Patricia Blanca Toledo Flores

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Patricia Blanca Toledo Flores by Fundación Agrocapital in Bolivia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 15 months, Fundación Agrocapital will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Patricia is a cheerful young woman with a quick smile and lots of stories to tell. She used her Kiva loan to buy ingredients to make anticuchos (beef heart kabobs) and to pay off some personal debts. She had had a bit of trouble repaying previous loans due to medical expenses incurred as the result of a kidney condition that she and her daughter both suffer from. Her daughter is in and out of the hospital every three to four months. “She’s always sick… all the doctors know her,” Patricia chuckles sadly.

Patricia had been serving as the caretaker of a house belonging to a woman she owed money to. The homeowner had been living elsewhere, but returned sooner than expected and gave Patricia an ultimatum: she could either pay her US $3,000 or move out. Patricia chose to move in with her father, and recently refinanced her Kiva loan so that she can build an extra room onto her father’s house for her and her daughter to live in. Construction has not yet started, but Patricia is hopeful about finally having a place of her own to live in along with her family.

Despite her personal struggles with illness, single parenthood and debt, Patricia’s business is doing very well. She inherited her anticucho stand from her mother, who recently passed away. In addition to having her own regular customers, Patricia has recently won back some of her mother’s former customers, people who she hadn’t seen for years but who stopped by to check on Patricia after they heard about her mother. Thanks to these additional customers, Patricia’s sales are growing.

Patricia will soon be getting a bit of publicity that should give her business an additional boost: she will be appearing in several scenes of the movie “La Vida del Pacholo,” which stars Pacholo, a popular Bolivian comic. Patricia is an extra, and will appear in the background selling her anticuchos. She seems excited about this opportunity, and it’s good to hear that things have been going better for her after having faced so many hardships over the past couple of years.

Patricia would like to thank her Kiva lenders, and says that she is very grateful that they have placed their trust in her.

Just wanted to let you know that I stopped by to do a bit of client follow-up and verify the claim that Pati's anticuchos are the best in Cochabamba. I’d never tried anticuchos before, and as an almost-vegetarian I was less than thrilled with the idea of eating a cow’s heart, but I was blown away. They were truly delicious, a perfect late-night snack. Though I don’t have much to compare them with, I have no doubt that Pati’s anticuchos really are the best in Cochabamba. The meat is thin-sliced, flavorful and juicy, and perfect to wrap around the golf-ball-sized potatoes. The peanut sauce is rich and pleasantly spicy, just enough to make your nose run a little bit but not enough to make you need to drink a glass of milk.

I licked all of my fingers afterwards.

I went to visit Patricia in her home today, and she came out with a smile and greeted me and Julio, her loan officer. Since she is such a positive person, it took me a few seconds to realize that Patricia was very ill--she told us with a wry laugh that she has lost more than four pounds in just the last five days since she has not been hungry.

She explained that she stopped selling anticuchos seven days ago because of her illness, but she hopes to get back on her feet soon. In addition, she is staying home since she is conscientious about not wanting to infect her clients. Though she's sick, she mustered enough energy to wash her daughter's clothes this morning. Although she has been ill with other ailments for the past three months, she has been putting in long work hours. The loan has helped her to increase her capital and make more profits than she used to, in order to pay for her medical expenses. In fact, with the medicines she has been taking, she is a lot more stable now. She comments, "My clients must be crying right now. They hate when I don't come to work since I have the best quality anticuchos."

I was inspired by Patricia's smile and determination to get better and get back to do what she loves--making anticuchos for her loyal clients.

If this entrepreneur interested you, consider lending to more AgroCapital clients here.