Bulls on Parade

For you, Nunez:

Crooked Cops, Well-Tailored Tops

As I was going to visit a Zidisha lender the other day, I was in a cab that was stopped by the police. Not because he doing anything wrong, more of a routine checkpoint. The cop was on foot pulling over whoever he wanted to. When my driver handed the police man - "le flic" - his papers, the cop walked away and started doing something else. The cab driver was a little frustrated, got out of the car and had a conversation with the cop.

When he got back in the car, he told me that he had to pay the cop 2,000CFA to let him pass the checkpoint. This is about $4.50 USD, so it's not extreme, but it's not chump change to these guys either. The driver also told me this happens every day and the amount is always negotiable. Also, the guy said most of the money goes straight in to the cop's pocket. yikes

My driver (in blue) negotiating with the cop:

This was my first visit with a Zidisha borrower at their business. So far, they've been coming to me, but from now on I'll be visiting them. This woman has a pretty cool story. She is from the Senegalese island of Carabane, close to the city Casamance. I've heard it's the most beautiful part of Senegal - and apparently it takes a day and a half just to get there from Dakar.

She started a sewing business on the island a few years back and has been able to employ several job-less people from Carabane. Recently, she's started a system where five students are able to learn vocational skills on her machines and observe the employees do their thing. In a couple weeks, I'll be visiting Carabane to check it out, take some pictures/video and do a write-up on it for the Zidisha site. There's no electricity on the whole island - she said the hardest part about starting her sewing operation there was getting power generators onto the island.

Her loan is being used to open up another atelier in Dakar along with some retail space to sell the clothing from Carabne on the mainland. For a while now, she's been able to do the opposite - buy clothing in Dakar and sell it in Carabane because everyone there thinks it's pretty exotic and cool. She's expecting the same response from the people in Carabane to the clothing from Dakar. Tailors are taken really seriously here and there's strong differences in local styles. It's really popular to have custom-made clothing in Senegal, especially for women, so you see tons of commercial tailors all over the place. They're really amazing at what they do.

The work this woman does is pretty cool. Here is a picture of some of the handywork she did on a man's shirt she showed me. Part of her loan money is being used to buy new thick thread. Making designs like this, it's no wonder she always needs more!

Here's one she did for a local woman. I wish I would have gotten a closer photo of this one, check out the work around the collar area and try to see what she did at the bottom of the sleeve:

Un petit coup de soleil. C'est pas grave.

I spent most of today getting a sunburn at the beach. I had a good time getting it – a small price to pay for all the cool stuff I saw. Before I went, I had to clear up some confusion with some of the kids on my block. Just to set the record straight and show them that Americans really do suck at soccer.

Coastline at Yoff Beach:

Galloping horses. Beaches. Fabio, is that you?

Wrestling is pretty popular here, even more popular than Soccer. The Senagalese style is really cool and unique. Someone told me today that the wrestlers don't really rely on strength to win. What's more important is speed and agility. It's usually really skinny and tall guys (but strong) that are the best. Once your opponent loses balance and falls, its over. So these usually last only a couple minutes at most.

So this goes on at the beach all the time. My friend Emma (left) challenged this guy who was winning a lot. He got creamed.

No hard feelings. The dude invited us to eat some fish with him and some buddies the top of the beach afterwards. Keep in mind this stuff was caught minutes before on that very beach. Think about all the stuff us Americans do to eat from local sources... These guys would have to put forth a serious effort to do anything but that.

It was pretty apparent to me that these guys do this all day/every day. [(Wrestle, fish, cook, sleep) x Infinity]

Microlending, baby.

Tomorrow is my first day of work. I’ll be meeting with Zidisha’s borrowers who, I think, live mostly in Dakar. This includes introducing myself, making some sort of write-up/film about their lives for the Zidisha site and making sure they know how to communicate with the lenders. Maybe this is a good to explain how Zidisha fits into microlending. To be honest, this is probably more than anyone who is reading this (probably just you, mom) cares to know, but it’s the real reason I’m here - so be a pal and read on.

