Kuska Llankasun De Rumichaca Baja. Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to KUSKA LLANKASUN DE RUMICHACA BAJA. Group, consisting of PERCY HUALLPAYUNCA YLLA, JAIME GAMARRA ESCOBEDO, JULIETA MOSCOSO MARISCAL, MARCELINO LUDEÑA SANTI, FREDY HUALLPAYUNCA YLLA, ELOY ANDRADE TAYPE, CLOTILDE MITMA TAIPE, LUZ MARINA MOROCHO QUISPE, SAIDA APAZA PAREDES, MARGOTH HUALLPAYUNCA YLLA, CRISTINA ANGELICA LOAYZA BALSDA, YANET BAUTISTA HUAMAN, BASILIA MELLADO HUAYHUA DE VILLENA, RINA ELISA VILLENA MELLADO, MARIA REVECA MENDOZA MAIHUA, CRISTINA RAYMI PUMA by Asociación Arariwa in Peru. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 5 months of this loan, Asociación Arariwa will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Yesterday, the Kuska Llankasun ("let's work together" in Quechua) Village Bank held its second meeting of this loan cycle. The group meets at the house of Mrs. Maria Angelica Gamarra, the mother of one of the group members. Each member made their repayments except for the group's treasurer, who had to travel unexpectedly and plans to make his repayment this morning. The group was able to cover the missing payment using a portion of its group savings.*

I spoke to Jaime Gamarra, who is Maria Angelica's son and the group's president. His wife, Luz Marina Morocho, is also a member of the group. He is 33 and she is 30; they have two children, who are 11 and 8 years old. The couple works in a restaurant for tourists: she is a server and he does a variety of jobs, including purchasing ingredients, maintenance work, and serving customers. Jaime has been working there for eight years, and Luz Marina just started working a few months ago. The couple also raises chickens and pigs and owns a small farm, where they grow corn and potatoes. Jaime and Luz Marina took out a combined loan of 1500 soles. They used the money to buy chicks, animal feed, and fertilizer for their crops. The couple now has 14 chickens. Each pair of chicks costs 9 soles, and after four months they will be fully grown and ready to sell. Each hen will sell for 30 to 35 soles, says Luz Marina.

The couple's goal for the future is to open a small grocery store/restaurant in their home. They were able to build their home thanks to a previous microloan from another financial institution. Loans are a good way to expand a small enterprise, according to Luz Marina, who didn't have very many animals until she started taking out loans from Arariwa. "You can't work with your salary," she says, meaning that her wages from the restaurant aren't enough to cover the costs of raising animals and farming.

The group ended the meeting with a meal of chicken and potatoes. At the beginning of this loan cycle, the group decided that each month, someone different would prepare a meal for the entire group. Each group member pays 5 soles (US$1.60) for their plate, whether or not they come to the meeting. This serves as an incentive for everyone to come to group meetings. The group earns 50 soles per month in profits from these meals, and saves the money to buy a gift basket for each member's family on Christmas or Mother's Day.

*Note: Because of the delay between actual loan disbursal dates and when loans are funded by Kiva, and because Kiva does not record repayments until they are deposited into lenders' accounts, it may take up to six weeks for this repayment to appear on Kiva.org. Please be patient!

Thank you for supporting entrepreneurs in Peru. As you may know, all Kiva loans are actually administered by local field partners. For the past couple of months, I have been working as a Kiva Fellow with Asociación Arariwa, Kiva’s newest field partner in Peru.

Arariwa (which means “protector of crops” in Quechua, Peru’s main indigenous language) became a Kiva partner in August 2008, but did not begin posting a significant volume of its clients to the Kiva Web site until early 2009. Arariwa’s executive director, loan officers, and Kiva coordinator are palpably excited about what they call “Project Kiva.” They are working hard to visit village banks in isolated, rural areas of the Cusco region so rural clients can tell their stories and fund their loans through Kiva.

