Denis Alberto Gómez López

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Denis Alberto Gómez López by AFODENIC in Nicaragua. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 12 months, AFODENIC will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

As you may remember, you helped fund a loan on Kiva about a year ago to Denis Alberto Gomez Lopez. Denis, a car mechanic, requested the loan so that he could buy lubricants to expand the inventory in his store.

Yesterday I got the chance to meet Denis and to learn that, unfortunately, things have not gone so well for him. Shortly after receiving his loan, Denis’s store was robbed. He told me how a group of thieves came in, pretended to be clients, pulled out firearms, and stole 20,000 cordobas from the store, approximately equivalent to $1,000. This was half of all of the money that was in the store at the time, and as Denis did not have savings, this represented a major loss for him and his business. Denis said that he called the police but they never came.

After this tragedy, Denis tried to keep his business open but he could not raise sales enough, and he was forced to close it. AFODENIC, Kiva’s field partner that disbursed Denis’s loan, gave him time to try to recover his business or the money somehow, but he could not. He said he felt bad about this especially because of the obligation he had to pay back his loan, an obligation that he wanted and still wants to fulfill. His brother gave him a job at the shop he runs, a business similar to the one Denis had. He does oil changes, washes cars, and the like. He is still trying to pay back the loan, but he is not making a lot of money even though he works a lot, and he also wants to be able to earn money.

Denis lives with his two kids, his partner, and her two kids. All four kids are in school, and his partner works in a food store. He said that this experience has been difficult on his family, but they are more or less doing okay.

In the long run, Denis would like to be able to start a new business, similar to the one he had because that is where his area of expertise lies. For now though, he will continue to work at his brother’s business until he can pay back his loan.

Thank you for reading this journal update,

Victoria Kabak, Kiva Fellow, AFODENIC

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