LEARNING, LEARNING, LEARNING -- Thanks to Kiva and KivaFriends

[Guest]

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[Jill]

        I’d say that probably every single day I learn something new, thanks to Kiva-- and thanks to the Forum, here.  No question but that I could learn a tremendous amount more if I exerted even a tiny bit more effort.  Either way, I feel terrifically grateful for whatever I learn, there and here.  One of the best parts about it is that in this context, that “learning stuff” is really fun, it takes on so much more significance because it’s connected with people we’ve learned we care about, and it’s incredibly easy.

    A couple of examples – out of many that I could be offering, merely from today’s selection of loans. 

What are Votive Objects and What Significance Do They Have In Vietnam?

          I had this question when I came upon the following Loan Request:
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=34101

Nguyen Thi Thoa – Makes Votive Objects – Viet Nam

      Now, the picture of the pretty young Vietnamese girl and the purple horse-like figures first caught my attention.  Then, when I read that she wanted to make votive objects, which “not that many people would want to do” and that, “….At first, she confronted lots of pressure from many people, even when she decided to join the Fund….,” my curiosity was aroused. 

      I knew the word, “votive” from having seen and bought those little votive candles, but that was the extent of it.  So, I went to Google and typed in the words, “votive objects” +Vietnam   and came upon a website telling about the manufacturing and meaning of votive objects in a different part of Vietnam, but the information from which I feel confident probably generalizes to the work of our Entrepreneur, Nguyen Thi Thoa.

Votive Objects
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/lifestyle/2008/01/766493/

".... In the past, villagers were mostly painters but they have now shifted to making paper religious offerings. Each family produces a different kind, for example, clothes, footwear, motorbikes, horses, cars, etc.,” said Ha Thi Cheng, a villager. Cheng’s family specializes in producing colored papers that other families use in producing the final product.

Dong Ho people make paper votive objects all year long, but are busier before the homeless souls day or the 15th day of lunar July and the 23rd day of lunar December, the day the Kitchen God returns to Heaven. On these days, families are flooded with colored papers, bamboo and glue and everyone is busy producing.

Thao - Ket family is one of the biggest producers in Dong Ho. Some order their paper votive objects at prices nearing tens of millions of VND.

Thao said that around ten years ago, the local authorities banned local residents from making paper votive objects, saying they only served superstition but it is now a job that gives a respectable lifestyle to these villagers..."

     I don't know about you, but that was fun stuff for me to learn about.
My second example from today will follow in another post, maybe later....

[Jill]

     I guess "maybe, later" is now.  That way, if I get this posted, I'll be able to go on to non-Kiva-related things, I hope, that I need to get done.
By the way, Hi, OrionTitans, one of our School Lenders turned KivaFriends, I see you, and it makes me happy.

Springs.  Where Do They Come From and Can You Really Make a Living Selling Just Springs?

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=33498

Miguel Nuñez – Manufacturing Springs – Paraguay

Miguel Nuñez produces and sells springs; he has had this business for more than 20 years. Miguel lives in the city of Limpio (which means clean in Spanish), located 30 minutes away from Asuncion, where he has his shop and factory.

In the mornings, Miguel works at a retirement home, repairing chairs and beds amongst others. He then works at his workshop, where he makes and sells the springs. He buys wires in different sizes and widths then gives them the required form with a special machine in order to produce the springs.

Most of his clients are cars or motorcycle repair shops. This year, his goal is to become the sole provider of the biggest motorcycle’s factory in Paraguay.....
[/i]
      Springs are fun.  They remind me of slinkies.  Now, everytime I see one, maybe I'll think of my guy, Miguel!  (smile).

[Antonia]

Thank you Jill, that was interesting Antonia

[Jill]

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=43901

Toyin Ojobaro – Manufacturing – Nigeria

Sometimes, when I’ve exhausted most of my other rationalizations for making loans on a given day, sometimes I’ll make a loan just out of gratitude for the bit of learning I was able to garner from a particular loan presentation.  This morning, I came across this one, where Toyin and her elder sister (I have an “elder sister,” too, by all of 18 months), anyway, they, together, engage in the production of nylon.

