Field Visits

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PIBV does India! Emily G here. I’ve been a bit isolated from the rest of the crew for the past week, so I just wanted to recount my adventures! On Wednesday (5/16), we all went to see a kendra meeting, which has already been described. We interviewed a couple existing clients of GK just to get a sense of their interest in additional loan products and to pilot the questionnaire we wrote. Afterwards, Vikash and I ventured out alone to interview potential clients. I mistakenly assumed that he had a list of people he was interested in interviewing - instead, we drove around until we had a gut feeling that we should pause to take an interview with a local businessman. It seems that Vikash has a knack for judging people - the person (boy, really) he choose spoke English, Kannada, and Hindi! Perfect for our communication difficulties. We spent an hour talking with him and his friends and family about individual loans and we piloted our questionnaire. We returned to the office that afternoon rather satisfied.

Unfortunately, on Thursday (the day planned for potential client interviews around Bangalore) I was troop #2 to fall to the notorious Indian bacteria swimming about in our drinks and food. Justin filled in for me, going into the city with Vikash. They met up with the boy we had talked to the day before and he agreed to distribute the questionnaire among a bunch of people with different businesses. He gathered 20 interviews for us.

On Friday I was more or less back to my chipper self, with only an occasional lurching stomach sensation to remind me that I was not yet fully recovered. Vikash and I interviewed five existing GK clients in the Bangalore area. I had a chance to see many different kinds of houses and bucketloads of adorable Indian children!

After thinking about ways to improve the interview process, I was prepared to once again venture into the field on Monday with Vikash. This time we took an hour bus to a rural area. We visited three villages on the back of a motorcycle, passing through gorgeous palm tree-topped hills and fields. I interviewed 10 existing GK clients, all of whom lived in thatch-roofed huts. The interviews went very well - we learned a lot of important information pertaining to their financial needs. I even had a chance to talk to two seventh-cycle members (meaning they’ve been with GK for 7 years - a very long time!). One of them had an amazing story of how GK has helped her move from receiving 50 rupees a day to 300.

Exhausted, Vikash and I didn’t return back to the apartments until 10pm that night. On Tuesday, Emily Y, Vikash, and I returned to the same rural area to find five potential clients. We spent half a day interviewing and half a day lounging in the branch office sipping chai and learning more about GK from the branch manager.

Vikash and I did a little jig at the end of Tuesday, celebrating the end of data collection and field work! Now it’s all about analyzing the results…

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Photos

interview 2
Egore interviews the metal shop lady, another potential GK client.

vegetable man & his veggies!
one of our potential clients.

metal shop lady's daughter
She's a cutey :)

interview 1
Egore interviews the vegetable man, a potential GK client.

chickens!
on bumpy crazy rickshaw ride.

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