A lifelong drive to learn. An ambitious spirit that wouldn’t let up. A conviction that she had more to give, more to do, than was expected of her. These are the traits that drive entrepreneur Anatolia to succeed in the business of growing and selling water spinach in Timor-Leste, where she lives with her husband and four children.
“They say some beautiful women like me don't want to work. They just sit at home,” she says. “I tell them, ‘In this life, it’s not just about beauty — doing business is also important for our families.’”
For Anatolia, working comes naturally. Going to nearby Taibesi market to sell her crop every day feels healthy.
“I don’t feel good if I just sit and do nothing. I feel pain in my body. It doesn't feel good to go a day without work.”
As hard as Anatolia worked, she knew she needed to buy more manure, fertilizer, and some new farming equipment. The idea was to increase her farming productivity in order to see the kinds of real growth (and income) that would allow her to support her family, help build their home, and provide a life for her four children that she once longed for herself.
An honest trade, grown from the ground up
Anatolia has been selling kangkong, or water spinach, her whole life. When she met her husband in 2006, they moved in together on his parents’ water spinach farm.
“This ground was initially full of water, and my parents-in-law came and lived here,” says Anatolia. “They began to dry up the ground. After the whole process, they started to grow water spinach to sell it.”
Today, Anatolia is in charge of their crop.
“We harvest our water spinach every day in the morning, we wash it, and after that, at around 2 or 3pm, we take it to Taibesi market to sell,” Anatolia says. “We go home when it is sold out.”
Anatolia’s business is often a full family affair. Sometimes, her children help clean and gather the water spinach. While her husband has his own separate job, he also spends time with Anatolia in the fields and at the market whenever he can. “He always helps me with my business. He always helps me out when he is off duty,” says Anatolia. “My family is good, my parents-in-law are also good. They always help me. I feel their support in my water spinach business.”
A thirst for knowledge during a time of revolution
Like many other people who grew up in Timor-Leste in the 1990s, Anatolia and her family had to make painful, financially conservative decisions. When Anatolia was a young girl, her country had already been in a turbulent fight for independence for nearly two decades, and before that had existed under Portuguese colonial rule off and on since the 17th century.
Back in 1974, when Portugal suddenly abandoned the island due to its concerns at home, Timorese revolutionaries who called themselves Fretilin seized upon the moment, hoping to finally regain Timorese independence. Instead, the Indonesian army invaded Timor-Leste in 1975, seeing an opportunity to expand their own reach. This invasion kicked off three decades of genocide. During their occupation of Timor-Leste, Indonesian troops brutally murdered 170,000 Timorese (25% of the population) to maintain control, sometimes even killing mourners at public memorial services. By 2002, the U.N. had stepped in to help usher in the current era of Timor-Leste’s independence, but the country was and is still rebuilding after its losses.
Timorese children like Anatolia were living in a state of upheaval. Families had to make sacrifices, save where they could. Anatolia wanted to go to school to learn how to read and write, but her mother said no.
“Under Indonesian rule, when I told my mother I wanted to go to school, she said I shouldn't go to school because there was no money. She told me to only do water spinach business,” says Anatolia. But she was undeterred.
“I learned to read and write by myself. I copied what they learned; I wrote it down, and then I studied it at home.”
“I saw my peers going to school. When they went to their class, I followed them, I observed them,” she says. “I learned to read and write by myself. I copied what they learned; I wrote it down, and then I studied it at home.”
Even though Anatolia never went to school herself, by watching her peers get an education, and by taking the initiative to teach herself, she was able to gain important life skills that allowed her to succeed in business.
Solid ground to stand on, for Anatolia and her family
Eager to make enough to send her children to school and to build her house, Anatolia reached out to Kiva Lending Partner Kaebauk Investimentu No Finansas, SA (KIF), which is one of only two microfinance institutions operating in Timor-Leste trying to respond to the needs of thousands of microentrepreneurs, including women like Anatolia.
With the loan, Anatolia wasn’t just hoping to get the equipment and farming materials she needed to increase her yield and make her crops grow better. She was also building a literal foundation for her husband and four children. With the help of 32 Kiva lenders, her loan was funded, and she could get to work on the most pressing need of her family: laying the foundation of their house. What’s more, with the increased profits that Anatolia sees from her expanded water spinach farming operations, all of her children can get an education. “My children are currently attending school. My first son is in grade 4 of elementary school, and the second one is also in grade 4,” she says.
Her other two children, a three-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter, are still too young to go to school — but when the time comes, Anatolia and her husband will have the money they need to send them both, thanks to the growth of their agricultural operations.
In Timor-Leste, shaken by decades of a bloody, genocidal fight for independence, building a future out of poverty and political conflict, even just for yourself and your immediate family, is hard work and a burden shared among Timorese people today.
When people like Anatolia take control of their own lives, it helps re-weave the fabric of the entire society of Timor-Leste. With every success story like Anatolia’s, bolstered by Kiva supporters, the country takes another small step toward stability. And in a more stable Timor-Leste, Anatolia can begin to dream of the future.
“About my dreams for the future, I think my family welfare in the future will become my dream,” she says. “And a happy life in my family. That’s what I think." Learn more about Kiva's work supporting women.
