Fret Passu's Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Fret Passu's Group, consisting of Fret Passu, Anika Akunut, Maxen Tiran, Anika Passu, Gasper Amtiran, Yakob Passu, Ruben Akunut, Lodia Muni Rassi by Tanaoba Lais Manekat Foundation (TLM) in Indonesia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 12 months of this loan, Tanaoba Lais Manekat Foundation (TLM) will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Hi Kiva lenders,

My name is Kieran Ball, and I am the Kiva Fellow at TLM in West Timor. I will shortly be finishing my fellowship and wanted to send a message to everyone who has been lucky enough to make a loan to this great new Kiva partner. The TLM staff are still excited and amazed by the number of people from all over the world who want to lend their clients money.

Although TLM plans to provide journal updates on 100% of their loans, we thought it would be interesting for lenders to read a bit about what happens "behind-the-scenes". I've also written a short tale and videotaped a trip to meet one of TLM’s first Kiva clients in a beautiful little village here in West Timor.

TLM News: Implementing Kiva

The past ten weeks in West Timor have flown by. I arrived in time to help Kiva Partnership Development Specialist, Rico Muñoz, with the initial training for the TLM staff. This went smoothly and was received well by the crowd of enthusiastic learners who gathered in the room.

Since then, despite a few minor blips with one of the newer Kiva systems, we've managed to post and fund up to our monthly limit for the past two months. Kiva wisely designates the first few months for new MFIs as the pilot phase. During the pilot phase, we must achieve a number of goals in order to prove that we will be able to cope with moving to the active phase. I'm happy to say that TLM is on track to complete all of their goals and will hopefully move to the active phase in the next month or two.

Also during my time here, I've been taking some photographs of Kiva clients for the Kiva PR guru, Fiona. Incredibly, I had the privilege of meeting a client who I declare has the best smile on Kiva. See what you think. I mean, my jokes are funny, sure, but a smile of this calibre is still unusual.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kieranball/3440995360/in/set-72157616650350143/

Despite being in a somewhat secluded location in the global scheme of things, TLM is keen to be a trendsetter when it comes to being web savvy. They are, as far as I know, the first or one of the first Kiva partners to have a Twitter account. You can follow their updates at this address: www.twitter.com/tlmwesttimor. Kiva coordinator Shanty updates it regularly, and if you tweet her, she will tweet back when she has a moment. Feel free to say hi!

I am also proud to announce that TLM has their first proper website after twelve years of operation, which I worked on when not busy with Kiva responsibilities. It's a basic website, but it’s an improvement over what was there before! You can find it here: www.ytlm.org.

Finally, I wrote a blog to introduce TLM to Kiva lenders, which you can find here, including a video of a trip to the field:

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/04/06/welcome-kiva-to-west-timor/

More recently, I blogged about Zakarias, a 77-year-old who is starting a new business:

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/05/04/77-is-never-too-old-to-start-a-business/.

I hope you will keep an eye out for the ever-increasing number of TLM loans that will be hitting the Kiva site soon. We are all very grateful for your support of Kiva, of TLM, and of the people of Indonesia.

Part Two, a Client Story, to follow.

Story of a Client Visit: Yurita Natun (Betania Group)

Last week we went to the village of Naet to meet Yurita Natun and her family. Yurita recently took out a cattle-fattening loan with money borrowed from Kiva. TLM is the only Kiva field partner to offer noncash loans. Instead, TLM purchases a cow and delivers it to the clients, who feed and maintain the cow for a year until it can be sold for a profit.

Naet village is set in the hills about an-hour-and-a-half from Kupang city. I can safely say that Naet is one of the few villages I have penciled in as a potential retirement location! It is set in lush green jungle on bumpy dirt roads, with the sides of the valley extending both up and down from the village, and colorful flowers adorning the trees and houses. If this village were in the south of France, it would be doubtless be overrun with tourists.

Thankfully it is in West Timor, and the villagers are able to live a relatively peaceful life, farming the land and raising livestock. The local school just down the road has a gigantic playing field where soccer games often have boys and horses running around together. West Timorians love gardening, and like every village we pass through, Naet has carefully tended hedges, stylishly trimmed trees, delicately set garden paths, and aesthetically positioned potted plants.

We meet Yurita at her house, a small, bare wooden construction with a tin roof, and a neighboring kitchen outhouse. She has her 5-year-old daughter Reni, with her. She tells us that her husband Apner, is out hunting in the forest for an animal which I haven't heard of. After a brief discussion with Shanty, the Kiva coordinator, we decide it is similar to a squirrel.

