kind-of comfy chair + cushion

Its a fine chair, the woven stitching breathes nicely in the heat, and offers decent support despite lacking a premium features such as cupholders, satellite phones, or an ability to rock.  and my latest room (i’m on #3 now) came with a semi-comfy cushion to go with my just-kinda comfy chair.

but my recent good fortune (theft) has doubled my seating asset count to 2, and changed the way I preside over the balcony.  In the lobby that connects the 8 rooms in “block B,” there are a couple armchairs and a little sofa, and sometimes a few other random chairs that pop up from time to time.  fairly recently, i spied a temptingly padded blue chair that looked really nice.  here it is:

so i swiped it, and immediately whisked it away to my balcony.  in no short order, it has changed my balcony user experience.  this is great because it relieves me from moving my desk chair from outside to inside and lets it stay near the desk where it belongs and feels safe.  but the new blue chair has made sitting outside immensely more enjoyable, as its plushly padded and has a little bit of reclinability to it.  so i can spend a good hour or so on the balcony, with my feet up on the rail, experiencing zero soreness and 100% more clarity of thought.

i feel a little bit guilty for swiping this comfy chair from the lobby, but it seldom gets used from what I can see, and I dont think anyone will notice.  and since i’ve been here a couple months, i think i’ve rightfully earned the comfy chair.  in fact, i’m thinking of putting a little placard on my room door that says “mayor of Block B” just to inform everyone of my seniority and tenure within the block.

i’m going to thailand for about 5 days soon, and my dilemma is whether i keep hoarding the comfy chair in my room, or return it to the lobby and risk another opportunistic resident stealing it for their own balcony loafing.  I’m pretty sure that I’ll put it back in the lobby and then just re-steal it when I get back.

I think I’ll file this observation under “Little things that give me pleasure,” a new category that i’m starting right meow after my recent triumph in acquiring a key bathroom asset, my western toilet.

and as for now I’ll continue to enjoy the spoils of being ensconced in this padded and luxurious throne, which has definitely increased my balcony loungeability time by 60-70%.

ah the joys of the little things….

this blog post was conceived and composed in its entirety from the comfy chair described above.

so the latest move happened the morning of my birthday.  of course just minutes before my ride to work arrived, i was informed by a stout man that i needed to vacate, and it had to be now.  i had gotten fairly used to this latest room, tucked towards the back of the guest house, even though it was considerably crappier than the previous one (no hot water, lots of rickety broken things, hole-y mosquito net).  so i huffed and hawed about having to pack up again and moved quickly before heading to work.  the new room looked fine, the floor was a bit uglier than the last, but the balcony has a bit nicer view. whateva, i thought.  then i came home that evening, and entered the bathroom for the first time.  my eyes were confronted by this:

where is the red bow?

i stopped in my tracks as i thought there were zero western toilets in this whole building.  now after 2 months you would think that i had grown accustomed to the squatter toilets and would have some annoying expat indignation towards “ppl who need a seat” or some other phrase that deserves italics.   wrong.  i will never, ever believe that.  walking in and seeing this sight was the hand (or many hands) of some divine birthday bathroom goddess.  if they try and move me again, they’re gonna have to pry me from this room toilet.  i’ll even paint the room myself if i need to.  i will probably paint it with repeating patterns of western toilets.

anyway, that was the odd little its-the-small-things joy-of-today, which happened to fall on my birthday.

so on feb 16th or 18th, (or somewhere therabouts) a Hindu festival went down.  this one was celebrating the goddess of education, and was quite the party.  I had been aware of the impending festival since I arrived a month before, as there were these half-discernible mud statues of a Hindu goddess everywhere I went.  I didn’t really understand what they were because they were these mud figures with wavy looking arms and usually just partly-constructed, leaving me très confused.  anyway, about a week before, these mud ladies all got painted and overnight transformed into very festive focal points of a celebration — which lasts for about 2 days after the actual holiday itself.

