Indonesia
A couple days ago, I had the privilege to sit down with Nanik B. Yayuk, a Kiva client in the Badung region of Bali who received a loan of $125 to help her with her recyclables business. Although there are quite a few Kiva clients in the recyclables business, the afternoon I spent chatting with Nanik was a true highlight. Nanik spent 45 minutes happily discussing how the...
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So… for me, one of the difficult parts of moving someplace new is getting used to things being different than I’m accustomed to. For example, after four years of wonderful college goodness, it came as a real shock when I got a job, moved to San Francisco and realized I had to wear pants on a regular basis. It still haunts me. But I’ve adapted, and now some days I even wear pants on the weekend. And sometimes I don’t. ...
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After spending my first few nights in Badung, Bali at a local hotel, Mr. Alit, the Executive Director for DINARI (Kiva’s MFI partner in Bali), invited me to stay in his guest room. I happily accepted and now enjoy sharing meals with Mr. Alit, along with his two children, Ayu and Jeremy, his very kind wife, Nenny, and their assistant, Neni.
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So after three nights in Bangkok and two nights in the Bali surf town of Kuta, I was picked up yesterday by Ferdinand, who I will be working with side by side at DINARI, the microfinance institution (“MFI”) here in Bali that Kiva has partnered with. Ferdinand drove me to Sempidi, which is 20 km’s inland and north of Kuta (and about 20 degrees hotter), where I met many of the 30+ employees at the DINARI headquarters. DINARI also has a second branch in West Bali (Melaya) and is planning to open two...
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WARNING: The following post has nothing to do with microfinance, microwaves or microphones. Not even Micro Machines. That said…
I was in a fight yesterday.
Yesterday, I lost that fight. Badly. It wasn’t even close. It was one of those, “was he even trying?” or “he’ll never walk again!” kind of beat downs. The worst part was, I paid for the privilege of this fight.
Having left the States on May 26th on my way to my 10 week fellowship in Indonesia, I scheduled a three full day stop-...
