In the past week I bid my family of Honduran friends farewell, packed my things, moved continents (now in Santiago, Chile!), found a new apartment, learned a new public transportation system, and visited three offices of Fondo Esperanza (the new Kiva partner I’m working with). This morning on the bus ride between Santiago and the southern town of Curicó, I was exhausted. But I reminded myself that such is the life of an idealist, and that at some point today something would inspire me. I stepped off the bus, injected myself with coffee, and popped in my contact lenses to go find out what it would be.
Ten kilometers down a bumpy road outside of Teno, I found it. Or, rather, I found her: Carola. She is one of Fondo Esperanza’s clients, who took out a loan to improve her chicken coop in hopes of making her hens happier and thereby more productive. She successfully made these improvements, but in the February earthquake the roof collapsed, crushing 40% of her hens. Fewer hens means lower income, so she has not been able to save the funds to reinvest in the coop. What’s more, her husband is very ill, and his medications are expensive.
Mama gallina
This information was shared with me by Carola’s loan officer during our drive, in addition to ¨Can you believe Carola walks all this way (20km roundtrip) every day to sell and to escort her children to school?¨ So when we finally arrived at her home, on this cold and rainy afternoon, I expected to find a dreary woman. I was only projecting my own doldrums, though, because Carola bounced out of the house to greet us, smiling.
She had no interest in talking about her hardships. When I inquired about how she was getting along with her husband so ill, she shrugged it off with ¨It’s only death that kills you, everything else you live through.¨
Instead she wanted to tell me about her flock. She told us of her plans to get the chickens to lay during the winter, when they don’t usually produce eggs because of the cold. She enthusiastically introduced us to each chicken, and told us the story of how each had gotten her name. Like ¨Lolita,¨ the aggressive one, named in honor of a particularly grumpy neighbor. Suddenly, I felt this big shiver run from my toes through my legs up my spine to the tip of my nose, and it was not just because I had stepped in a big muddy puddle to take a picture of Lupita, the chicken who lays the best eggs. Carola had totally injected me with energy.
Kati Mayfield is a Kiva Fellow who recently moved to Santiago, Chile from Honduras. For more about other Kiva Fellow’s experiences, check out entries by La Vida Idealist bloggers Meg Gray, Rob Packer, Sheethal Shobowale and Suzy Marinkovich.
Latest posts by katimayfield
- The Lost Boys of Santiago - July 8th, 2010
- High Definition - June 24th, 2010
- Fatalism and Optimism - June 3rd, 2010
- An Adventurous Routine - May 27th, 2010
- A Matter of Trust - April 22nd, 2010
