes. For example, the loans can help preserve culture by allowing people to stay in their villages and continue with traditional forms of commerce like agriculture, crafts like basket-making, etc. Historically, there have been problems in poor areas (a good example might be border towns in Mexico) where large corporations install factories, mines, and other large-scale enterprise. The local communities often lose control of land that has historically been under their control, and they can no longer continue with traditional ways of life. So, to survive, they are basically forced to work in these mines or factories, and that creates a whole new category of social problems to overcome. In this way, microfinance can help vulnerable and rural communities become self-reliant without uprooting local culture. But for some people/cultures, thinking about loans, investment, savings accounts and loan repayment schedules can be a major change from the way money and property has traditionally been treated. The bank that we’re opening soon takes on some of these challenges by holding free training sessions, and specially training the employees to deal with clients unfamiliar with banking. They also use a special ID system with cameras and fingerprint machines, because many of the clients have no official ID cards or are illiterate.

The loans work like this: A group of people in a community find out about the program through friends, the market, word of mouth, etc, and they decide to start a community bank. The bank is assigned a loan officer, often someone who lives in a nearby village or the same town, who supervises the community bank’s (CB’s) activities. The CB has trainings to learn about how to save, how to repay the loans, all the basics. And then all the people come together and decide who gets to have the loans. They function by mutual guarantee, which means that all the members of the CB are responsible for each other, and if someone doesn’t pay, everyone puts up money to cover that person’s payment. People start out with small amounts, around US $20, and they can increase their loan based on their repayment history and the testimonies of the other CB members. After they participate in the CB for two loan cycles, they can take other kinds of loans, like village phone loans, home improvement loans, bicycle loans, etc. The websites I listed earlier will have more details, but this is the basic way my organization functions. Most of the clients I have met and spoken with have businesses like selling rice and flour at the market, selling things as a street vendor (like shoes, clothes, or fruit), running small shops, or sewing clothes. When the impact assessment is done, I will put some of the results up.

One small anecdote and then I really need to sleep, because the sun comes up really early so I’m usually awake by 5:30… Last night before dinner, we were sitting around talking, when I spied a spider on the floor. It wasn’t massive, but definitely larger than I’m comfortable with. (Its body was about the size of a nickel, and including the legs it was three or four inches across. One of my personal goals for the summer was to be okay with the bugs, and especially to get over my fairly intense fear of spiders. So I told everyone this, and went over to look at the spider. I kneeled (knelt? I never know) down by it, looked it over for a while, really examining it. It was interesting, definitely the closest I’ve ever been to one that big, and my heart rate even slowed down after a minute or so. I was thinking, “Good job, Ellen, you’re really okay with this.” So I decided the next step was to put it outside instead of killing it. Which was partially to spare it, and partially to not have to clean its guts off the floor. Normally, I let the Rwandese put the bugs outside, and their preferred method is to use a flip-flop to push them under the door. Now, a flip-flop requires your hand to be pretty close to the creature, and also allows for the possibility that it will scurry the opposite direction and possibly even come into contact with one of your feet. But I was feeling brave, so I went over to get a sandal and said “Okay, I’m going to put it outside.” Everyone pretty much thought I was crazy already for looking at it for so long, that they were like “Whatever, weirdo scaredy-cat American.” So I bent down, pushed it with the sandal, it darted TOWARD me, I dropped the shoe, screamed, jumped up, and ran to the couch. And everyone cracked up for about 10 minutes, while Daniel calmly pushed it under the door and off the porch. I’m thinking that was too many steps too fast, but I am definitely making progress. Although maybe next time I will use the bowl and paper method to trap it, which avoids accidentally touching it or seeing it run.

Weekend in Kibuye

Wow. I have been here over a month now, and it seems like my time left is so short. I knew this would happen, but it’s still disappointing. I want to stay forever! Well, actually not, but sometimes it really feels that way. Before I left, I freaked out when I saw the pile of malaria pills, one for every day that I’m here, because it seemed like so many. But yesterday I made a list of all the things I want to do that have to be done on weekends, like trips to other cities and to a national park, and there are the same number of things as there are weekends left! So, I am trying to still do lots of things but also not be stressed out about it, and at the same time being sure to invest in my relationships with the women at work and the family I’m staying with. I haven’t written in a while, because I’ve been really busy, but that means there is a lot to catch up on. We will start with the now-infamous weekend at Lake Kivu.