This is Yurita's first cattle loan, so the usual journal questions about the effect of the loan do not really apply, as she will not see any profits until next year. Instead we improvise, which I find always makes the conversations better anyway.

We start by asking about her daily routine. We are all bowled over when she tells us she gets up at 4 am, early even by West Timor standards, to prepare breakfast and lunch for her husband and children. She spends the rest of the day feeding the cattle and tending to the family's crops, and usually goes to bed at 8 or 9 pm because she is tired from the long day.

I wonder how she keeps her brain active; does she have a television, does she read? She says she does have a television but usually never watches it, she leaves that to her sons. As far as reading goes, she mainly reads her bible. Her favorite book is Matthew.

We find out about her children. She ruefully tells us that her two sons, age 15 and 13, have just dropped out of junior high school to become full-time farmers like their dad. Although her sons are intelligent, they don't really like school, and the senior high school is too far from their village to make the trip each day.

I ask her if she has any hopes or goals for the future. She says that her one hope is that her daughter Reni, who is sitting on her knee and later appears eating TWO ice creams simultaneously(!), will complete school and be the first family member to attend university. She had hoped this for her sons, but unfortunately it was not to be.

Later I get to meet one of her sons, Ricky (15). He also received a cow from TLM. I ask him what his plans are now that he has left school. He explains that, apart from day-to-day farming, he will feed his cow until he can sell it for a profit of around $80. With that money, he will buy two pigs of his own ($40 each) and fatten them to sell. After doing this for a few cycles, he will have enough saved up to buy his own cow (approximately $300).

Before we leave, Yurita shows us her kitchen and presents us with a gigantic bag of cherry tomatoes she has grown. I later use these tomatoes to cook a decent Bolognese sauce! Thank you Yurita!

I made this short video/slideshow of our visit to see Yurita. I hope you enjoy it. http://www.vimeo.com/4489014.

Dear Kiva Lenders,

On Tuesday, the 23rd of June 2009, our Kiva Field Officer went to Riumata Village to get an update on Oliftataf 44-A Group. The field officer needed one and a half hours to reach the Village from Kupang City by his motorcycle. The road condition along the way to Riumata Village is not good; there are many holes on it. The only public transportation operates in this area is only motorcycle taxi that usually called with “Ojek” in Indonesia.

When the field officer arrived in the village, he met with Fret Passu - the leader of Oliftataf 44-A Group. Fret was busy on his farm, wearing a red shirt and having a new hairstyle. He smiled at the field officer and welcomed him. Fret then was interviewed by the field officer on his farm to find out about his loan.

Just the same as many other community members in this village, Fret has a background as a poor farmer. He plants bananas and coconuts on the farm. His daily activities includes cultivates the farm, feeds and looks after the cattle. He really enjoys his daily activities. If there are bananas and coconuts available to be sold, he usually goes to Inpres Market to sell it. But, the income generated from selling banana and coconut sometimes can cover all of his family needs. That is why Fret is interested in joining cattle fattening program.

Fret has received a loan amounting to IDR 3,500,000. The loan has been spent to buy young cattle to be fattened over a twelve month period. Fret is currently in the second month of the loan. The cattle grow well and healthy, and this makes him happy.

Fret plans to spend the profit that will be generated from the cattle selling to pay his children education fees and to fulfill the other family needs. He is really grateful for the opportunity given to him to fatten the cattle.

Thank you Kiva Lenders!!!

TLM Staff

Dear Kiva Lenders,

On July 23rd, I accompanied one of the TLM Kiva Coordinators and a loan officer to visit 2 members of this group to verify the borrowers and loan terms. Group members Fret Passu and Anika Passu happily met us in their home. We chatted with them about the status of their cattle loan and showed them their printed out Kiva profile. They were very excited to see that many people they had never met came together to fund their loan. Fret commented, “Even though I am sitting here in this dirty shirt, people all over the world know who I am!”

After I had looked over their loan documents and verified it matched the information posted on Kiva, they cut open a coconut for me to drink the fresh milk from. Afterward, they generously invited me to try a local dish known as jagung bose. This dish consists of corn, coconut and salt. It was very tasty!

Fret and his family were very gracious hosts and thankful for the support of their lenders.

Best wishes,

Cissy DeLuca, Kiva Fellow