After finishing my Kiva fellowship with EDAPROSPO last week, I moved out of Lima and into the province of Junín in the sierras of Peru. My time with Microfinanzas PRISMA is quite short and so I’ve engaged in a whirlwind tour of meeting entrepreneurs, collecting their stories, and posting journal updates. As the PRISMA office [...]
A Day in the Life of a Kiva Fellow
December 21st, 2008 — , Josh Bull, KF6, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), Kiva, microfinanzas PRISMA, peru from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
Formal Trust, Informal Love
December 10th, 2008 — , Community, Josh Bull, KF6, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), Kiva, edaprospo, love, microfinance, peru, trust from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
Mrs. Rosario Roca runs a bodega in the front of her house on a quiet street in Comas, a northern suburb of Lima, Peru. After giving an EDAPROSPO loan officer and I Inka Colas (a yellow soda with the taste of bubble-gum, widely considered the national drink of Peru [nonalcoholic, the alcoholic distinction belongs to the [...]
Moving Right Along…
November 19th, 2008 — , Josh Bull, KF6, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), Kiva, edaprospo, human capital, peru from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
With 7 weeks past and 8 weeks to go, my Kiva Fellowship is moving right along. As my colleagues around the world, from Cambodia to Uganda to Peru can attest, much of the Kiva Fellow’s life is spent in motion. Already I have had two days where the number of hours spent on buses to [...]
Online StoresBuses and Productivity
November 3rd, 2008 — , Josh Bull, KF6, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), Kiva, edaprospo, peru from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
When you spend 7 hours a day on buses to visit only a handful of clients, an over-ambitious Kiva Fellow may start to feel like his dream of unprecedented productivity is slipping through his fingers. Sometimes all it takes is a 30 minute conversation with a kindly grandmother to change that misperception.
I visited EDAPROSPO branches in Huaycan [...]
Trust As A Foundation
October 18th, 2008 — , Josh Bull, KF6, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), Kiva, Uncategorized, edaprospo, peru from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
If ever there was a time that underscored the importance of trust in economics, now is it. Readers of this blog from the United States can attest to the financial ruin that awaits us when banks suffer not only from a deficit of wealth but also a deficit of trust; it turns into a vicious [...]
Online StoresThe “Between” Week
October 3rd, 2008 — , Josh Bull, KF6, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class), peru from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
My week has been one of experiencing the meaning of the word ‘between’ (Not to be confused with the town of Between, GA which lies exactly between my parent’s house in Atlanta and my most recent house in Athens). I have experienced and relished the state of being between, which I have conveniently organized into paragraph [...]
Posted: Trespassers Welcome
September 18th, 2008 — , Josh Bull, KF6 (Kiva Fellows 6th Class) from joshtoro @ Kiva Stories from the Field
That should be the sign hanging underneath every blog because, really, blogs are like an open invitation to read your diary.
Lucky for me, my diary is written to an imaginary audience populated by people just like you.
Welcome. Welcome to my first post as a Kiva Fellow. I hope that these first few sentences prove enticing enough [...]
