Visiting Microfinance Borrowers in the Maya’s Highlands
It is the rainy season in late September in the Guatemalan highlands and photojournalist Michael Kienitz and WCCN board member Gregg Johnson have volunteered to visit the two Guatemalan microfinance institutions (MFIs) funded by WCCN in early 2009. The goal is to collect some information about the borrowers of these two MFI’s, better understand how WCCN’s capital impacts their families, and share the results with WCCN donors and investors. In addition to the formal questions on the social impact questionnaire, Michael is photographing the borrowers, their families and surroundings.
During the next eight days the focus will be to visit and interview over 20 borrowers in two Mayan communities in the western highlands. More than 20 Mayan indigenous language dialects are spoken today, two of which are used as the main language for everyday communication by the borrowers. The common language is Spanish.
The first stop is at the offices of Asociación CDRO to meet the guide for the afternoon and next day of interviews, Jorge Gutierrez. CDRO is one of the few Guatemalan MFIs that is owned and operated by Mayans for the Mayan community. This is one of the reasons for WCCN’s enthusiasm to partner with this agency. The visits to borrowers - the majority of which are illiterate and extremely poor earning from $1 to $2 dollars per day - begin that afternoon.
Rolando Ajpacaja, whose family weaves perrajes, a cloth with multiple uses: as sashes, veils and rolled up padding used to balance heavy burdens carried on women’s heads. Rolando has received five loans over five years, the latest for 75,000 quetzales (US$9,000). The first loans were smaller and used to start his business. He currently has five employees, and all of his children are enrolled school and doing well. When asked, he says his goal is to see his children graduate. At the beginning of the visit the family is shy and not too sure about visiting foreigners, but as the interview begins in Quiche, Michael photographs the family and soon they accept the group as part of the extended family. It is a process that repeats with every family visited. It’s extraordinary to see Michael create an atmosphere of comfort and cooperation at each visit to a family.
Each family tells a distinct but parallel story. They have repeatedly taken microcredit to start up their own business after working for others. They use the loans to build and operate looms to create native clothing for use by themselves, selling the extra clothing in marketplace. They have improved their lives, being able to better feed, clothe, house and school their children. While many of the parents have quit school early, or never attended at all, they all realize how important school is and their goal is to ensure the education of all the their children. It is very rewarding to see the investments in WCCN at work.
Leaving Totonicapán for the four hour car ride through the mountains to the Sololá area, the representative from Fondesol, Juan José Notz, is waiting. Juan is unique in many ways. He has a college education, speaks Spanish, Quiche and Kaqchikel and worked in an office tower in Guatemala City for several large international organizations. He decided that sitting behind a desk administering programs that he didn’t get to see the benefits of, on a day to day basis, was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He quit a good paying job to do something rewarding and joined Fondesol, a MFI funded in part by WCCN. He is now administering a staff that organizes and administers loans to solidarity groups among the highland Maya. Juan grew up in the mountain town of Comalapa, not too far from Sololá and is satisfied by working with microcredit borrowers in the region where he has lived most of his life.
Over the next two days the visits with two women’s groups - one of 18 and the other of 12 - are very interesting. The solidarity groups are formed to make it possible to administer smaller loans to more families where each of the borrowers is responsible to repay their individual loan and also jointly responsible to repay part of others’ loans when they are unable to. Juan mentions that 60-70% of loans by Fondesol go to women. He says this works better than lending to men because the women work together with less friction and more cooperation. This part of Guatemala, a very productive agricultural region, has a 65% illiteracy rate, and of the children starting school, only 20% will finish sixth grade.
Foot paths connect farm fields, each only several acres, which are dotted with men working with hand tools, turning the soil, planting, harvesting, weeding and watering their crops. The young boys/men are helping. In this area, the farmers are growing a variety of crops, corn, beans, carrots, onions, apples, bananas, peaches and other vegetables. Most of the fields are irrigated and will grow crops year around. There is plenty to eat and the rest goes to market.
The group stops by the farm houses to visit individual borrowers. Juan interviews the women, surrounded by small children too young for school, in Quiche or Kaqchikel and enjoys hearing the stories and taking notes. Michael works his magic while taking photographs that will later be used in WCCN newsletters, on Microplace for fund raising and at the October 16 photography exhibition and silent auction in Madison, Wisconsin. During the course of the day the group stops at the homes of most of a solidarity group of 12 borrowers, and at each departure to the next home, the women and children follow their neighbors/partners. The day has turned into a fun-filled festive occasion with 10 or more women borrowers and at least as many children leading and following along on the narrow foot paths. Many of the women stay in touch with their neighbors, families and business contacts with cell phones which seem to be popping out of blouse folds as the growing group goes from place to place.
The message from this wonderful experience is that the women and men who are borrowing from CDRO and Fondesol, are running businesses to augment family income, creating independence and a better life for themselves and their families.
By Gregg Johnson, WCCN Board Member
Photos by Michael Kienitz