Raquel Villafuerte, Arariwa’s Kiva coordinator, is passionate about traveling and visiting the communities of the countryside around Cusco. In this sense, she is perfect for her job. Others might resent the long, often uncomfortable hours of travel on dirt roads, and occasional overnight stays in distant communities far from family and friends that come with the job, but Raquel enjoys the work and always has a smile for her clients and her co-workers. Unfortunately, Raquel and an Arariwa loan officer were injured in a motorcycle accident last month while returning from a visit to a Kiva group. Her scrapes and bruises didn’t dampen her enthusiasm for her work, although she has avoided motorcycles since then.

Arariwa’s loan officers serve different communities in the Cusco area. Some loan officers work within the city of Cusco and hold their group meetings at the Arariwa office. Others work up to two hours outside the city and hold group meetings in clients’ houses or businesses. These loan officers still report to the central office in Cusco each day. Other loan officers work even further from the city (three to nine hours away), live in the communities they serve, and only report to the central office every few weeks. One of these loan officers is Marco, who lives and works in the community of Lares. To illustrate how small Lares is, here’s a conversation I had with Marco about a week before I went to visit one of his village banks, Tikarisun de Ccachin:

Me: I should get your cell phone number so that we can coordinate when and where to meet up.

Marco: There’s actually no cell service there, so I’ll give you the phone number for Lares instead.

Me: Oh, Arariwa has an office in Lares?

Marco: No, it’s the phone number for Lares. The town has one phone. Just leave a message with whoever answers, and they’ll come find me and give me the message.

The Tikarisun Village Bank is located in Ccachin, a rural community high up in the clouds in the hills outside Lares. Like Lares, Ccachin has just one phone, but it is a much smaller community and it has even less contact with the outside world. Ccachin is just thirty or forty minutes from Lares by car, but it is much more isolated due to its small size, its remote location in the hills, and the lack of public transportation connecting it with any other nearby towns.

For me, getting from Cusco to Ccachin meant a nearly four-hour ride in the company pickup truck down bumpy dirt roads. The trip was tiring, even though I had the luxury of traveling in a private vehicle. It was easy to see why villagers in Ccachin don’t travel to Cusco to get loans.

My visit to Ccachin really opened my eyes to the importance of extending microfinance to rural areas. When we talk about people living in developing countries, we don’t always distinguish between urbanites and rural farmers. In Peru, however, that distinction is very important. Peruvians in rural areas are much more likely to be indigenous Quechua-speakers, to be living below the national poverty line, and to have little or no formal education. They typically cook with wood fires instead of gas stoves, live in adobe houses instead of concrete or stucco homes, and have more children to support than do city dwellers. Loans are readily available to a shop owner in the city of Cusco, but not to a small farmer in the countryside.

The credit and education that Arariwa offers go a long way in rural areas like Ccachin, because micro-loans are usually the only source of external support available to small businesses like Señora Ernestina’s grocery store, Señora Victoria’s pig farm, or Señora Hipolita’s chicheria (Chicha is a traditional Andean corn beer). Marco, Tikarisun’s loan officer, is already the godfather of three of his clients’ children, an indication of the respect and gratitude the community has for him. Another Arariwa loan officer, Tula, who works in the remote jungle town of Pilcopata, says that her clients often encourage her to run for mayor of Pilcopata.

Arariwa’s staff is working hard to provide journal updates for all of its Kiva clients. Because so many of Arariwa’s clients live quite far from the central office in Cusco, reaching each and every Kiva client for a follow-up interview is simply not possible. Nonetheless, 27% of Arariwa’s loans have journal entries, compared with just 12% for all Kiva field partners.

I hope you have found this journal entry to be interesting and informative, and I’m happy to answer any comments or questions you may have. I have been lucky enough to see the effect that Kiva loans are having on the ground here in the Cusco region. Arariwa’s Kiva clients, the staff and I are extremely grateful for your support. I hope you continue to lend to Peruvian entrepreneurs through Asociación Arariwa!

Read the Tikarisun Village Bank’s Kiva profile and read about my visit with Evarista, one of the group members:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?action=about&id=95881&page=businesses&_te=mj

View all Asociación Arariwa loans that are currently being funded:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=119&status=fundraising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_te=mj

Best regards,

Cynthia McMurry

Kiva Fellow

Apologies: photo accidentally left out from last email.