Hollywood Comes to Kyrgyzstan

“Have you ever dreamed of being a movie star,” my colleague at work asked.

I guess when a question like this is posed, you know it’s going to be an unusual day.

As it turned out, a pair of filmmakers from Brazil were shooting a documentary on microfinance and the impact it has on the lives of clients. Their plan was to travel the globe for 10 months and record clients, loan officers, and other microfinance specialists in every place they come through. After visiting Russia and several other countries, they were coming to Kyrgyzstan and turned to our organization to help them with the logistics.

On a 1-day notice, it was arranged for them to meet and interview several of our clients and staff members in the Issyk-Kul region (about 4 hours away from Bishkek). My colleague, Renat, was organizing the whole project and was supposed to accompany them for a couple of days. He asked if I wanted to come along to observe and help with the translation.

Never passing on a chance to do a bit of travelling (especially for free!), I jumped at the offer. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to see a few new places in Kyrgyzstan, get to interact with micro-finance clients, and see the process of shooting a documentary first-hand. I think that’s the best thing about this job – completely random experiences that present themselves that you’d never get to do otherwise. So, the bags were packed and we were off the next day.

Day 1 – The Road North

We picked up Angelika and Gustavo, the brazilian filmmakers, in the early morning from their hotel and headed to a town called Balykchi, which starts at the Issyk-Kul lake. The lake, actually, deserves a post all of its own. It’s the 2nd largest alpine lake in the world – 182km in length and 60km in width. It has over 118 rivers flow into it and 0 that flow out. It is immensely popular among the Kyrgyz people. I think that every local that I meet asks me if I visited the lake yet and, when I say no, they insist that I must before I leave.

Although the lake itself is a big tourist attraction, Balychki itself was pretty dead. After the fall of the USSR, virtually all of its industrial base collapsed. There are very few job opportunities here, so a huge number of people leave to look for work elsewhere. It looks pretty deserted at times with abandoned buildings and your typical Soviet architecture.

A typical neighborhood.

Buildings seem to be placed randomly on this giant concrete area. No playgrounds, grass or trees nearby.

Abandoned building - there are many of them all over the city.

The first day, the filmmakers wanted to interview several loan officers and a credit manager. We arrived to the regional branch to set everything up.

Regional Branch Office in Balykchi

The Film Set - pretty glamorous, eh?

The actual shooting was done in the yard in order to take advantage of the better lighting. The staff was pretty excited to take part in this project and jokes were flying about them winding up in Hollywood, as a result.

The actual process of interviewing was quite interesting. Angelika – the interviewer – was a psychologist by profession, so the questions tried to really dig deep and approach the interviewee from multiple angles. She would ask the questions in English, which I would translate them to the interviewee, listen to the answer (which would sometimes be several minutes long), and then would attempt to translate the response back into English.

I have to admit that it proved to be quite challenging. I figured that thinking and speaking in two languages simultaneously is difficult, but I didn’t realize just how much. Having to remember a 5-minute answer and then translating it into English from memory wasn’t easy. After this, I have even a greater respect for interpreters (you know who you are ) and the work they do.

After completing three interviews, it was already past 8pm, so we decided to call it a night and continue our work tomorrow. We put up the guests in the company’s guesthouse, while my colleague and I set out to find a place to spend a night ourselves. There were several “hotels” around, but it always amuses me how different they are from the ones in the West. This particular “gostinica” was basically several apartments in a regular building:

Entrance to our "hotel".

Not very well advertised

Day 2 – Talking to the Clients

The following morning, we set out to another town – Kochkor – to visit a couple of clients and interview them.

The lonely road

Gustavo, the cameraman, taking in the surroundings.

Kochkor office of Mol Bulak, right next to their competitor – Kompanion. I find it interesting that they seem to follow the same model as the fast food joints – wherever a McDonalds opens, a Burger King will soon follow. Same appears to be happening here.

Throughout the day, we interviewed three clients – an artisan producing national rugs, a woodwork shop owner, and a family running a cookie baking business. Each interview was over an hour and offered fascinating insights into the lives of these inspiring business owners. It was much more detailed than any other interviews I’ve done for Kiva in the past, so it showed many more dimensions to the client.

The one that I’d like to share with you was the last one – a husband and wife who opened up their own cookie baking “bakery”. She used to be an accountant, he ran his own small business. But eventually, they took out a small loan, added their own savings, and started their own bakery. Within a year, they were able to expand pretty well and currently employ 7 people.

Here are some shots:

This is where the magic happens. The owner dreams of buying a specialized baking machine, but that costs over $1,500, so that will have to wait. Meantime, they make do with 5 regular ovens.

Two of their employees getting started on the shift.

Mixing the eggs. The cookies are made of all natural ingredients.

The other room of the house has been converted into the packing area. All of the cookies are gently packed into boxes before being driven to Bishkek for sale.

They taste as good as they look.

