Here’s my sixth installment on the Kiva Stories from the Field website as I serve as a Kiva Fellow in Bolivia. Perhaps the highlights of my experiences were the many opportunities to meet Kiva borrowers.
Here are three of the many wonderful moments I shared with Bolivians who received low-interest loans through Kiva’s partners here in Bolivia. Thanks to all of you who loan through Kiva, you make a big difference in their lives.
Tiwanaku
I couldn’t bear another cold, rainy day in La Paz so I struck out after breakfast one Saturday to visit one of Bolivia’s most important archaeological sites Tiwanku, a UNESCO World Heritage Site just 90 minutes from La Paz. This “cradle of Andean civilization,” which preceded the Incas, was centered near the fertile soils near Lake Titicaca and flourished for nearly 2500 years until about 1000 AD when the site was abandoned after severe drought.
There is no written history of the Tiwanaku so unfortunately very little is known about this civilization. An agriculturally based society, they developed sophisticated farming methods (including the sukakullos which Paul and I saw near Copacabana earlier this year) which sustained a considerably growing population. By 800 AD, the capital city of Tiwanaku had perhaps 50,000 residents and recent studies suggest up to 1.5 million inhabitants lived in the region.
They worshipped many gods, the most important being Viracocha who created the earth at Island of the Sun on Lake Titicaca and brought forth humans from the earth’s rocks. He is celebrated in the site’s outstanding Temple of the Sun, one of the few remaining monuments at the site. The Tiwanaku also placed great spiritual importance in prominent mountain peaks, the apus (deities) that control weather and determine agricultural output, traditions which continue to this day.
Around 1000 AD a significant climatic shift occurred in the region resulting in greatly reduced rainfall which diminished crop yields. Tiwanaku society quickly broke down and by 1200 AD the once-mighty civilization vanished with only loosely organized remnants remaining. The Incas arrived a couple centuries later as they expanded their nascent empire and drew heavily from Tiwanaku architecture and its belief system.
Continue reading “Tiwanaku: The Cradle of Andean Civilization”
While these Volkswagen beauties have not been produced anywhere for almost a decade, Bolivia continues its love affair with the classic Beetle (marketed here as the “Peta”). In all the major cities and towns, the streets abound with this unique and cherished automobile.
I’m not sure how much longer these cars with remain a characteristic feature of the streets of Latin America but I certainly love seeing (and hearing) the “people’s car” everywhere I go.
The Tilted Life in Lofty La Paz
Landing at the La Paz International Airport in El Alto leaves one breathless; the thin air is immediately manifest. At nearly 13,000 feet (4000 m), La Paz is the highest capital city in the world. The lower-altitude Sucre remains the official capital, but La Paz is the de facto power center in the country housing both the executive and legislative branches of government.
La Paz is blessed with a magnificent setting: the austere altiplano perched far above the dense construction of central La Paz, the surrounding snow-studded Andean peaks of the Cordillera Real that tower to the east, the crowning and iconic Mount Illimani (meaning “golden eagle” in the indigenous Aymara language) which soars to over 22,000 feet (6465 m).
In La Paz, nothing is level. Everything either streams downhill or slogs uphill. There is no horizontal here and consequently nothing stands still. Everything is a whirl of motion, upwards and downwards.
Trickle-Down Economics
So flows the relative prosperity of the La Pazians, or paceños as they are known here. Affluence increases as altitude decreases, dropping from the ever-expanding shantytowns of El Alto on the high altiplano rim and down through the dangling Aymara neighborhoods perched precariously on the steep slopes.
Below is El Centro also called la hoyada (the hole), the crowded heart of the city and home to the national government and the scant colonial remnants that survived the decades of rapid change resulting from mass migration from the countryside.
The city descends further to the upscale neighborhoods of Miraflores and Sopocachi, home of expensive apartments, a bounty of chic bars, Japanese and French restaurants, and jazz cafes.
Finally, La Paz comes to rest in the newly-minted Zona Sur neighborhood where most of the expats, diplomats and rich paceños live in gated communities. This is where the wealth of La Paz finally settles.
A Million Luminous Lives: Todos Somos Iguales (We Are All Equal)
Standing in the bowl of La Paz at the city center at sunset, lights shine from the buildings and homes of residents and sprawl in every direction. At night the city glimmers with all the energy of a modern metropolis, illuminating with equal intensity above and below.
This is a city of rich and poor, rural and urban, from many different indigenous backgrounds, and from all regions of Bolivia. Heterogeneous La Paz is home to Amerindians, Mestizos, Europeans, Asians and Africans. The Bolivian Constitution officially recognizes 37 languages. Bolivia, officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is indeed a multiethnic haven.