It was amazing, at least for the first day. Kirsten and I took the bus, which was an experience. They are buses the same size as the ones in town, which fit 18 people. Except that everyone had bags because they were going for the weekend, and there is nowhere to put them besides your lap. So, we got in, and made sure to get a seat by the window because air circulation is key on 3-hour trips in close quarters like that. And we were pleasantly surprised to find that the bus wasn’t packed to its usual capacity. Maybe they don’t fill them as full on these long trips so that we will have more room? Oh, silly innocent white girls. No, there was another stop at another bus station before leaving Kigali. As it turns out, to make it really worth their while, on the long trips, they pack you in even more. Yes, there were 21 of us on this bus, 5 across in our row (why only us??) and it is at this moment, when we’re discreetly trying to count the number of people (it currently holds the record) that we discover that our window is the only one that doesn’t open. Deep breath, okay. It was funny more that anything else, except the last hour of the trip which is the most excruciatingly winding road I have ever been on. Imagine Portland to the coast stretched and contorted, going way too fast, on roads only wide enough for one car, but miraculously allowing cars, buses, huge trucks, cows, bicycles, motos, and tiny children to pass simultaneously. It was actually pretty amazing. There is definitely order in chaos, this was proof.

But we got there, no one died, and no one was carsick, which are really the goals on any journey like this. And when we got into Kibuye, we were wondering how to get to our guest house (no taxis) or even where it was (no planning ahead…) when a really nice girl saw our helplessness and offered us a lift. She spoke French, and she and her boyfriend even came to translate our check-in procedure. So we got to our room, which was AMAZING in every way (as in super comfy, came with mosquito nets, had HOT WATER, and looked directly out onto a beautiful porch sitting area and the most amazing view of the lake.) All for $20 a night. I love this place. We went down to the restaurant to get some food, and as we were walking by the tables I heard a group of girls speaking Québecois French. We went over to say hi, and it turns out that some of them go to my university! It took us an hour of conversation to realize that two of them are friends of two of my friends in Montreal, who separately put me in touch with people they knew who would be in Rwanda this summer, and who I had forgotten about completely until sending them an email the day before, which they had not even received yet. Amazing coincidence. They are here with Québec Sans Frontières (Quebec Without Borders) and are staying in villages outside of Gitarama. So, we ate with them and had a great time, and Saturday they invited us to go on with them to some islands on the lake, via a very sketchy boat that definitely had holes in the bottom. But hey, we’re still alive! We hiked, were swarmed by thousands of bats, swam, had genius tropical fruit and ordered some goat kabobs for lunch. From now on, when I see animals that are possible food sources, I will take care not to develop personal relationships with them right around lunchtime. But there was this cute goat that we said hi to when we got to the island. But when it was time to order lunch, we had pretty much forgotten about it, until we saw the guy who took our order go untie it, and shout something to his buddy, who left, reappeared with a machete, and took the goat to the other side of the island. About an hour later, he reappeared with some kabobs and lit a fire. We were obviously a bit surprised at the whole affair, but after the goat had sacrificed himself to feed us, it would be really insulting not to eat it, right? And they were definitely the best kebabs I’ve had this whole trip. The non-vegetarian thing is really working out well. Later we were sitting with our chairs partly in the water, enjoying island paradise with a cold beer, when Kirsten come over and says “Um, guys, I just threw up. A lot. I think I need to go back.”

Stranded on an island inhabited only by the guy who slaughtered our goat is not really the place you want to discover that someone has food poisoning. Luckily the boat was docked and everyone else was thinking about leaving soon anyway, so we left and she made it back to the guest house. She went back to the room, and I hung out with les québecoises, and the following morning Kirsten’s host family sent their driver to come get us. The bus ride back would have pretty much been impossible. She is staying with an American family here, and this was one of the circumstances that made us remember that sometimes, that’s really a good thing. (They also have a washing machine, which I might use at some point…)

So, right before we got in the car to come home, my stomach started feeling a bit interesting as well. But I just made myself wait until we got home before I allowed myself to feel sick. The ride was going okay, we were taking the curves pretty well, until we ran into someone’s face. Seriously, a woman was walking down the street, and our mirror smacked her in the face. I didn’t really see it happen, I just saw the mirror collapse inward (thank god they are made to do that!) and then a bunch of people gathered around and made the driver stop the car. Now, I see accidents a lot here, which is to be expected when the rules are taken lightly at best and so many types of traffic share the roads. Generally I think it is assumed that if you get hit, you’re the idiot for not getting out of the way. But, when you’re in a car, and you hit a pedestrian, even if she was walking in traffic (which she was) you can’t help but feel responsible. So Kirsten and I were really concerned, and a bit rattled. But the lady walked over to the car, she wasn’t bleeding, and we took her to the clinic and gave her some money. I guess that’s just how people deal with things like that here, although I still think about it and wonder if there wasn’t something else we should have done. I really hope she is okay. We made it back okay, and that’s the end of the weekend.