By Robert Gradoville, KF16, Peru

Should I become a Kiva Fellow? I imagine a lot of the Stories From The Field blog followers have considered applying to the Fellowship, or have wondered what the comparison is between the Kiva Fellows Program to similar volunteer or development programs abroad. This may include the Peace Corps, overseas research grants, ...

Compiled by Kate Bennett, KF16, Peru

This week’s Fellows Blog is armed with stories from the field: stories of the uncertain world borrowers live in, and how they (and we) cope with it. We’ve learned that everyone gets tired running a 5K in Paraguay, but for a good enough cause, we can...

By Kate Bennett, KF16, Peru

Last Friday morning my Fellows Blog post mentioned the devastation of the 2007 Peruvian Earthquake in Ica, Peru and the surrounding areas. At 2 PM local time later that day, another earthquake shook the city.

Kiva Fellow David Connelly, my predecessor here at Kiva Partner Caja Rural Señor de Luren, has written before about the 2007 8.0 magnitude earthquake. The statistics are chilling: 519 people dead, 1366 injured, and some 76,000 homes collapsed. “After two and a half years,” he wrote in 2010, “Ica is still very much recovering.” Last...

By Kate Bennett, KF16, Peru

When I arrived in famous Nazca, Peru last week to complete some borrower visits, my mind was not on the celebrated and mysterious Nazca Lines but on the mystery of Caja Rural Señor de Luren borrower Gaby, who repaid her entire loan a mere month after disbursement.

I was checking in on Gaby’s loan as part of my borrower verification (BV) for Kiva Partner Caja Rural. The borrower verification item on a Kiva Fellow’s workplan always has us feeling anxious. One of the BV’s key objectives...