And to affirm this great diversity, La Paz recently issued an anti-discrimination ordinance and requires businesses to prominently display the following: Todos somos iguales ante la ley (“We are all equal before the law”).
But, economically speaking, this is not so. Some paceños must work much harder than others just to scrape by. One of the poorest countries in South America, Bolivia remains a classic case of economic disparity. The most recent poverty data for Bolivia show that:
Recent emphasis on poverty reduction by President Evo Morales is likely to improve the situation for millions here. Yet it will take many years through a dramatic transformation of Bolivian society and greater economic equality.
La Paz is where I begin my life in the field as a Kiva Fellow. It is among these people that I will go about my daily business, put names to faces and to lives, and learn and share as much as I can in this strikingly beautiful and imbalanced world.
My Kiva Mission Número Uno: Borrower Verification
One of my main objectives as a Kiva Fellow is to complete the borrower verification process for two of Kiva’s microfinance partners in Bolivia. This process essentially validates that the information about borrowers and loans on the Kiva website is accurate.
With a random sample of 10 loans for each microfinance partner, I go on field visits to the loan offices and the Kiva borrowers’ homes and businesses, review loan documentation, discuss issues and status with loan officers, and conduct interviews with the borrowers themselves.
This is an important exercise for Kiva. These borrower verification reports are crucial in helping everyone at Kiva understand what is going on at ground level with the microfinance partners. It’s a singular opportunity to assess the partner’s understanding and execution of Kiva’s policies, helps find good faith errors in data or processes, and can determine areas of improvement to build a stronger relationship between Kiva and the partner.
El asesor es mi copiloto: Learning to Love the Loan Officers
The loan officers I’ve worked with are remarkably companionable. Part sales people, part coaches, part financial advisers, part collection officers, part advocates – they wear different hats. In La Paz and El Alto, they spend a lot of time pounding the pavement, visiting clients to see how things are going, catching up with former loan recipients, and prospecting for new loans.
They write the borrower profiles on the Kiva website that we all read as Kiva lenders. They are the eyes and ears of the partner organization, and the ones who work most closely with clients. They work to keep the Kiva loan repayment rate at well over 99% for Emprender.
And they are my trusty companions who accompany me on verification visits to Kiva borrowers.
First Stop: The Microfinance Institution Loan Office
After breakfast at my small hotel in La Paz, I begin the energetic climb upwards to the Emprender office in the Villa Nuevo Potosí neighborhood. I’m glad to escape the morning chaos of central La Paz, which is teeming with people, traffic congestion, and bustling street commerce that makes the downtown sidewalks difficult to navigate.
Up here in the neighborhoods that rise steeply above the city center I find cleaner air, quiet streets, quaint homes, and pleasant corner kiosks. Locals greet me from open windows. The views of the surrounding mountains are marvelous.
I meet with Simón, the loan officer who works with the client I will be visiting. I wait patiently as he attends to an early rush of clients and examine the loan paperwork: loan disbursement, repayment schedule, the actual payments, client waiver, etc.
Everything is in order. I take time to review the other documents Emprender collects to approve the loan: financial evaluation, past loan review, collateral, personal references, bank statements, and so on.
The client folder is exhaustively detailed and meticulously maintained. I am learning a great deal about finance in this part of the world: utility costs, housing prices, small-business accounting records, bank interest rates, even the value of household personal items such as televisions, refrigerators and furniture.
After a quick desayuno, a daily ritual in which the entire office takes tea/coffee and bread in the break room, we set out on foot to visit the client. This is often the fastest way around the neighborhood since the meandering streets are normally jammed with traffic.
I enjoy this “commute” time with the loan officers, we talk about their daily work and their families and about my life in the United States and my work here in Bolivia. We get to know each other, and I appreciate their approachability and willingness to spend time with me despite their often full schedules.
Finally, I Meet the Kiva Borrower…
Señora Celestina, the Kiva borrower, welcomes Simón and me in her home where she runs an adjacent bakery. There are racks of freshly rolled dough ready for the oven, baskets of tasty cookies and meringues ready for packaging, and piles of eggs and bags of sugar which she purchased with the help of the Kiva loan. I am happy to discuss her business and her life in such a warm and aromatic setting!
With the help of the loan officer, I explain the purpose of our visit and some more about Kiva. As we go through the verification process, Celestina readily answers all my questions and brings out the loan paperwork she has. I check that the dates and figures match and that she understands the Kiva client waiver which authorizes her information to be posted on the Kiva website. I document everything since it will be reviewed back at Kiva headquarters.
