Blog Action Day: The Real Politics of Poverty

Today, in honor of blogs against poverty, I'm revisiting Kiva. You might have seen my introduction to microlending a year or so ago, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about how the site I like has grown.

First, I really appreciate the way Kiva has evolved. They have a new engine for building teams, and I'm a proud member of Team Blogger. The leader of the team volunteered to host all our posts today on his site in a blog carnival. They've also improved the navigation, so I can see my loans organized by country. I just made my own address to share with friends:
http://www.kiva.org/lender/brightstrangely

And those are some pretty cool toys, I must admit. They've done almost everything I could have wanted. More importantly though, and the predominant reason I am still a huge fan, was because of the experience I've had. As usual, I'm really gratified by being able to do more with less. This year I feel like every hippy group within a thousand miles has called me up hoping for a handout. And it usually works because I am a sucker. Kiva is the only group that not only never asks me for money: they email me to let me know when I have someone paying me back! They're recycling the money I gave them already. I've lent out about $250 over a year and a half. That translates into 19 people, 10 of whom have already paid me back. And the one who didn't affected me deeply.

On my lender page, you can see pictures of all the people I've made loans to. If you didn't notice, I have one defaulted loan. I loaned two women in Kenya money, and last year, one of them disappeared. This happened during the disputed Kenyan elections in 2007 and she lived in Kisumu.

It radically altered the way I read the news. People say that it is easy to be numb to international violence, because the numbers and places are so abstract. There is no immediacy to their suffering. But it's different when you do have a connection. I don't believe she kept a diary, but I still have her photo. I have no idea what happened. The town she lived in was mentioned as a violent area, and I've seen estimates that up to a quarter million people were displaced during the unrest.

So again, I highly recommend Kiva. I'm noticing that my loans are mostly concentrated in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. I used to have no connection to these places beyond my curiosity and empathy. And I know that this will happen again, but if more of us experienced the news this way, I think the world would be less apathetic and accepting of these horrors we all know of.

And I think fewer people would cavalierly sing about bombing other nations while they're running for president. And maybe fewer people would lump all these countries together, if they actually knew one or two of the residents.

And maybe more people will find knowledge and truth that much more satisfying than ignorance and fear. One can always hope.