Some of you will have noticed that
Jundee quit Kiva Friends a few days ago. I want to offer a brief something in appreciation of his 191-post contribution in the 2 months he was a member. I for one think Kiva Friends is the poorer for his having left, and I hope that just maybe one day he might be reading this and whatever follows, as a Guest. And, realizing that he was valued and is now missed, make his way back here.
Jundee shared with us that he is 75 (which I think made him by a comfortable margin the oldest regular poster here) and in an
early post, he wrote:
I'm doing this because it gives me something worthwhile to do & keeps me busy in my retirement. I would make a lousy hospital volunteer. . . .When I learned about Kiva I said to myself: "what am I doing spending my time & money so that people can have a fancier house here so they can sell it for 50 grand more a few years down the road while in many parts of the world people sleep on the bare ground, in shacks & where kids go to sleep hungry."
The answer was simple & here I am & here I'll stay.
He started and was active in the
More ways to publicize Kiva thread, and inspired others on that thread with his inventiveness and enthusiasm in spreading the word about Kiva. Which can also be said of the
Kiva world map he has pinned up in his hallway, where it's easy to imagine him enthusiastically buttonholing visitors to his house. As Oli said, "great idea, especially to have the Kiva business cards available...and it makes it so much easier to tell people about Kiva, because a map is always interesting to people."
I've read all Jundee's posts
(here) and it's fair to say that he could be fairly plain-speaking and blunt on occasions, but I figure if you're 75 you're allowed to be a bit terse if you want. I don't know what decided him to leave Kiva Friends, though reading through the last two threads he was involved in makes it (for me..) reasonably easy to speculate privately. In saying that I want to make it really really clear that I'm not "taking sides", just trying to understand his decision to leave from Jundee's point of view - as akshara-Steve said on the CNN Heroes thread
...good intentions mixed with frustrations and/or a very direct addressing of a point or idea makes for easy misinterpretation of intentions... In his 3rd to last post, he wrote:
When I joined Kiva & became a lender, I didn't park my brains, experiences & energy at the door
...and that, Jundee, is one excellent reason why we need you back here. Like I said at the beginning, you were valued and are now missed.
Peter
I have borrowed Jundee's signature-line for this post - a saying attributed to Jesse Jackson
Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
