Showing 1-9 of 9 results
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I Am Happiest When…
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 27 August 2010
I began writing this blog on a scrap piece of paper just north of the Burkinabé/Ghanaian border. I had spent my morning walking across the border carrying a 40-pound pack and subsequently spending far too much money on a taxi into the nearest town. My Kiva Fellowship had ended a week and a half earlier, and I was sitting in a hot, dirty hotel room with a concrete floor, grimy walls, and inconsistent electricity. I was desperate for entertainment.
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A Kiva Fellow’s Scrap Book
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 20 August 2010
By Leah Gage, KF 10 in Ukraine & KF11 in Togo Today is my last day as a Kiva Fellow. Kiva Fellows Class number 10 (or KF10) took me to Zaporozhye, Ukraine where I worked with Kiva’s field partner HOPE Ukraine; KF11 brought me here to Lomé, Togo, where I work with two [...]
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Getting Our Groove On in West Africa
Blog: Honey Service Year - 8 May 2010
Life without music would be meaningless.” - Niezsche [Taken from a marquee billboard advertising the Ghana Music Awards 2010 One night, as we were wandering through our Asylum Down neighborhood in Accra, we heard some great reggae bumping from a small shop with a corrugated metal roof. Being who we are, and feeling the ongoing inspiration of our portable hard-drive of collected music, we popped
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Lomé, Togo: 50th Anniversary
Blog: Honey Service Year - 29 April 2010
written by Nathan Protests in the street on the 50th Anniversary of Independence On the day of our arrival in Lomé, Saturday, we saw mass protests on the boulevard. Every Saturday in Lomé, at least 60,000 citizens rise in opposition to the entrenched oligarchy here and march through the streets. Nearly every weekend these protests are begun with song and dance and ended with teargas and
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Lomé, Togo: West Africa
Blog: Honey Service Year - 23 April 2010
We are lucky to have arrived just a few days before the auspicious occasion of the 50th anniversary of Togolaise independence. But, luck in this instance is a learning experience to further our understanding and impressions of Africa, to get a slight interpretation of the massive affects of 400 years of colonial rule, and to explore, for ourselves, the ways that Togo has had impacted our lives in
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“Il faut profiter, ein?”
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 15 January 2010
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo It’s amazing how identity can be so malleable. In a matter of hours, a person can be transformed from local to foreigner, fluent to fumbling, familiar to fascinating, and even from black to white. Anyone who has ever travelled even just a couple hours outside their hometown has experienced this shift. The [...]
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When the Road Ends…
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 1 January 2010
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo Picture yourself on a bike riding along a beach. Nice image, isn’t it? Now, swap the bike for a motorcycle fishtailing in the sand and replace the crashing waves with revving engines and honking cars. Add dust in your eyes, the smell of exhaust in your nose, and about 30 degrees of [...]
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A Small Fish in a Small Pond
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 17 December 2009
By Taylor Akin, KF9, Togo As I sat in Charles de Gaulle airport waiting for my flight to Lomé, I had already begun to feel out of place. My hair was carelessly sitting around my shoulders, I was wearing old yoga pants and a new pair of Converse, and I was munching on my mother’s half-squished [...]
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Tuning Out and Coming To…in a Chicken Coop
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 28 October 2009
By Jessica Chervin, KF9 Togo Yesterday evening, West Africa made me giddy. I have been in Togo for almost five months, and in West Africa for almost nine. Here, my senses are never neutral. The most lovely moments are tempered by inconvenience. My daily moto rides to and from Microfund are at once thrilling and relaxing, but [...]
Showing 1-9 of 9 results
