Day 7-8: City Lights and Kendra Meetings

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Tuesday was a regular day in the office with frequent emailing, facebooking…. and of course microfinance research. Emily Gore and Justin finalized interview questions while the others searched around the internet for microfinance documents. Unfortunately, Emily Yao’s workday was cut short, as she became the first victim of the bacteria that loom in India’s food and water.

Despite the hour long rush hour commute, Justin, Yuko and EmG headed into the city to meet up with Hena, Emily’s future roommate. At Queen’s, a tribal decor restaurant, the crew ate north Indian delights. They also walked around MG road, exploring the shopping opportunities Bangalore has to offer.

Wednesday has been the most exciting day so far. We headed into “the field” and saw microfinance in action. The purpose of our trip was to meet GK members and to pilot our client interviews about their experiences and financial demands. We met Manjunath, a Grameen Koota area manager, at 8:00. He took us to an urban branch, where we observed a “kendra meeting,” the weekly meeting for all GK group loan recipients. The women said the GK pledge and gave updates about their loans and business. We even saw a couple women receive the certificate for their second cycle loan. The women use the 10,000-15,000 Rupee loans for a variety of purposes, ranging from buying materials to make traditional Indian cigarettes to financing their scrap removal businesses. However, we were a little distracted by all the kids who gathered outside the room to sneak a peak at the foreign visitors.

We followed the meeting up with several in-depth client interviews in the women’s homes. EmG and Vikash ventured into the streets of Bangalore for some further interviews with street vendors. When they came back, Vikash put on his dancing shoes for a hardcore bangra dance party in the pack of the SUV.

The rest of the day was spent in the office, finalizing interview plans… and making plane reservations for our upcoming trips to Mamallapuram (a beach village south of Chennai) and Mumbai. Despite India’s IT craze, Air Deccan is unwilling to accept American credit cards. The fact that we are flying roundtrip for $70 and $150, respectively is enough consolation for us.

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Photos

Puma Store
Turns out, shopping in Bangalore isn't too much different than in New York.

Kendra Meeting
Groups of ten women form groups in order to receive microloans from Grameen Koota. We sat in on a Kendra Meeting of two groups.

Adorable Indian Children
A mob of kids from all over the neighborhood spied on our meeting.

Comments

[anton]

!!!!
can we get some meaty spooning stories or what???