Microlending is loosely defined as small business loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Traditionally, someone in the US or Europe will go on Kiva.org (I choose this as an example because it’s the most popular portal for microlending) and find a small-business owner who needs to scale up their operations. Typically these are people that own the factors of production of their own business but aren’t making much (a small thread store, selling fish, etc…). Each loan will have a goal amount, a proposed payback date, personal information, etc… Importantly, they’ll write how this loan will help get them from point A to point B. For example, here is a copy-paste of one I found on the Kiva site - The loan will allow Mathew’s business to be more productive, create more revenue, create local jobs, etc…:

“Mathew is a 30-year-old married man who is blessed with a two-year-old child. He has been running a cafeteria for five years and employs three people. His business is located near an open-air market and therefore he has many customers. He mainly prepares beef stew in his cafeteria but also makes other types of food.

Mathew has requested a loan of Kes 80,000 to buy timber and nails for renovating his business premise, chairs for his cafeteria, and three bulls to slaughter. He dreams of having a butcher shop and a restaurant in the future.”

Often, a loan will be composed of the money from several lenders. When the loan is repaid in full (and it almost always is – this is what allowed Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen bank win the Nobel Peace Prize in ’06 for developing the system) the lender will have the option to recollect the borrower’s payment or continually reinvest their funds to be recycled among other entrepreneurs with similar stories. The more successful a microlending institution is, the larger their pool of loan-able money is to be passed around among qualifying entrepreneurs.

When someone loans to Mathew (who’s in Kenya), they are loaning to the institution which later loans to Mathew. In cases where people are found through Kiva, another link in the supply chain is added – You > Kiva > Institution > Matthew. The more times the money changes hands, the larger the interest rate will probably be for Mathew. After all, the institution has to stay afloat somehow; Kiva has to stay afloat somehow. Because of this, a big criticism of microlending is that the interest rates on loans can be pretty exploitive – sometimes 30-40%. Even though the success rates on these loans are extraordinary, that’s expensive money. Especially when the goal is to make money accessible to some of the world’s most marginalized people.

Enter Zidisha. Zidisha is able to decrease the interest rates borrowers must pay to the low teen%’s and even as low as 8%. They use the P2P (peer-to-peer) model to connect borrower and lender directly rather than using a longer chain of people to facilitate the transaction. Because Zidisha uses this approach, they sacrifice certain roles that were traditionally played by the middle institution. For example, under the traditional model, the institution would facilitate communication between lender/borrower and they would do some sort of credit-assessment to make sure the individual can pay back on time. Zidisha loans to people who have already completed microfinance loans and understand the system and have access to technology (even at a very basic level, like text-messaging capability) to be responsible for their own communication with their lender. It rewards entrepreneurs who satisfy these conditions with the option to borrow money at low rates.

Also, as Zidisha lenders realize that repeat borrowers are less of a risk (because they’ve been around the block), borrowers are able to get future loans through Zidisha at lower and lower rates as Zidisha can provide proof that they are less and less of a risk to lenders.

In effect, this P2P model has never really been executed like this. Prosper.com offers a similar service but differs on a couple key points. This is a huge reason why I was so excited to work with Zidisha; they are really plowing new ground in microlending. My job out here is to allow the borrowers (there’s only three or four of them right now) to understand the P2P model and encourage them to keep the communication lines open with the lenders and to share information relevant to the lending process. Remember, under the traditional model, a lot of this was being done for them. After I’ve met with each borrower, I’ll be looking to put new ones on the site and refine the Zidisha approach in general, but we’ll worry about that when it comes.

Meeting with these borrowers, and creating new ones, is going to mean trekking all over urban and rural Senegal to help and find them, tripping over goats in the street, wondering what the hell I just ate, wondering if it’s going to give me any of the diseases the doctors in Illinois warned me of, and getting a hell of a tan. I’ll be doing it all in French, too which is a little intimidating but I’ve been doing just fine.