The baking is done during the night, so the employees typically start at 5pm and finish in the early morning. Their salary is about 3,000 – 4,000 soms per month ($70-95), but they seem to be quite happy to be employed at all. In this town, jobs are scarce and this is considered a decent wage.

Husband and wife that started the business. They both work about 18 hours a day – as they have to oversee the process and make the 8-hour trip to the capital every 2 days to distribute the cookies and purchase additional materials.

There was something special about this particular business. Although you could see that it was hard work for everybody involved, people seemed relatively happy and optimistic about the future. The owner himself was brimming with energy, so you couldn’t help but get infected with it.

The filmmakers got what they came for and we returned back to Bishkek late at night. It was definitely a great work-trip. And the best thing is that there is another 3-day trip to the South of the country that starts on Monday.

The whole team enjoying a quick dinner. Gustavo, the cameraman; David – previous Kiva Fellow who is currently serving 2 years in Kyrgyzstan in the Peace Corps, waitress, Angelika – the filmmaker; and Renat – credit manager at Mol Bulak.

Picking a Foreigner out of the Crowd

Grapes in Tokmak

I was always wondering how is that everywhere you go, locals can so easily tell that that you’re a foreigner. I understand when that happens in Indonesia or India or Thailand – white American-looking guy sticks out there. But I figured that in Central Asia, I have more of a chance to “blend” in – if nothing else because of the language and being better familiar with the culture.

This weekend, I took a marshrutka (mini-bus) to visit a friend in Tokmak, a small city about an hour away from Bishkek. The second I stepped out of the mini-bus, the taxi drivers standing nearby approached me: “Deutch? England? Inostranec (foreigner)?” When I told them that I was just a regular guy from Bishkek, they didn’t seem too convinced.

When I met my friend, I asked him how they knew. He sized me up within a second and starteded listing the clues:

“First, you’re smiling too much. What do you have to be so happy about? Nobody smiles that much here. It looks suspicious…

Second, your shoes are a give away – they are too different. (that’s true – it’s amazing how much you can tell about a person’s origin by their shoes. For some reason, Adidas has a huge presence in Central Asia).

Third, you’re wearing a backpack and you’re more than 12 years old.

Fourth, your jeans are too light, your glasses’ frame is exotic, and your haircut is too neat.

The list went on and on, but these factors – especially the first 3 – were dead-on. I guess if you want to fit in, turn that smile upside down, get a pair of Adidas, and stuff your belongings into your pockets.

I guess I should’ve known – after all, I always found it to be quite easy to tell Americans apart in Central Asia myself… I just thought I was better at camouflaging

Is It Safe to Travel?

This is somewhat of an off-topic post, but it addresses something that I have thought about numerous times over the last 6 months.

Whenever you consider a decision to travel to any country, be it Tajikistan, India, Nepal or anyplace else, you obviously take a lot of factors into consideration on whether it’s a safe place to travel to or not.

There is only so much info that you can get from your friends and acquintances, as I noticed that people views on countries are often shaped by very random things. I still remember a guy I met in Turkey who said his dad was worried about safety there because of a movie he saw 15 years ago!.

I also remember many of the pre-conceived notions that people had about Tajikistan before I went there – whereas the bulk of them proved to be inaccurate or exagerated. Hopefully, I proved some of them wrong during my time there.

So, naturally, you turn to the web to find out more. But even there, a lot of information can turn out to be misleading.

For example, check out a nifty site called IsItSafeToTravel.com, which aggregates information from American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand (weird choice!) government travel advisories and combines it together to produce a rating on whether it’s safe to visit a country.

Interesting concept. But let’s take a look at how it pans out in practice:

Starting with Russia – the “motherland”. IsItSafeToTravel’s verdict? Really High Risk! Hmm.

Tajikistan? Really High Risk.

India? Really High Risk.

Wow – it looks like I’ve been in some pretty high risk areas! Let’s try something else:

Canada? Some Risk! (From what exactly? Eating too much maple syrup or getting hit by a hockey puck, eh? Sorry, Frances – those are the only 2 stereotypes of Canadians I know of ).

And the list goes on. It’s actually quite amazing how many places are rated as High Risk. If you base your judgement solely on these ratings, your best bet is to move to Finland and stay there, as evidently that’s the safest place in this world.

The problem, I think, is what these ratings are based on. Granted, in a lot of these places, there have been some events that preceeded that were  dangerous (civil wars, terrorist attacks, etc.). However, oftentimes, they may be outdated, have nothing to do with foreigners and tourists, and the statistical risk they pose is misrepresented.

When I was in India, my biggest risk was crossing the road and avoiding being hit by a rickshaw driver. In Nepal, it was riding on the bus on the bad roads. In Tajikistan, it was bursting from drinking too much tea and eating.

In most other places, the risk typically comes from every day activities, such as walking at night in bad neighborhoods or being a victim of a pickpocketer in a crowded place. But we are certainly not immune from these things in the U.S., especially in New York. So why don’t we worry about them every time we step out of the house there?

