Posted: Trespassers Welcome

That should be the sign hanging underneath every blog because, really, blogs are like an open invitation to read your diary.

Lucky for me, my diary is written to an imaginary audience populated by people just like you.

Welcome. Welcome to my first post as a Kiva Fellow. I hope that these first few sentences prove enticing enough to read to the middle and even the end of this entry.

This fall I will be going to Peru and later Bolivia to help act as a bridge between the Kiva borrowers from EDAPROSPO and Emprender (respectively) and their Kiva lenders around the world. To do so, I will be interviewing the entrepreneurs and writing journal updates about the effects of the loans on their lives. In addition, I’ll do some behind-the-scenes work with the MFI (Microfinance Institution… aka, bankers for the poor) to help them maximize their relationship with Kiva.

I am also going to be writing posts like this (though more entertaining and exciting) every two weeks or so to give you an insight into my travels and travails as a Kiva Fellow in Peru and Bolivia. My posts are sure to be full of witty insights, carefully constructed anecdotes, musings into microfinance in practice and theory, general introspections and extrospections, tangents into economic and political histories of various countries and the implications for today, and anachronistic filler talk like how to build a log cabin.

Right now I am taking part of Kiva’s week-long training session for new Fellows at their headquarters in San Francisco. This post is stunted and awkwardly worded in part because this lesson lasts forty minutes and things move fast. Just imagine, with only a week to have hands-on training from Kiva staff before heading out overseas, things get busy really fast.

You made it to the end of this post. Your reward? A never-before-seen snapshot from inside Kiva’s office in San Francisco. Enjoy.

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