Kiva Fellows Program

Breaking the ice at XacBank

Jan 4, 2009

Why is it that when you’re just starting a job, you always introduce yourself to the CEO with spinach in your teeth, or rip your pants pocket, or spill toner on your shirt? My finest hour was when I was starting on the copy desk at a newspaper, trying to make a good impression as a [...]

-- posted by kivamark at Jan 4, 2009

Dec 26, 2008

It is the last day at HKL today and I’m heading back to my country-Japan. So I am reviewing what I did in Cambodia. Maybe my contribution is a little different from other fellows due to different background-I’m from Asia. The reason I became Kiva fellow is to learn Kiva and micro finance and then try [...]

-- posted by kanaeochiai at Dec 26, 2008

The Power of Music: Crossing the Border into Togo

Dec 23, 2008

I spent the weekend in Lomé, Togo with Abby Gray, another Kiva fellow at WAGES. Wages is basically like Alide in a few years: larger, and with a deeper relationship with Kiva. To get to Togo, I had to cross the border from Benin to Togo alone, which was just a little bit more harrowing [...]

-- posted by catch22sl at Dec 23, 2008

АМЕРИКАНСКИ?

Dec 22, 2008

It’s 5am and the electricity has just come back on here in my Khujand apartment. I know because the sheet metal of the ‘70’s era space heater plugged into the wall has started to creak and crack as it warms. I’m not typically up at this hour but it’s D-day – my departure – [...]

-- posted by Rob at Dec 22, 2008

A Day in the Life of a Kiva Fellow

Dec 21, 2008

After finishing my Kiva fellowship with EDAPROSPO last week, I moved out of Lima and into the province of Junín in the sierras of Peru.  My time with Microfinanzas PRISMA is quite short and so I’ve engaged in a whirlwind tour of meeting entrepreneurs, collecting their stories, and posting journal updates.  As the PRISMA office [...]

-- posted by joshtoro at Dec 21, 2008

Christmas in Honduras

Dec 20, 2008

Christmas in Honduras sunny and delicious. Christmas parties are everywhere, and come with very royally dressed women and scantily dressed girls. Office beauty pageants. The days are a warm 80 degrees, toasty not humid. I’m eating Tres Leches cake like my heart is made of iron, not soft, susceptible tissue. I can’t get enough of the [...]

-- posted by Sierra Visher at Dec 20, 2008

Martha Stewart would never survive Tajikistan

Dec 18, 2008

I had been planning for today’s lasagna lunch since the second week of my fellowship when one my colleagues asked if I could make his favorite dish from the U.S. How could I say no? This man had picked me up at the border, arranged my housing, and even helped me secure a [...]

-- posted by Carrie Ferrence at Dec 18, 2008

silly Western expectations

Dec 18, 2008

Today is my last day in Bosnia, the first of my Kiva placements. I have committed a year to volunteering with Kiva, and I initially hoped to write a book about the experience.  Last August, I imagined myself sitting on a street corner in Kenya, smoking cheap cigarettes.  Poor children would laugh in the distance and [...]

-- posted by milena08 at Dec 18, 2008

Recession-Resistant Microfinance

Dec 17, 2008

Storm clouds are gathering in Eastern Europe.  Ukraine, Hungary, and Iceland share the news headlines as the wold’s foremost victims of the global financial crisis.   Political infighting and tensions with Russia, along with a severely declining steel industry have deepened the effects across Ukraine.   There is a silver lining, but more on that [...]

-- posted by Evie at Dec 17, 2008

It Costs $5000 To Marry Your Daughter?!?!

Dec 17, 2008

In Cambodia there is a popular song called Tov Dondung Kon Key by Khemarak Sereymon. The song is VERY catchy and we hear it EVERYWHERE. The best part of the song is the story. It’s about a guy who has this crush on a girl who he meets at the market. When he goes with [...]

-- posted by Sanjaya P at Dec 17, 2008