One of my better journals:

Gantuya Narmandah

The process:

1) Finding a translator
Unlike Kiva fellows who are placed in countries where they know the local language, I do not know how to speak Mongolian… even though locals frequently speak it to me. (Apparently I look Mongolian…) Hence finding a translator is necessary, especially since the Kiva coordinator here is too busy to visit borrowers with me. It took me awhile to find translators who would work for free, but finally on my 3rd week here, by acquaintances of friends of friends, as well as XacBank’s HR department, I managed to find… THREE translators!

My translators are quite an odd mix. One came in 6th for Ms. Mongolia last year, and was a catalog model for Gobi Cashmere (THE premier brand of cashmere in Mongolia); another was a former tour guide who has a ton of expat friends; and the last one is a university kid who is purportedly quite wealthy – he managed to get out of mandatory national military service through a combination of bribery and connections.

2) Coordinating logistics
The first is making sure one translator is free, then asking when one of XacBank’s branches can spare a loan officer and car to come visit borrowers with me (a rather infrequent event). A car is a precious commodity as branches only have one car each, and use it heavily for their day-to-day operations – loan officers constantly need to visit borrowers in the field to verify their information for the loan approval process.

The problem is that working with free labor (aside from Kiva Fellows) has its perils, and all 3 of my translators have been flakey at some point. One dropped out within a week, another bailed out on me 3 hours before we were going to visit borrowers, and another is frequently late. On days when they cancel on me, I have to cancel with the branch, and incur their ire.

3) Journey to the borrowers
Travelling to visit borrowers is always an experience, especially when I’m going to their homes. (Many of them work from home, especially those which make products for sale – think gloves, boots, crafts, etc.) All borrowers I’ve visited live in ger districts, which are basically districts surrounding downtown Ulaanbaatar, composed of a haphazard mass of wooden fences, within which you can find a ger or two, and sometimes a house. Most gers burn coal in their stove to keep warm, as a result, pollution in Ulaanbaatar is absolutely awful in the winter. (In addition to being the coldest capital in the world, UB is also the most polluted one.)

Ger districts don’t have proper roads (let alone addresses), and borrowers frequently draw makeshift maps to let the MFI know where they are located. Sometimes we spend more than 1 hour in the car, circling the same few roads, trying to find a particular borrower.

The terrain in ger districts is also rather varied. Travelling on dirt roads aside, I have been driven over a frozen river bed, a bumpy field that is used to grow crops in the summer, and precarious hill slopes.

On the road
(Music credit: Jenny M)

4) Interviewing borrowers
Interviewing the borrower is the easiest part. Some words are lost in translation, and the quality of translation and the answers I’m getting often depends on how hard my translator feels like working that day – but for the most part, this runs smoothly. 9 out of 10 times we also get to drink Suu-Tei Tsai (Mongolian milk tea which has salt and butter in it), and on occasion get to snack on Battsog (something like donuts, but in a rectangular shape).

5) Subtitling the video
Once the interview is done, and footage shot, I get a translator to come to headquarters and help me subtitle it. This basically consists of me and him/her sitting in front of my laptop, pressing rewind/play multiple times on Windows Movie Maker, and typing in each spoken line.

6) Editing
After subtitling, the translator leaves, and then I edit the video – this isn’t hard at all, if not for the fact that Windows Movie Maker frequently crashes on me, and now won’t start at all. Am currently using the trial (read: free) version of CyberLink PowerDirector. Will invest in a Mac and FinalCut going forward…

7) Posting
Posting is the easiest part, but also takes time due to large file sizes, the erratic nature of the Internet here, and occasionally some malfunction with the Kiva website.

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More video journal entries (click on the pictures which will take you to their borrower profile which have journals at the bottom of the pages!)

Snow flowers on Bogd Khan

on a very interesting sidenote, Mongolians play Mafia too! albeit a slightly different version. played it on the bus ride there… and it was one of my 2 contributions to moments of general hilarity.

i was the only foreigner/native english speaker on the trip, and happened to be the police for one round of Mafia. the narrator, while trying to get my attention during the “night session” of the game, when everyone else’s eyes are closed except for the police’s said – “Look at me!” in English. which of course was a dead giveaway for who exactly was the policeman…

the second moment is summed up below.

c’est moi

i was shivering like crazy on the mountain top, and this documents how my colleagues bundled me up with a sleeping bag and an extra jacket. didn’t help that much though! cold is cold.

there is a certain sadness that most of these borrowers have. for some it’s buried deep beneath stoicism and the victories of subsequent success, but for others it’s brimming at the surface, and you get the feeling that one more slight push would send them into the chasm. when i take their photos, they never smile – and i thought of asking them to, but i don’t want to if there’s nothing to smile about. the truth is, life has been hard for them.