After the formal verification is complete, I chat casually with the borrower. This is usually my favorite part of the visit, the borrowers open up a bit more, we can joke about things, and I learn more about their lives and families and ambitions. On this trip, Celestina proves to be especially talkative and shares generously.
She tells me more about the success of her baking business: how she produces fairly large quantities and types of cookies for special fairs and holidays in the La Paz area. More recently she is sending these baked goods further afield and even into Peru (Cuzco and Juliaca) where festival demand is great for these delicacies.
On this particular day, Celestina is working hard for the upcoming Todos Santos (All Saints Day) celebrations in early November. Given the thousands of eggs stacked in her bakery, I know the coming weeks will keep her busy. She willingly offers me plentiful samples of her cookies, some right out of the oven, all of which are delicious and beautifully prepared.
Celestina shows me her bakery, the ovens, and the piles of flour, sugar and eggs that they purchased with the loan funds. She introduces me to her ebullient husband, welcoming son and amused granddaughter. They all help her with her baking, especially during the crunch times when large festivals are fast approaching.
She is a cheerful and warm person and I greatly enjoy my time with her, but she is busy and the loan officer has other tasks ahead of him today. As we depart, Celestina speaks highly of Emprender and especially Simón, her loan officer.
We share some final laughs when she tells me (jokingly) that they all will come to the United States to start a baking company with me, naming it “Bolivian Baked Goods Company of America.” I assure them that their splendid cookies would be a hit and they thank me for my vote of confidence with handshakes, hugs and smiles.
I feel wistful leaving Celestina and the elevated Villa Nuevo Potosí neighborhood, yet I am beaming inside and my feet barely touch the pavement as I descend towards downtown La Paz. It is a special privilege for me to be a part of all this, passing through doorways of private homes as welcoming locals so graciously let me into their lives for even a few moments.
Happily, I have many more clients to visit in my remaining weeks and months as a Kiva Fellow. I eagerly await my next encounters with Kiva faces and hear the extraordinary stories that shine all around me from on high in big Bolivia.
This is great, Peter. Sounds like you’re having a wonderful time!
Submitted by Holly Sarkissian on Tue, 10/16/2012 – 08:43
Thanks, Holly… off to a fun start here in Bolivia, I am just loving this so far. Now in sweaty Santa Cruz, I’ll spend the next few days on the back of a motorcycle heading into the countryside, looking forward to some Easy Rider time…
Submitted by Peter Soley on Wed, 10/17/2012 – 13:59
Great post, Peter! Makes me want to visit La Paz…and find Celestina’s bakery!
Submitted by Rose on Wed, 10/17/2012 – 18:38
Hey Rose, thanks for the encouraging words, I really enjoy reading what you’re up to in Colombia, this is really such a fantastic experience, for all of us so different and it’s great we can share via the Fellows Blog! Abrazos de Bolivia mi amiga!!!
Submitted by Peter Soley on Sun, 11/11/2012 – 05:27
You paint such a great (and honest) picture of La Paz Peter! All the best on your Bolivian adventure amigo.
Submitted by Gareth Leonard on Thu, 10/18/2012 – 11:23
hey que onda Gareth, thanks for the comment & you certainly have a unique perspective having lived here. hope all is well in guate, sounds like you’re loving life there, hard to believe we’re already a month into this great adventure, cómo vuela el tiempo
Submitted by Peter Soley on Sat, 10/20/2012 – 06:52
What a great walk through the day in the life of a Kiva Fellow. I swear I could smell the aroma of those sweet cookies baking away. What a delightful and stellar example of how your work is helping the world:) Miss you~
Submitted by Amy Richards on Sat, 11/03/2012 – 09:19
Hey Amy! Your baking would be a huge hit here in Bolivia, especially those pecan sandies! I miss you all as well, I think of you all the time & it’s a great feeling knowing I have family and friends behind me back home sending me love and support. xoxo
Submitted by Peter Soley on Sun, 11/11/2012 – 05:26
Hey Peter. Is Celestina hiring? I’ll be in the Peru area and can hike over for an interview. I love your real-life story of this entrepreneurial woman and her success. Thank you. Mom
Submitted by Susan on Sat, 11/03/2012 – 09:34
Hey mumsie, thanks for checking this out! I’d be happy to ask Sra. Celestina, she’s be a hoot to work with, very spirited. Tough work, though, long hours this time of the year with all the holidays… seems to me you’re enjoying the retired life far too much to go back to work! Can’t wait to see you in January, it will be awesome to celebrate your 70th birthday at Machu Picchu!!! xoxo
Submitted by Peter Soley on Sat, 11/03/2012 – 15:47
Right on Peter. .Beautiful stories, heartfelt love and compassion. You are truely a hero. any room for me at the bakery? xo stace- rowdy really misses you.
