More notes

A few more scattered thoughts:

• It's very humid here. To give an example, I bought a package of tea biscuits (basically animal crackers) at lunch. I ate a bunch and saved some for later. By dinner time what remained was entirely soft from the humidity. The moral is eat your biscuits all at once.
• The word "ministries" is only one letter away from "miniseries". Because of the considerable missionary presence here, the word can be found everywhere. This is kind of funny when you think you see a sign for "The Holy Shepherd Miniseries" or something along those lines.
• There's a local hip hop song on the radio hear that uses "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" as it's chorus. And they're totally serious.

From my short trip

A couple things I learned on my trip to the provinces last week:

• You pay for a spot in a taxi or minibus. You don't pay for a seat, you pay for a spot. So that might mean space for one butt cheek on a shared cushion or a plank of wood.

• One of the loan officers at the microfinance branch office I visited in Makeni didn't know what a sunburn was. I had to explain why I was putting sunscreen on as we sat and had a soda and waited for a client to come meet us.

Meeting Borrowers

One of the tasks I'm performing while I'm working here is to physically verify that the information about borrowers posted on Kiva's site is accurate and truthful. This involves randomly selecting ten borrowers and going to see them and ask them questions. Kiva's goal is to perform these verifications with all of their partners around the world (using Fellows like myself) at least once each year. I find this both impressive and admirable as it means mobilizing a lot of volunteers to a lot of remote places. I'm also admittedly biased.

And as mundane as the process sounds, it's the thing I've been most excited for so far. I get to meet borrowers and see their businesses. Providing credit to these people is at the core of what Kiva is trying to do.

Among the ten randomly selected borrowers, a bunch were in the city of Bo, Sierra Leone's second largest city, and Makeni, its fourth city. The cities are a couple hours inland from Freetown, "upcountry" as the inland areas are called. The travel was long and uncomfortable, but that's pretty much the bus from Boston to New York most of the time.

For each borrower visit, I went with the local loan officer who helped me find the borrower and then translate to Krio when needed. At first I think I just made the borrowers nervous -- I can only guess that when they saw their loan officer arriving with me, a "witeboi", it was a worrisome thing. The questions I had were really simple (their name, basic biographical info, loan amount, loan date, loan purpose) and I'll soon compare the borrowers' responses to the info supplied by the loaning institution. The biggest reason for these visits is for me to confirm that the people exist and that the loan amounts are correct. If not, a loaning institutions might make up names or amounts and fraudulently use the funds from Kiva for institutional operating costs.

But the best, "warm and fuzzy" part of the visits was showing the borrowers print outs of their borrower profile pages. In each instance I was greeted with huge smiles when I showed them their photo from the Kiva website and explained that a dozen people had helped fund their loan. Most of them sort of understood what Kiva meant before, but after seeing pictures of the people from around the world who contributed to their loans, each borrower was impressed, if not really touched.

++ Shameless plug: if you haven't made a loan on Kiva and have questions, send me a note. I'll tell you more about it. ++

Beaches

Over the weekend I traveled south down the peninsula that Freetown's perched atop to visit one of the many beaches along the coast.  The trip was less than 25 miles but took a couple hours: two packed minibuses, some lost wandering about, a bunch of haggling, and a ride on the back of a motorbike.  And despite the physical proximity, it really felt a world away.  The beach had fine white sand and was almost entirely deserted.  I walked past old, wildly-painted canoes where men were organizing their fishing nets.  The water was clean and clear and bathwater warm.  Locals from the nearby village approached me at midday and I bought lunch from them consisting of freshly caught and cooked fish and fried plantains.  

Yes, I'm absolutely bragging, but it was AMAZING.  I'm still shocked by how nice it was and that I felt like I was in a movie.  I can't believe it exists so close to Freetown.  

If I could post a picture I would.  I'm going back to the beaches another time (several times?) because apparently there are many different ones that stretch for miles and each has something slightly different to offer.  

Boarding House Living in Freetown

I'm living in a family's home on the west side of Freetown.  The home is owned by Mummy K, the grandmother of the family, and her granddaughter Vickie is the one who runs the boarding house side of things.  A friend of a friend of mine who lives in Freetown suggested I connect with Vickie for a place to stay.  Along with Vickie and Mummy K, there are another two or three aunts and seven or eight cousins who live here or in the connected house and are in and out all the time.  I've got my own room which locks and has mosquito netting, and there's power.  Sometimes there's power.  

I really like the place as it provides me with people to talk with and some local wisdom that I don't think I'd get if I stayed in one of the longterm hotels downtown.  For example on my first day in Freetown, one of the cousins gave me advice on catching a taxi and finding a mobile phone.  

First Day at Work

I had to wear a suit today. This is terrifying stuff... forget the the other things I ought to be worrying about. I guess I've been spoiled by a lax dress code at my former job in the States, huh?

Here's me grimacing because I had to get dressed up.

So, first day at the office. Lots of handshakes and introductions and formalities. I got to meet most of the staff at the headquarters of LAPO Sierra Leone, one of the two microfinance institutions (MFIs) I'll work with. I met two "Kiva Coordinators" who work on all the Kiva loans as well as the guy who runs the books, the branch auditor, and two directors. While working here at LAPO, I'll be sharing an office with the two staff responsible for the Kiva loans.

No clients come to the MFI headquarters. Instead, all the "action" happens at the branch offices. These are located throughout the Freetown with a few in other cities. I got the chance to visit a branch office and see loans being dispersed. In one case three women received loans for their small roadside businesses. They received a type of loan product that gives each of them funds for their own businesses, but they also form a sort of assurance group that makes them share responsibility for repayment. After they each completed paperwork and the credit officer presented them with three checks, everyone bowed their heads for the loudest of the women to say a prayer for everyone's health and for blessing of the loans.

Good first day.

Arrival

Freetown!

My arrival reminded me of a passage from a novel I read last year, You Shall Know Our Velocity, by David Eggers. The characters in the book wake up as they're landing:

The light was screaming through the windows, intent and wild, and I opened my portal's eyelid a quick few inches and we were coming at Africa at 300 mph, the ocean below striking the coast of Dakar with desperation. The neat shadow of the plane jumbled over the city's shoreline, the buildings glowing in tan and white and standing still as the water and wind came to them with all the world's fury-and then died. We were somewhere else. What were we doing here? ...

"How did we get to Africa?" he said. "Already I don't want to leave. Did you feel that air? It's different. It's African air. It's like mixed with the sun more. Like our air isn't mixed as well with the sun. Here they mix it perfectly. The sun's in the wind, the sun's in your breaths."

See the full passage here or get it here. It's a great book. It's a long quote and explicitly about Dakar but I like it and it lets you know I'm excited to be here.

When we finally made it to Freetown, I was greeted on the tarmac by a woman who would help expedite my arrival. (She's the wife of someone at one of the microfinance institutions (MFI) where I'll be working.) The reason the MFI sent someone to help me out is that I had several laptops in my carry on that were purchased in the States on their behalf. And when I say the woman (Aba) expedited things, she really went all out. She hustled me past passport control and past the yellow fever checkpoint. When my bags were slow she used her mobile to call the baggage dudes to find my duffel. And most importantly she helped me with the customs guys who had some questions about the multiple laptops.

The very final leg of my trip was by speedboat. Yep. The airport's located across a wide bay from town, so I hopped a boat and crossed over to town where I met a couple employees of the MFI. I'm really not sure who was happier about the laptop handoff (they were freakin' heavy). Anyways, they took the laptops and helped me find the boarding house where I'll be staying.

That's the arrival. More on other stuff later.