Casamance

I just got back from a six-day trip to Casamance (the region in red). So far, everyone who has gotten Zidisha loans in Senegal lives in the Dakar region. I was pretty eager to get to Casamance to spread the Zidisha love and travel around the region. I found a pretty cool balance between being half-tourist looking to experience everything / half-workaholic trying to spread financing in a region that really needs it.

I don't really know where to start. I spent nights in Ziguinchor, Oussoye, Carabane, staying with different locals each night. With the exception of Ziguinchor, the region is pretty rural. I made some really good friends and got a 'real' look at the region, which would have been impossible if I'd gone the hotel route. It was pretty exhausting, but completely worth it. Also, it was an incredible lesson in human nature - the people in Casamance were the nicest and most welcoming bunch I've ever met, dying to know American culture just as much as I wanted to know theirs.

In terms of work, it was frustrating at first. Like I said in an earlier posting, in order to be eligible for a Zidisha loan, the borrower must have access to and be able to navigate the internet. This is because Zidisha is a "peer-to-peer" service that requires that the borrowers interact directly with their lenders through the website. In the beginning of my trip, I simply couldn't find anyone that fit the bill. Before I went, I had a couple of contacts (mostly friends of friends) but only one of them came through and was of any use. My approach: to introduce myself to anyone that seemed thirsty for a conversation and see if they could point me to anybody who we could work with or could help me find people. After meeting countless people and explaining my work, it was pretty obvious that everybody wanted to be financed but didn't fit the computer literacy requirement. A lot of the region has no electricity at all and cyber cafés are a luxury that few can afford.

I had plenty of fun while I was there, but at this point was frustrated that I had spent nearly a week without being able to find anybody eligible.

Things turned around pretty quickly. My friend Bintou, somewhat of a local socialite, knew plenty of people that fit the bill perfectly and was able to meet with a half-dozen of them. I predict that at least a few will be on the Zidisha site soon, ready to be funded.

The biggest success was Thursday night, my last night in Ziguinchor. I was invited to a local woman's home, who caught wind of what I was doing, to speak with "a friend or two" who were computer literate and interested in getting loans. I was ecstatic. I had finally found them at the last minute.

It was around midnight, completely dark, and the power was out in the whole neighborhood. I was invited into a eerily candlelit concrete room with ten men and women who wanted to know more about what Zidisha was all about. Some of them had heard about it last minute and came in their pajamas. The meeting turned into a couple hours of getting to know each other, explaining the service and answering questions. Within 24 hours, I had met with and instructed 15 people on how to take the first steps to getting loans.

For every person that wants to work with Zidisha, there's a lot of work I have to do back here in Dakar in order to get them on the site. So, 15 people is definitely more than I can handle, but I'd rather get a hold of too many than too little. It just so happened that I had to cram all of my work on the last day, but it allowed me to do so many cool things with the rest of my week.