Submitted by stacey on Wed, 11/07/2012 – 15:36
Hey Stacey! Great to hear from you, I’m glad you can see a slice of my new world! So different from my life in Maine, but rich & rewarding in every way. I miss you too and Rowdy would love it down here, lots of friends for him to hang with in the streets! Hi to Bart!
Submitted by Peter Soley on Sun, 11/11/2012 – 05:23
Here’s a 3.5 minute video of our eight-hour journey through the Bolivian mountains from La Paz to Cochabamba. We saw all sorts of inclement weather, beautiful terrain and unfortunate accidents during the trip. Thankfully we arrived unscathed.
I just happened to notice an interesting leaflet on a telephone pole…
Soon after my arrival in La Paz I chanced upon a notice posted on a telephone pole on tourist-central Calle Sagárnaga advertising a weekend hands-on course in eco-friendly construction techniques. The course was offered by Arquitectos Sin Fronteras (Architects Without Borders) in Navarra, Spain. They are sponsoring a 6-month program in rural Achocalla (about an hour outside of La Paz) to build sustainable superadobe homes for villagers.
I contacted the project leader, Yoanna from Spain, who warmly welcomed me and gave me all the details. So early Saturday morning, I hopped on a trufi to Zona Sur where I met the other course members in Plaza Humboldt.
There were 13 of us for the first day, mostly Spaniards and a few Bolivians. Many of the Spaniards were travelers passing through who heard about the project through friends, but a good number of them either live here — doing research, working for the Spanish foreign office, or studying or teaching.
With an unemployment rate of nearly 50% in Spain for the under-30 crowd, all of the younger Spaniards I met were happy to be living or traveling in South America for the time being. Infinitely better than being at home right now where the economic situation is dire.
We car-pooled to the construction site in Alto Cañuma near Achocalla in the hills outside of La Paz, stunningly situated with beautiful views of the Andean Cordillera Real mountains and the white-capped Mount Illumani off in the distance. I was exhilarated to spend the weekend in such an awesome setting.
Continue reading “Toilet Toil: Building a Bathroom on the Outskirts of La Paz”
My first week in La Paz has left me breathless. Quite literally. At nearly 12,000 feet (3600 m), La Paz is the highest capital in the world. The lower-altitude Sucre remains the official capital, but La Paz is the de facto power center in the country housing both the executive and legislative branches of government.
The magnificence of the setting is striking: the towering Andean peaks of the Cordillera Real to the east, crowned by Mount Illimani which soars to over 22,000 feet (6465 m). The dense city center flows downwards through the canon along the mostly covered Choqueyapu River.
The wealth of the residents increases as altitude decreases, from the ever-expanding shantytowns of El Alto on the high altiplano rim and down through the dangling Aymara neighborhoods perched precariously on the steep slopes.
Below is El Centro a.k.a. la hoyada (the hole), the crowded heart of the city and home to the government buildings and the scant colonial architecture that remains after decades of rapid change resulting from mass migration from rural areas.
The city sinks further to the upscale neighborhoods of Miraflores and Sopocachi, home to expensive apartments and a wealth of chic bars and restaurants.
Finally, La Paz comes to rest in the newly-minted Zona Sur neighborhood where most of the expats, diplomats and rich paceños live in gated communities.
Standing in the bowl of La Paz at the city center at sunset, millions of lights from the buildings and homes sprawl in every direction. At night the city glimmers and shines with all the energy of a modern metropolis.
This is my new home for the moment and in my first week I started to settle into the rhythms of my new world.
Below are ten morsels of my first week in La Paz.
Continue reading “Week One: Living the High Life in La Paz, Bolivia”
There’s a specific process that I go through each time I travel. As soon as I land in a new place my senses are sharp as I take in the unfamiliar surroundings and try to grasp the unacquainted customs.
The first thing I do is walk. I walk constantly, sometimes all day, looking and learning, trying to orient myself. I notice faces and gestures, I register landmarks and neighborhoods, I catalog shops and eateries, I study the local conveyances and set my bearings.
The newness amazes and confounds me: simple things like transport, streets, prices, meals, the protocols of daily interactions and small exchanges – these usually occupy a huge space in my mind for the first few days. I am acutely aware of everything. It’s an overwhelmingly stimulating period and a tiring one. My mind is constantly gauging and processing. I drain easily.
And sleep doesn’t always come easily those first days. The sounds and smells, the altitude or humidity, the jet lag or the change in seasons – these all contribute to restless nights and a fatigue that accompanies my waking hours.
Continue reading “Landing”