First day of interviews

Today we met with the FINCA Nicaragua credit officers for the first time and began client interviews. "My" first bank meeting was out of town, a bit in the countryside, with clean fresh air, trees, birds - all a lovely gift after being stuck in Managua for five days. This area was not the poorest area. It was the typical Central American countryside, where people do not have (or seem to value) many material possessions, but they have enough to eat. I think this is the hardest thing for me to communicate to people who haven't been here: the order in which possessions are acquired is so different. One finds people with color tv, mobile phone, and DVD player, but no inside toilet, rooms separated by a plastic curtain if anything, and dirt floors. I met people with running water and electricity, but no clock. The first client I interviewed was a older lady who lived up a steep embankment, mostly cooking with wood outdoors. She’d been sick for the past month and therefore didn’t end up working at the business for which she had taken out the loan, and was worried. The second client was from a relatively prosperous family with a large, tile-floor house (my interviewee was the daughter of the loan group's treasurer) and used the money for her family’s bakery. People have large things here: heavy, dark, ponderous furniture, wooden shelving units with elaborately carved spindles (and in one house, burgundy crocheted cozies for the spindle-tops of each chair), a TV, a washing machine; but no small things - no books, no papers, no pens and CDs and clothes and tennis rackets and salad spinners piling up in corners. It is a much, much less consumerist society and one with a good deal less paper. (I imagine it is very easy to mop.)

In harmony with this prevailing ethos of simplicity, Jeanette, Lauren, and I have dialed down our eating habits to the most basic (since we have very little time to cook and shop, and only simple ingredients are within walking distance of our hotel). I highly recommend chayote squash, prepared according to the following elaborate and traditional Nicaraguan recipe:

1. Cut squash in half.
2. Boil.
3. Add salt.

We all go out with a different credit officer each morning (starting at 6:30!) and follow them to the "village bank meetings." We interview two or three randomly selected clients at each bank. I put "village bank meetings" in quotes because neither I nor my teammates have encountered what we had previously thought of as a village bank meeting. Instead, a few clients (out of 15-20) come and make their payments, often bringing payments from other people. Definitely many people do not pay on time! But it seemed that my loan officer was chasing them down and nagging them, at least by proxy.

Also, it seems quite common for women to have to leave collateral such as a sewing machine or TV to guarantee their loan. This confuses me - doesn't it undermine the whole point of village banks? True, I was in relatively well-off areas, but my teammates found the same system. Lauren visited one house in which she asked for the bathroom and had a bucket pointed out to her, while Jeanette was cordially invited to use the river.

The best part of the work so far is the names of the village banks groups. There are very few the same: apart from the religious names (“Jesus is Savior,” “With God’s Help,” etc. - about 10%), and the expected optimistic ones (“New Future,” “Flower of Happiness,” “Light of Day,”) the more inventive group names include: We Will All Pay, My PC, Taking Advantage of the Loan, Simplifying, Fantasy, Elegance, The Punctual Ones, Texas, and Women United With Hillary (Sen. Clinton paid a visit about 10 years ago).

The interviews run about half an hour to 45 minutes, and so far all my interviewees have endured with great patience and good humor as I quiz them on “how much does your household spend each month on deodorant, toothpaste, and shampoo,” and “how much schooling does each member of your household have?” I must confess that, contrary to instructions, I have begun skipping the questions beginning “Have you given birth in the last five years?” when interviewing women in their 50s. If I encounter a Nicaraguan Sarah I am afraid the miracle will go unrecorded. Question 49, on the other hand, can always be relied upon for a moment of hilarity: gazing out upon the city streets, I inquire politely whether the client owns a boat or canoe.

Lauren's quote of the day:

"I was walking with my credit officer in the street and walked too close to traffic. Miguel Angel pulled me back and said, 'No, no, you can't die until you've done 94 more interviews.' And at that moment, I was kind of thinking, 'Which would be worse?'"