For the first day, the painted goddesses are displayed in temples or makeshift shrines that are colorfully decorated and visited throughout the day by her worshippers.  which i’ve noticed for other little minor holidays and such.

but when the real party begins is on day two or three.  this is when groups of 20 to 30 teenage’ish boys gather and round up:

1. a generator mounted on a bicycle;

2. these big float type thingies that act as a DJ platform and strobe-light launching pad;

3. another float type cart on wheels to carry the goddess;

4. their blue suede shoes.

They then cruise around their neighborhoods, stopping every few hundred meters for some gyrating and celebrating.  I noticed this going on for a couple days as I was driving around the city, but then they made a stop RIGHT in front of my guest house balcony, at which point i rushed out to watch.  i think the video can illustrate more aptly than my words can, but theres no doubt there is some sexy dancing going on.

and here are a few pics, a bit blurry as i had to use my tele-creeper zoom lens to get them and it was dark.  but you get the point.

I’m already booking my tickets to return for next February 16th…

we definitely need to bring this back to america, because the availability of little treats back home during meetings and such is definitely snlacking (yep, just did that).

this is most likely because i’m a visitor and clearly from very far away lands, so people are trying to be as hospitable as possible.  but the point is, they are already extremely hospitable and this is just habit for any sort of meeting/gathering.  and i dig it.  call me count snackula but this should be a requirement world wide in my humble and correct opinion.

Here are a few snacks i’ve encountered…

the aforementioned cakey thing, with some flat rice (i think?) below

A piece of foreign fruit, but still a snack

The aforementioned sugarmilk tea

a fun new sugary snack from just today

Ok not a snack i've found in india, but this looks really really good right now and would be an acceptable snack to receive at meetings back home

and the patna motorist’s primary tool of aggression is the horn.  invented by the germans, this awful device is used sparingly in the states, and when it is, chances are you will strongly offend someone or elicit a middle finger.  here, the opposite.  its actually unsafe if you dont use your horn because, as the logic goes, “people wont know you’re there.”  it never ceases to amaze me how indians can just tune them out.  i’m nearly certain that i will lose my hearing at least 5 years earlier than i otherwise would have, and i’ve only been here 2 weeks. i’m even contemplating wearing those earphones that are usually reserved for people who hang out on airport tarmacs.

patna gridlock

in fact, i think it would make more sense and just be easier on everyone if steering wheels just had a button that stops the horn from making a loud and blaring noise when you press it.  this would definitely save some effort for the driver.

and dont even get me started on those big colorful steel-clad truck horns.  whoever was the engineer that designed those things should be sentenced to an eternal life of vuvuzelas.  they let out this shrill jingle that is supposed to sound musical i guess, but mostly resembles a 20-ton steel pterodactyl swooping down to eat you, only he’s using a megaphone.  and they are EVERYWHERE.  i still jump everytime one starts blaring behind me.

the primary offenders

but despite my horn sensitivities, i am pretty sure i have a million-dollar idea.  write this down:  i think it would be a really good idea to create a new breed of horns for indian drivers.  i would call it a for-realsies horn, and it would be used how a horn is used back in the states.  but for it to work, it will need to be powered by a jet engine and operate at unprecedented sonic frequencies.  like the type of stuff that gets invented in switzerland 300 feet below the ground in concrete tunnels.  anyway, the for-realsies horn will probably make things worse and create a nation of 1 billion deaf people, but by that time i’ll be gone. and rich.

after spending aroundish 5 months in Sri Lanka and now arriving to the Indian state of Bihar, i’m racking up my south asian experience.  and an alter-ego is emerging.

the letter combination i-a doesn’t seem to really exist in the languages across this region, whereas a-i is very popular.  upon following up on the matter, i was told in hindi, there IS no sound for i-a, its simply a-y, or something….

so basically this grammar lesson is the reason that nearly everyone here calls me “Brain” instead of brian.  it has always happened when people type it and mix up the keys, but i started noticing it more than a few times in sri lanka when it was “brain, brain, brain.” so i’ve come to embrace it.

south asian brain has a few idiosyncracies not shared with north american brian.  for one he wakes up much earlier than normal.  I’m always awake by 6:30 or 7:00 here and have trouble falling back asleep if I try.  and those who know me can attest, I enjoy sleeping, and have never been what the pundits like to call a “morning person.”

