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Peru, April 18-27, 2009
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by Chris Megargee
PartnerTrip Coordinator |
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Sunday, April 26
 After an eye-opening, inspiring, and fun week in Peru, we're on our flight from Cusco to Lima, heading back to the U.S. As is our custom on our PartnerTrips, we divided our time between two different MFI partners located in two distinct regions. After starting the week with FONDESURCO in Arequipa and the Colca Valley, we ended the week visiting Arariwa in and around Cusco.
Arariwa serves 78% women using a communal banking methodology. They pride themselves on serving zones where no other MFI is working and providing small loans to people in poverty (average loan size is $400). We learned this and many more details about Arariwa from the Executive Director, Hugo Yanque. Hugo spent two full days with us and personally introduced us to the extraordinary clients Arariwa serves.
 Arariwa specializes in not only offering microfinance services but also in providing education on a number of topics as an integral part of working with their clients. Their education curriculum includes four modules: health, business administration, family well-being, and financial education. At this particular bank meeting, the first 30 minutes were spent leading a discussion on the topic of respect.
Many of us in the group were moved as we watched the loan officer facilitate a conversation about the value that every human being has, whether rich or poor, woman or man, indigenous or mestizo, Spanish or Quechua speaking. The bank members spoke from their hearts, sharing what it means to give and to get respect-and describing times they've been shown a lack of respect because of their poverty. It was clear from this exchange that Arariwa is not only helping their clients develop their businesses but is also helping them grow as people, encouraging self-esteem and healthy relationships in their marriages, their families, and their villages.
 After the training session was complete, the members each made their monthly loan payment, which included a portion dedicated to the mandatory savings program which Arariwa requires of their clients. In the course of our conversations with various borrowers, we learned that this savings program, along with the trainings offered, are among the most attractive benefits that Arariwa provides them.
Although the members of this communal bank are just beginning their businesses and they live with very few resources in comparison to what we are accustomed to in the U.S., as the bank meeting drew to a close, heaping plates of fish, potatoes and salad were brought in and served to all of us. As we ate alongside the bank members, we learned that sharing a meal together is a regular part of the bank meetings-revealing the social ties and friendships that being an Arariwa client helps to deepen. It was moving for all of us to be the recipients of such generosity.
 The next day we followed Arariwa's loan officers two and a half hours south of Cusco into a very remote region in the highlands of Cuatrolagunas. We finally arrived at the home of one of the four clients we visited that day. Silveria Champi Choque works with her husband, Hernan, raising livestock and farming to support their family. Silveria spoke only Quechua, so our conversation was double translated-from Quechua to Spanish to English. She primarily uses her loans to buy feed for her 12 head of cattle, fattening them up for selling. Married for 27 years, she and her husband use the profits from their farming to educate their children. They were very clear that education is their top priority, as they want all their children to become professionals rather than living the harsh life that farming often is for Peruvian campesinos.
 At the end of our meeting with Silveria and Hernan, we all had some laughs as one of our travelers, Jim, asked to have his photo taken milking one of their cows. His first time ever attempting such a feat, we got some great photos--but not much milk.
We ended our Peruvian journey with a day trip to Machu Picchu, where we marveled at the engineering know-how and hard work of the Quechua peoples who created the mountain top city.
It's been a great week, and we're looking forward to getting home to share more stories with colleagues, family and friends. I hope you'll consider joining us for a future PartnerTrip. If you want to learn more about how you can, please feel free to contact me at 206.652.8717 or cmegargee@globalpartnerships.org.
¡Gracias por viajar con nostros "virtualmente"!
Saludos,
Chris
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Thursday, April 23
 We've been in Peru for four days now-and it's been filled with incredible experiences. Arriving in Arequipa, a city in southern Peru, on Sunday, we had some time to explore the colonial history of the town, including the 425-year-old Monastery of Santa Catalina and the beautiful Plaza de Armas.
Culinary firsts were a hallmark of our first day, with several of us trying the local delicacy, cuy (aka, guinea pig) for lunch. For me, the old maxim held true. It tasted like chicken. Several of us enjoyed a meal of alpaca and ostrich for dinner. (Thankfully, tasty grains like quinoa and delicious fruits like prickly pear and papaya have provided the vegetarians among us some treats as well.)
Monday morning we moved beyond our tour of local foods to start off our microfina nce focus with an excellent meeting with the executive director of Global Partnerships microfinance partner, FONDESURCO. Héctor Madariaga is a man who could clearly be putting his financial expertise to work in far more lucrative contexts. Yet he is choosing to dedicate himself to helping people help themselves out of poverty.
FONDESURCO is all about serving people in hard-to-reach places. Ninety-six percent of its clients are in rural areas. And in recruiting loan officers to work for the organization, physical stamina and good health are necessary credentials. Why? Because FONDESURCO's loan officers have to walk long distances, at high altitudes and across rocky terrain, to reach their clients. Even dirt bikes can't reach the places they need to go.
 Héctor described to us how "microfinance is not just giving a loan. It's also creating products and utilizing technologies that give clients the services they need to insure that there are real results in improving their lives." In FONDESURCO's case, this includes providing loans and technical assistance tailored to the majority of their clients, whose livelihoods are based in farming and raising livestock.
To meet some of FONDESURCO's clients, we drove three hours, across the altiplano, to the town of Chivay. From there, we traveled into the farmlands of several FONDESURCO clients, including two who led us to their plots of land to see their crops and meet their cows. Stepping through the mud helped us get a real sense of what makes a FONDESURCO rep different from a well-dressed banker sitting in a central office. (I was the only one in the group clumsy enough to find more than one cow paddy-but really, I just was trying to get the authentic experience of a loan officer!)
One borrower, Jesús Nina Taype, described how he appreciates the personal, on-location service FONDESURCO provides him. Jesús and his wife, Eufemia, have about tw o-and-a-half acres of land on which they grow potatoes, beans, corn and wheat. They also have two bulls and one cow. Loans from FONDESURCO have helped the family buy the seeds and fertilizer needed to increase their harvest--as well as the cattle that bring income from milk, meat, and farming help (pulling plows). It was truly moving to see the pride that Jesús takes in his land and the care he gives to his beloved cattle.
As we have reflected on all that we've seen thus far, we agreed that the primary motivation we heard from every client is summed up by what Jesús and Eufemia told us as we talked with them in their potato field. They want their children to have a better life than they did. And in hearing that sentiment, we realize how similar we are to every one of them-and how we're inspired both by the hard work they do to create that better future and by the power of microfinance to make it possible.
 We travel early Thursday morning to Cusco to visit another GP microfinance partner, and I look forward to sharing another update with you soon. For now, ¡reciben un saludo muy cordial desde el Perú!
Saludos,
Chris
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