I hope to get a lot accomplished, but I almost expect to be disappointed with my progress. Like I said it the last post, this place moves slowly. It’s totally charming and I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. No one ever has to be anywhere else, so what does it matter?

Nangadef?

I've arrived. There's so much to say.

So far, Senegal seems like a beautiful place full of warm, kind people. As expected, I get a lot of stares for being the "Toubab" (that's Wolof for "whiteboy"), but it all seems to be because they're interested in seeing what I look like, how I act, etc... I haven't yet been "Toubab assualted", which a fellow Toubab I met yesterday warned me of. Even this is apparently pretty benign - they just yell from a distance "TOUBAB TOUBAB TOUBAB ...." a million or so times. I'll let you know when this happens.

I immediately clicked with my host family. Actually, for a little bit, it wasn't even clear who my host family was. My host mom, dubbed "Maman", seems to be a local mother-figure to a lot of people. I later found out that the revolving cast of 8 or 9 people that are always hanging around on the couch, watching TV, eating with us, are mostly the guys who live in the units upstairs but are often fed by my Maman. Yesterday, I had to ask one of them in private who was actually related to Maman and who wasn't.

Since I arrived, who lives here and who just sticks around to be cared for by Maman has become a little more clear. It's apparent that everyone appreciates her - she gives them a small built-in community, a couch to hang out and watch TV on (which has yet to be turned off since I got here) and regular meals if they're around at the right time. My one friend, Emma (short for Emmanuel) told me he doesn't pay rent because his room isn't furnished. All Maman has given him is regular meals, a room, a matress and a light. I think she does his laundry as well. Even though this is pretty stripped down, you could expect to pay for this kind of hospitality in the US, but it's clear that people see it differently here. There is a strong sense of community and all-around togetherness in Senegal that I've never seen before. It seems like Maman is the mini-engine that supports the group. There isn't much of a culture of "please" and "thank you" here, but it's clear that everyone appreciates her beaucoup.

The meals are a good example of this community feeling I'm describing. I've only had three of them (excluding breakfasts which are different) so far, but I'm starting to get what it's all about. It's usually a meat/fish with rice kind-of-thing, some vegetables stewed together with tons of spices. It's served hot, in a big metal bowl that is put on the ground on top of a big square cloth. Everyone who is around, usually not more than 7 will sit around the bowl and dig in to the communal bowl with their spoons. The portion that is immediately in front of you is yours. While you're eating, Maman will break up more meat in her hands and dish it out to people's portions. Meanwhile, Marie (host sister, age 25, and the only other woman around) will sprinkle lemon juice on your portion if you want - I heard her tell Emma the other day that she thinks it makes you more fit.

The meal usually has a lot of fish bones, but you don't really avoid them before putting them in your mouth, even if they are visible. What I've been taught is to eat the fish, sort the bones out in your mouth, and then spit them onto the cloth that everyone sits on. She's used a cloth covered in Scooby-Doo a couple of times. When I brought this up, I found out that no one knew about the cartoon and just appreciated it for the graphics alone. Everyone was surprised to hear that it was an American cartoon.

Yesterday I went to the beach with Emma(nuel) to play soccer. It was beautiful - everyone was there hanging out, playing sports and hardly swimming which surprised me. It seems like it's the local hang-out for a lot of people. Also, there was a lot of street food and grilled fish to buy. Emma and I enjoyed some Coconut in between soccer games. He moved to Senegal from Nigeria to become a soccer star. He's an amazing player but came to Senegal because it's easier to shine as a player in Senegal which doesn't have as rich of a soccer culture like Nigeria does. He plays for club teams and is trying to get some attention from people who can pay him to play; I'm going to watch one of his matches this Wednesday or Saturday.

I need to take some pictures of this stuff to show you guys. No hurry, everything here moves really slowwwwwly. Whenever you meet somebody they shake your hand for about a minute. People walk slowly. Taxi drivers stop to negotiate fairs with customers, blocking traffic for minutes.