burping: burping is totally acceptable and almost expected here.  its not impolite, rude, or offensive.  its simply not noticed.  to burp mid-sentence in a meeting would be completely acceptable.  so in the spirit of cultural learning, i’m trying to burp in public as much as possible.

hand eating…as mentioned in the SL days, cutlery is pretty absent round these parts.  i made the cultural mistake the first time around of eating with my left hand (lefties are persecuted in many parts of the world and forbidden to let their true awesomeness shine – its a cause i’m passionate about), which is viewed as very odd and slightly gross (think of the hand you use to wipe with)……so i’m starting anew here and learning to do it with the right hand.  its not pretty, but its my life.  whenever i’m eating with my hands, all eyes immediately start watching the spectacle with great entertainment.

I’m sure there are other little aspects to my south asian brain existence i’m not even noticing at this point. i’ll continue to keep updates coming as i notice them.

well its at least rebegun with this post so far.  and i’m really going to try and be better about updating, instead of thinking about updating, maybe writing a few sentences in a draft, then waiting and never doing so.  so, reader (that would be you), i’m back abroad again, this time in the great big large & crazy india.  not unlike indiana, my new home for 2 months enjoys watching cricket matches for hours on end and being confused with ohio for where it stands on a map.  i’ll actually be doing more microfinance work in patna, bihar (northeast of india — near nepal), totally unrelated to kiva, and am here on the ground for 2 monfs – til march – or at least thats the plan as of now.

so yes, INDIA – now this is happening!

So I ended up at the mst practical place possible on St Patties, the “New Chinese Restaurant” near the train station.  The New Chinese Restaurant looks like an opium den.  While I dont hang out in opium dens that often, I feel qualified enough to label this spot as “of or like an opium den” and “possessing opium den-like characteristics.”

This is a small chinese restaurant opium den.  The floor, curtains, and tablecloths are all crimson red, and the single room is lit by bare lightbulbs screwed into the walls.  One is randomly tinted reddish pink, like that sleazy red-tinted cap that you can-but-dont put on your hot tub light.  The ceiling is also dark wood, so pretty much without night vision goggles you cant navigate this place.

I’m surrounded exclusively by Sri Lankans, hitting it hard.  There’s a bottle of arrack (local booze that all Lankans drink) on every table.  I raise the stakes and order a Lion Stout, the 8.8% heavy beer that nobody ever orders here, but every bar carries.  After all its St. Patties Day. So I proceed to party, hard, over my veggie omelette (nearly everything else on the menu was ‘not available’) with chips (fries, damn british colonies), and lion stout.  I look up from my partying for a second and see another solo rogue across the way at a table with his coke.  He reaches down deviously towards his feet and pulls up a bottle of booze and sort of stares at me, at first menacingly but then as if we are in some club together.  A wink may have been involved.  Looking back on this, as I spent the meal partying with my opium omelette & Lion Stout, I realized the fact that he was hiding his bottle makes no sense whatsoever.  Everyone in here right now has a full bottle openly visible on their tables.  Maybe it was some sort of St Patties chicanery, or maybe I was hallucinating.  This is an opium den after all.  I also notice a horizontal line on the wall, indicating the height of the water from the 2004 tsunami.  12/26/04, about 6 feet high on the wall. its quite eerie.

I wish I had an exciting way to end this story.  I was hoping for some shootout or chinese opium smugglers to come rushing in, but instead I just got the bill for my beer and hallucinogenic omelette.  However, I am becoming quite fond of this place, and the New Chinese Opium Den Restaurant is a spot to call my own.  Its a great place to party.  Now people are staring at me, I gotta get outa here.  The bill arrives without me asking; this is definitely a first in Sri Lanka.  They want me out but i’m already in too deep.  Anyway, I dig this place; the food is mediocre, the beers predictable and cheap, but it is highly entertaining to just hang, watch, and feel like I’m part of some club I don’t belong in.

[fellows blog fodder]

People always enjoy picking things apart from a distance.  To me it seems like microfinance has taken a bit of a beating in the last eight months or so.  Most probably that’s because it was about eight months ago that I became immersed in this world when I started my fellowship as a KF9, my first foray into the industry.  But I also think it’s because of the rapidly growing attention microfinance has gotten over the last half-decade, from a nobel prize, to the proliferation of interesting organizations like Kiva and other online funders springing up, as well as bold claims like “microfinance will cure poverty.”

