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Going Green? Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Promote Green Loans (Part 2)
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 14 November 2011
By Claire Markham, KF16, Kenya In Kenya, the act of going green appears to be far less of a priority than it is in more developed green economies. In the first part of this blog series, I discussed the cultural barriers that exist in Kenya. In this second part, I attempt to answer the question of how an MFI can break through the obstacles identified in Part 1 to implement a successful green and water loan program.
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Going Green? Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Promote Green Loans (Part 1)
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 20 October 2011
By Claire Markham, KF16, Kenya In the developed world, the recent increased attention to global warming and the importance of environmental preservation and restoration efforts is something that’s hard to ignore. In Kenya, I have found this is not necessarily the case in my experiences so far. When the borrowers that we work with so often have to worry about ensuring there is enough food on the table or money for school fees, adding the responsibility of being conscious of their environmental impact can be a hard notion to sell.
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Kampala to Nairobi – 14 hours of speed bumps
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 30 September 2011
It was a terrible night’s sleep – a 14 hour bus journey from Kampala to Nairobi: I awoke cold, cold and achey. The speed bumps shuddered us awake every few minutes. I swear I woke a hundred times. A few glasses of Waragi (it was my birthday after all) would have knocked me out, but [...]
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Take the Long Way Home: A Loan Officer’s Journey
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 29 September 2011
By Claire Markham, KF16, Kenya Before I arrived in Nairobi, I had heard on multiple occasions about the fundamental role loan officers play in making an MFI function. Loan officers are the backbone of the organization; they are intimately familiar with their clients and the challenges they face and they go to extraordinary measures to meet client needs.
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Observing Kiva’s Raison d’Etre in my First Field Visit
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 7 September 2011
By Claire Markham, KF16, Kenya Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to spend a day with a loan officer visiting three different Kiva borrower groups. Though these were fairly routine visits for the loan officer, they were far from ordinary from my perspective; they allowed me to observe real examples that confirm why Kiva does what it does.
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Giraffe Heaven at Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya for Photo Friday
Blog: Ciao Bambino! - 24 June 2011
My first exposure to an article about the hotel Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, Kenya was followed by a flurry of emails to friends with an all caps WOW in the subject line. There are unique hotels all over the world, but the list narrows quickly when you identify truly one-of-a-kind experiences. Unless you know of other hotels where giraffes can and do literally poke their head into open windows in the morning, Giraffe Manor qualifies.
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Seeing Kenya a Different Way
Blog: A Traveler's Library - 20 June 2011
Destination: Kenya Movie: The First Grader, A National Geographic Film (2011) PG-13 I went to see expecting to see a heart-warming feel good story about literacy. National Geographic is one of the producers, so I expected that it would be beautifully photographed and give me a scenic tour of Africa. Justin Chadwick, whom you may [...]This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library.
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A roadside snack in Nairobi
Blog: PocketCultures - 30 April 2010
Thanks again to Isabelle Prondzynski who is a regular contributor to our Food of the World Flickr group. These vegetable samosas were being fried at the roadside in Nairobi, Kenya. Isabelle wrote: “They were the best I have ever eaten! I am sure I shall be back for more…”
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A Kiva Entrepreneur Meets YOU!
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 24 February 2010
On February 17, 2010, I introduced the Kiva world to Robert Nandemu, a mixed farmer in western Kenya taking out a $1,050 loan. This week, the opposite holds true, as earlier today Robert met the 39 lenders to his loan! Okay, okay, he didn’t actually meet the 39 people from around the world that leant him [...]
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Lady is Grounded
Blog: A Lady in London - 22 February 2010
After the taxi breakdown on the way to the Dakar airport, I hoped the rest of our trip would go smoothly. Unfortunately, the incident proved to be a mere taste of the bad luck we would encounter over the next three days.Our flight to Nairobi flight on Kenya Airways had a stop en route in Bamako. We landed in the Malian capital after two hours in the air, and waited for an hour while the ground staff cleaned the plane and put blankets on each seat.
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Kiva’s newest cash cow: Juhudi Kilimo
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 12 February 2010
Hezron Murinde is a happy man. After 20 years of subsistence farming in a hilly region of Kenya’s Central Province, he’s earning a profit. It started with a chaff cutter. A chaff cutter is a big, cranky device that chops feed into small enough pieces for livestock to eat (and livestock eat a lot). [...]
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It’s a Whole New World…
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 10 February 2010
So imagine your first week as a Kiva Fellow placed at a microfinance institution in Nairobi, Kenya. Think about what the place may look like, how the people will greet you, and the overall atmosphere of the office. Now scrap all that, because my first few days at Juhudi Kilimo have been so far above [...]