kiva lenders may think they are doing a great thing (and they are doing a good thing of course), but these borrowers don’t get the benefit of the 0% interest rate, and to them, they aren’t being done any favors – because who knows what they had to get through to make those repayments back in full and on time, with interest added. they certainly don’t owe anyone anything, and because of that, when i intrude on their lives with a video and a huge camera, i feel somewhat ashamed.

but it’s not all grey of course. so many in the microfinance industry are in it because they hope, as do i. and the borrowers i met, they do laugh, but don’t necessarily dream. the reality is that for many, loans are required for survival or working capital, not necessarily to step up or make a significant game-changing investment. consequently, default rates in the microfinance world are lower than those in the mainstream commercial world, because these borrowers need to repay to get the next loan, and the next, and the next. and perhaps that’s why some of them are willing to go on video, get their photographs taken, answer questions… even though they might not necessarily want to – because they don’t want to risk losing their line of credit.

i realize this post sounds a bit morose, only because one particular borrower made such an impression on me.  soft-spoken, it isn’t in her nature to fight. but she has to, because she has two young sons to feed – a little red-faced baby was sleeping soundly on the single bed she had, and her other son, no more than 6, was watching a dubbed version of LOTR while doing homework. the downfall of socialism 20 years ago meant the closure of a lot of government-run factories, and she lost her job. so now she sits in her dimly lit ger, sewing grey gloves, hoping to find a mass buyer.

hers is the sadness that threatens to overflow.

where i went today: the Chingeltey ger district

lastly, a bit about my translator. when we came to this region he said, “you never want to come here. this is where all the poor people live.” he also came 40 minutes late to our appointment with the branch manager and staff… because he was having lunch after class. there’s also a certain smugness that he has, because he speaks English and is apparently rich and well-connected. all his family work in the government, and he roundly (he is round) tells me that he is able to get out of mandatory national service (army) because of connections and bribery. to top it off, he is very proud of the fact that most of what he wears or owns was bought overseas. can you tell what i’m thinking?? nevertheless, he is helping me for free (albeit receiving internship credit)… so i shall leave it at that.

measures taken so far:

• all bars, restaurants and public places are to close at 9pm. i have heard the wry comment more than once – “what, swine flu only starts spreading after 9pm?”
• handles of doors are being wrapped with damp pieces of cloth soaked in bleach
• xacbank is providing 5 masks to each employee, with the masks to be replaced every 2 hours
• xacbank is also providing two very traditional drinks a day to boost immune systems – a sour-smelling, sour-tasting, starch-like drink which i believe is Kourmiss, and seabuckthorn juice.  i have drank both.

it started out with meeting one of 3 people who will be translating for me for free as i interview borrowers. i first thought she was a regular university student, but she came in 6th in Ms. Mongolia, and after meeting with me she was on her way to shoot a mascara ad. the odd thing is that she wasn’t even particularly pretty (in all objectiveness). she also really wants a white boyfriend and does not differentiate between europeans, americans or canadians. but she says no italians, because they are too amorous. haha. interested parties, let me know.

at lunch in a large restaurant with only 3 occupied tables, there was a singaporean! (note that the probability of this happening is very low.) he of course recognized my accent and same over to say hi. let’s call him x. i met his friends later on for drinks, and the whole thing was highly, highly bizarre.

friend 1: 40+ yr old man who was highly drunk by the time i got there. was extremely belligerent, kept calling himself an asshole, and kept referring to spinsters as hags.
friend 2: 50 yr old man who just opened a restaurant and is apparently very well connected with Mongolian high society. i remember a children’s tale long ago with the character Mr. Lizard. this man is it’s personification.
friend 3: normal 30+ mongolian guy

x, friend 3 and i left fairly quickly to meet friend 3′s other girl friends. hurray for normalcy. 1 of the girls (a stunner) was from the Buryat Republic – never knew that existed! in simple terms, Buryats are Mongols who live in an area that is subject to Russia.

the last conversation of the night had friend 3 trying to convince x that if bribing border officials doesn’t work, (they are in the export business), then threaten them with violence.

apparently it worked for him.

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i ended up going to a halloween party last night. like other fellows, i had a pretty pathetic get-up… nevertheless, i ended up turning from librarian (work clothes + black glasses) to a chimney sweeper – got painted black strokes on my face and i snagged a newspaper-boy-cap and a garden rake (which was meant to pass off as a sweep). only one person at the party got my costume ;P

there also exist natural green and blue chicken eggs.