Microfinance’s publicity has paved the way for skeptics and critics to jump at the opportunity to point out every findable foible.  There’s been a fair amount of recent talk here on this blog, but also even running in places like the New York Times, about interest rates in the industry. Questions have emerged regarding whether or not it’s unfair to levy rates on the poor that some see as usuriously high (I’m making that word up if it doesn’t already exist).  And I won’t lie, my thoughts and feelings towards microfinance over the last two placements have been more sobering than rosy, and I’ve come to a lot more harsh realizations than poverty-eradicating epiphanies.  However, I think there is an important aspect that many long-distance observers miss, and its something that took being out in the field to notice about microfinance institutions and their role in the world.  So I’ll share.

It’s the little and sometimes intangible services and offerings that these tireless organizations known as MFIs provide that often go overlooked.  The first time I processed this realization was after my umpteenth trek out to a group of borrowers via bumpy roads running alongside paddy fields here in Sri Lanka (and this could have just as easily been 5 months ago trekking through farmland and villages during the brisk Armenian winter).  It dawned on me that we were always making efforts far and wide to come to the borrower.  MFIs are pretty damn good about getting out to remote and scarce areas to consistently serve their clients.  I can’t speak for absolutely all MFIs, but I do know from reading countless stories of other Kiva Fellows that this is common practice all over the world.  Not a lot of banks I know do that, unless they’re showing up to serve you a repossession notice and subsequently speed away in your former ride because they’re late for a TARP party.

I know that we often make note the high costs of serving rural and remote villages, (running counter to my point that it is overlooked) but that often gets cited when we’re talking numbers or doing analysis through the cost lens.  To me it seems that we forget to highlight the important driver of those costs, the carrying out of the social mission to serve those in need.  These instituions are catering directly to the borrowers here, doing whatever is needed in order to make it easier on the client.  The borrower may not have the resources to travel, so the MFI is going to see to it however they must that they will serve these clients, if even in the middle of a carrot field.

That started me thinking about the little things that microfinance does, the stuff that doesn’t always get captured on paper, statistical studies, or in criticisms.   And when you start to look around, you realize there are a lot of these little things in action sprinkled throughout an MFI’s operations.  Some MFIs provide skills training.  Others provide benefits such as scholarships to clients’ children, or loan referral perks for recruiting friends and neighbors.  All of them seem to focus intently on client retention.  MFIs customize product offerings and tailor them to their clients in a way that works best FOR the client.  High repayment rates help provide evidence of that.  Basically they structure their products in a way that will most effectively serve their constituents.  And this is the right thing to do.  It just seems unfair to me, especially when I see comments on blogs or even in Kiva lending teams, that people think these MFIs are exploiting their clients to make money hand over fist.  In reality,most of these MFIs are busting their tails night and day to serve their clients while trying to manage their own risks and operate as a healthy business.

These MFIs build trust with their clients through the relationships cultivated by the credit officers.  They provide a consistent service, one that they may offer three, four, or ten times to a given client; as often as the borrower is willing to come back and make their payments on time.  And the people do come back. They are voting with their feet, openly approving what an MFI does, by keeping them in business.  Clients successively take more and more loans, (and despite some suggestions, most often without over-indebting themselves) which is the greatest evidence that these organizations are doing their job right and filling a need in their societies.

My point, I think,  is that a lot of times there are small factors at work in an MFI.  Little daily events that you might not think twice about, but are really some of the key drivers that make this model valuable for its constituents.   It’s easy to pick microfinance apart with a few jaw-dropping statistics and shock the uninitiated, but much harder to really look closely at what an organization is doing right.  Peering in and noting the little things, and putting them in context to see the overall benefits on society is difficult, but something we need to do more of.  I don’t think microfinance is the end-all answer to poverty as I once might have back when I first heard of the concept.  But I do think it is important to note how valuable this service is to the borrowers,  people who are coping with some of the most dire situations on the planet.  And if you keep your eyes open, I’ll bet you start to notice some of the little things at work.