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Lady in Nairobi
Blog: A Lady in London - 9 February 2010
Last time I was in Nairobi was exactly four years ago. I came with two girlfriends and stayed with the parents of one of their classmates from Georgetown. It was a lovely trip, complete with a safari in the Masai Mara and a four day mini break in Zanzibar. I had no idea when I would return, but when I moved to London I figured it was only a matter of time.
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12 hours in Nairobi
Blog: Nilikuta Shani - 3 February 2010
I arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport , Nairobi, on a Saturday evening after my flight with Fly 540 from Entebbe, Uganda. I had no set plans other than to find an ATM and a taxi. I’d only have about 12 hours in Kenya’s capital–I had arrived at night and would be departing on my [...]
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The Last Days of the Dodo
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 21 January 2010
by Avani Parekh-Bhatt, Kiva Fellow at SMEP in Nairobi, Kenya. Jambo! I’d like to introduce myself, My name is Avani Parekh-Bhatt, I’m a 9th class Kiva Fellow and the last of my class to get to the field in Kenya. I hail from Durham, North Carolina. I believe in the power of human relationships, [...]
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Karibu Kenya
Blog: Roasted Bugs and Sticky Rice - 21 January 2010
I've been here for over a week now. My internet access has been terribly limited, but now with an internet cafe down the road that charges 1 kenya shilling (ksh) per minute, I can pay a dollar for an hour and fifteen minutes of access. Hot damn! Nairobi: Everywhere I go in this country I hear "Jambo mzungu!" which literally means "hello white person!", always said with an enormous smile. The people are so friendly here. It's much friendlier than Thailand, "the land of smiles"... psh.
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Swahili Lesson 1: The Habari Family and Learning English in Kenya
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 1 January 2010
By Hanna Azemati, KF9 Kenya Our first Swahili class in the early morning tranquility of the still shuttered Prestige Plaza cafeteria in Kilimani was interjected with a myriad of embarrassing anecdotes of faux pas called forth by each new lesson that Lucy taught us. As Anne, Rachel and I, the three Nairobi Kiva Fellows, can attest, [...]
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Nairobi to Isiolo – Frontier Country.
Blog: Where the road goes - 13 December 2009
Taken straight out of my journal notes. Disclaimer for poor grammar,etc :) At the matatu station, I am relieved to find that there are still matatus departing for Isiolo via Nanyuki, despite Nairobi’s ungodly rush hour traffic thoroughly interfering with any attempt to arrive and board quickly after leaving the Sudanese embassy. A wired and wide-eyed [...]
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Pedestrian in Nairobi
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 12 December 2009
By Hanna Azemati, KF9 Kenya Nairobi is dangerous, polluted and sinister. Nairobi is generous, beautiful and lively. I woke up on my third morning in Nairobi to the twittering of a myriad of birds intermingled with roosters crowing, the occasional neighbors greeting one another in Swahili and finally the church bells announcing that I could go back [...]
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Chasing Unicorns. The Sudanese Visa.
Blog: Where the road goes - 10 December 2009
Taken straight out of my journal notes. Disclaimer for poor grammar,etc It’s moving day again today. Somehow another three mosquitos managed to get into my mosquito net and haunt my dreams. I wonder sometimes if it’s not called a mosquito net because it attracts them. I’m not feeling entirely well this morning – almost fluey. Putting [...]
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A quick glimpse of Nairobi nightlife
Blog: Kampala Days (Diary of a Mzungu) - 29 November 2009
"Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats as we approach Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta airport."I'm slightly apprehensive leaving Uganda as I leave behind the familiarity of the Luganda greetings that I've been having such fun with over the last nine months. I feel like an outsider again. Will everyone speak English?
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The Carnivore’s Dilemma
Blog: No Hurry Curry - 15 October 2009
9/27/09: Nairobi, Kenya Tonight we ate at Carnivore. Though it doesn’t call itself a Brazilian steakhouse, that’s pretty much what it is. Kevin ate his body weight in meat, and I ate just a tad more. We had: sausages, spare ribs, steak, turkey, chicken gizzards, chicken wings, chicken legs, pork chops, more pork, lamb chops, more [...]
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Dazed and Confused and Soaking It All In
Blog: No Hurry Curry - 14 October 2009
9/26/09: Nairobi, Kenya It all started out simply enough… We were leaving the market after our elephant adventure, and we just needed to get a cab to take us ten minutes down the road. There were seven of us, all walking toward the street with grocery bags and other souvenirs in hand. We were expecting to walk [...]