Here’s my response:

i’ve been thinking about loan expirations for awhile as well.

i personally don’t have an issue with the marketplace concept because kiva is exactly that. lenders get to choose individual borrowers they want to lend to, and choice will always involve personal biases. however, that freedom to choose is what makes kiva so successful – lenders feel empowered. if we were to remove allowance for biases – then kiva could just post borrower stories, but have lenders lend to a common pool instead of a specific borrower. but that, though more equitable, will unfortunately generate less lender interest, and ultimately less funding.

to the borrower however, it isn’t much of a problem since they will get funding anyway. having the MFI improve/refine their content to be more attractive to lenders is not a bad thing – since that will generate more lender activity on kiva and more funding in the long term (not a zero sum game). and whether or not they have integrity in improving their borrower profiles (i.e. not embellishing or making stuff up) is out of our hands

however, what I do have issue with is if an MFI has a kiva specific product. my MFI, XacBank, in Mongolia has exactly that (i think it’s the only MFI right now). but basically, kiva’s 0% interest rate allows my MFI to return 9% of interest paid to the borrower at the end of the loan term. but since my MFI pre-disburses the loan before getting fully funded on kiva, they’re essentially promising the borrower a certain product (9% int back) but are not absolutely guaranteed that they will get kiva funding (0% interest) for it.

so far none of our loans have expired w/o getting funded, but i’ve asked my kiva coordinator what will happen if it does happen. she said, she will just repost the loan the next month. i then asked – what happens if the loan was disbursed more than 30 days before the new reposting since that’s not allowed (i think this will be the case since loans are on the site for 30 days), she said she might try asking kiva to make an exception. i don’t think that will happen though. what i think will happen is that a) my MFI will have to tell the borrower that they can’t get the 9% back even though they’ve already taken out a loan, or b) fund that borrower’s 9% interest back themselves. option b) isn’t that big of an issue if they have to cover just a few borrowers each month, but if too many loans start expiring before getting funded, my MFI may have to stop offering a kiva-specific product due to the volatility of funding. (which isn’t what any of us want!)

so i guess the takeaway here is – as kiva continues to scale up, it needs to properly manage and regulate the amount of credit it is extending to MFIs, such that supply (of loans posted) never exceeds demand by too much, and hence keeps the % of loans expired at a low constant.

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will write about my last 2 days soon! think: bizarre.

p.s. only after posting do i realize automatic ping / linkbacks occur. wth!

Ulaanbaatar is possibly the coldest capital city in the world.

- Michael Kohn, Lonely Planet Mongolia, p14

as a testament to the point above, it snowed on wednesday for the first time since summer… and it’s only early october.

The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches… Their debate ranged back and forth… No side seemed to convince the other of anything. Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation. At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue.

– Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, p172-173

absolutely hilarious stuff.

Mongolians are lazy and (insert negative adjective that i’ve forgotten). Would you describe yourself as so?

- Mongolian Airlines In-flight Magazine, Interview question for J. O- a prominent Mongolian businesswoman

WOW. all I can safely say is that Mongolians are extremely candid.

lastly,

Why have economists remained silent while banks rejected the poor as unworthy of credit? Nobody can provide a convincing answer. Because of this silence and indifference, banks have imposed a financial apartheid and gotten away with it. If economists would only recognize the powerful socioeconomic implications of credit, they might recognize the need to promote credit as a human right.

- Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor, p150

go kiva.

before: 9:30am EST on Friday, Oct 9th i realize no one knows a lot about Mongolia… therefore i can make up absolutely anything and people will believe me. haha case in point. (some of the following are actually true)

1. there is a mongolian mythical creature called the Mongolian Death Worm which is purportedly found in the Gobi Desert, grows up to 5 ft long, and spews sulfuric acid which makes it deadly to men
2. Genghis Khan’s father wasn’t his mother’s first husband
3. mongolians historically have been nomads, and hence do not farm; therefore amongst many other things their vegetables are made-in-china
4. there is another mongolian mythical creature in the Kharyagas lake which is roughly equivalent to the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland
5. there is a Louis Vuitton store in the capital
6. there still exists barter trade in Mongolia. I am for instance, trying to use 24 cans of xxx as currency. (am not revealing exactly what because i don’t want it to devalue. j/k)

turning to more mundane matters, in the next 35 hours starting at 4:30pm EST i will take 3 flights, have 2 layovers, be in 4 airports (Boston>LA>Seoul>Mongolia), before arriving in Ulaanbataar. hopefully it’ll go like clockwork.

after: roughly 3pm on Sunday, October 11th (Mongolian time is exactly 12 hours ahead of EST)

Landing in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

time to be a Kiva fellow.