I think that one of the eye-opening experiences on this trip has been exactly this. Many of the places with the perceived risk has turned out to be some nicest places I’ve ever visited with warm, hospitable and friendly people.

So, take all these ratings and warnings with a grain of salt and think about them rationally.

Your thoughts?

Local Flavor of Bishkek

Just a few miscellaneous tid bits from Bishkek:

Elections are coming up in Kyrgyzstan next month. Naturally, the candidates are trying to gather up votes by promoting themselves through posters plasted all over the city. Well, nothing says more about the presidential candidate’s achievements and accomplishments than a poster with… their last name.

Election posters are plastered in every window of every shop in the city

Of course, if that fails to convince the constituents to give them their vote, then these charming posters will surely influence their decision at the voting booth:

Walking around Bishkek triggers a lot of nostalgic memories. Particularly the “gazirovka” vending machines that appear to be making a comeback here from their Soviet Union days. Unfortunately, I think that the reusable cups that are used are from that time period as well.

Would you like your drink with syrup or without?

But Kyrgyzstan has a few unique drinks of their own to offer, as well. A popular local drink manufacturer here is called Shoro – they produce some of the authentic national drinks. My favorite one is Chapan Shoro – which is essentially milk with gas. But Maksym Shoro is interesting as well – it tastes like liquid bread … also with gas.

The Shoro ladies are selling the drinks on every corner. She was not amused with me taking a picture.

A few days ago, I was looking for a new place to eat and stumbled upon an interesting cafe in my guidebook – Fatboy’s. The guidebook referred to it as a top foreigners’/expats’ hangout with over 90% of guests being from elsewhere. I figured it’d be interesting to pay a visit and see what it’s like. It’s always nice to catch up with somebody from the States, if an opportunity arises. Ironically, when I actually got to the place, it had 0 foreigners in there – but was rather filled with Bishkek girls… apparently waiting for foreigners. Interesting

Well, I couldn't take a picture inside... so this will have to do

And, in case anybody’s curious, this is one of my microfinance’s organizations branches – where all the magic actually happens.

Behind The Curtain – Getting a New MFI on the Kiva Platform

A Kiva entrepreneur in Kyrgyzstan who has also created a Center of Temporary Stay for Orphaned Children using her own funds and resources. Click to learn more.

This has also been posted on the Kiva Fellows blog.

Within the first two weeks at my micro-finance institution, it became very clear that this placement will be quite different from the first one in Tajikistan. It’s actually quite amazing how much things can vary from one MFI to the other, from one country to another.

The main difference between the two placements is that the first MFI I was working with in Tajikistan was already on the Kiva platform for over a year when I arrived. They already had an established system in place for collecting data and posting profiles of their borrowers on the website. And while there was some room for improvements here and there, as a whole, it functioned very well.

My new, current placement – in Kyrgyzstan – is with a brand-new, pilot partner that’s just getting started with Kiva. It’s very exciting to be a part of the start-up phase and build the processes block by block, but it poses its own set of challenges and makes you appreciate how complex the system really is.

On the surface, as all of you know, it appears relatively simple – a lender submits a payment through PayPal and the money eventually gets to the borrower (although in most cases the MFI “fronts” the funds in advance of the loan getting funded on Kiva). But underneath this seemingly simple and clear process is the work of literally hundreds of people and very interesting “supply-chain”.

The Challenges

When a new MFI joins the Kiva family, one of the first things they need to do is train their loan officers to collect a new set of information necessary for the Kiva stories, since much of this information is not collected or recorded previously. When your organization has several hundred loan officers and growing daily, training the staff is a challenge. Particularly because of two reasons. For one, many loan officers handle a large case load as it is, so it’s difficult to convince them on the merits of doing additional paperwork. Secondly, oftentimes, it’s difficult to convey to them that somebody across the world is actually interested that their client has bought a cow or a chicken and so on. When you deal with these things day in and day out, it doesn’t seem remarkable or worthy of reporting.

But even when you get the loan officers onboard, you’ve only won half of the battle.

The second challenge is the transfer of the information. Living in the U.S., it’s difficult to realize how the flow of information changes when Internet and computers are taken out of the picture. My MFI, like many others, has several dozen branches spread out all over the country. So how do you get the information on the clients from these far-away branches into the headquarters where a Kiva coordinator can write and post the story on Kiva?

We’re lucky that Kyrgyzstan has a fairly good Internet connectivity across the country – most other Kiva partners do not. But even with that connectivity, it’s problematic because peoople are not used to doing their work on the computers and converting the data from paper forms into electronic format takes an extraordinary amount of time, effort and training.

All of these are solvable issues – so I have no doubts that we’ll make it work. But when you consider all of the challenges, number of people involved all over the world, the varying environments and operations, it’s simply amazing that the Kiva system as a whole – works, and works so well.