I’d never, in a million years, have guessed that the synthetic, nylon, could be produced in a setting and with a machine like these.  So, both for the pleasure of the easy lesson and also for the additional learning I’m almost sure to gain from it, as now, I’m at least provoked to go to Wikipedia to snag, I hope, a couple of fascinating facts about nylon that I can come back and share with you in an edit to this post, maybe sometime later today or tonight, well, to the tune of Frank Sinatra singing, “High Hopes,” "Oops, there goes a-no-ther twenty-five bucks!”

Pre-Edit Note:  It looks like this particular machine has probably made a LOT of nylon, already….

An Unexpected Red-Faced Edit:  Hmmm-mm.  Looks like the joke may have been on me.  As I was closing down for the morning, I went back to the loan for one last look and then noticed, for the first time, the name of the sisters' business: Oluwatoyin Poly Bags.   Looks like instead of producing nylon, itself, that what they actually do produce are bags made out of nylon... or poly, a kind of plastic? -- not nearly so exotic as producing nylon, itself, which, it occurs to me, a day late and 25 dollars short, is exactly what all those white rolls in the foreground of the picture very obviously are.   Well, you know what the frog said....

[Bosi]

Thanks Jill for this great addition.
There is indeed so much by Kiva also new for me to know and to learn.   

Not only by the many great contributions, which to me often translation overtime captivated.

Many greetings

Manni

[NevadaStars]

Although they are only making plastic bags, I think it's remarkable that they're being manufactured in a non-factory setting.   
Reminds me of one of my favorite loans:

A woman making paper bags (a.k.a., Henry's friend)  :

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=23573

[Laurelia]

I also have a loan in Nigeria where the entrepreneur was mysteriously described as "producing nylon". I posted about this in another thread (quoted below). Maybe they're both making bags from sheets of nylon??? ---Laurie

18   Kiva.org / Kiva Listings & Loan Recipients / Re: The Work of Kiva's Entrepreneurs; How Wondrous Is the Variety  on: February 29, 2008, 11:52:14 PM
 

I had no idea you could make nylon at home!

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=36629



I did find this on the web, but I don't think that's what she's doing.

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2006-05/stir-some-nylon

Maybe she buys the thread and weaves it on the wooden thing that looks sort of like a loom. Or maybe she's spinning something into yarn. I'm not at all sure.

Laurie

[Laurelia]

There are also a number of loans to people in Pakistan who make paper envelopes, like this one of mine.  --Laurie

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=19161

[Jill]

       Pertaining to the loan featured in Post#36 @ http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1959.30.html and to many palm nut/palm oil-related Kiva loans:

Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil, 28 million metric tons were produced worldwide in 2004. It may have now surpassed soybean oil as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world. It is also an important component of many soaps, washing powders and personal care products, and has controversially found a new use as a feedstock for biofuel……
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil

Disclaimer:  Can’t tell you that these facts are accurate.  Can only paraphrase that wonderfully witty commentator on the human condition, Will Rogers:  All I know is what I read in Wikipedia.    I'd advise anyone who is interested to do research more extensive than this.

[Jill]

A Cambodian loan was just up that caught my attention and engaged my curiosity because of this line:
She works selling banana blossoms to earn a living…


What does somebody do with banana blossoms, I wondered, and what do banana blossoms look like?  Are they pretty like apple blossoms or what?

Off I flew on my trusty Internet magic carpet on but another potentially thrilling quest. 
Turns out that:

“…. Many Asian cultures eat banana blossoms. The sliced leaves are used in salads or eaten as a vegetable. Blossoms are available fresh (preferred) or canned in Asian grocery stores….”
There’s also a recipe for banana blossoms given at this website.
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/bananablossoms.htm

The second of the two banana blossom pics, along with other just as incredible photos of more, can be found at : http://litboy.typepad.com/my_weblog/plants/
I don’t know if these, in the second picture I'm posting, are the kind that can be eaten, but who cares?  They’re just absolutely fun and strange and lovely to look at, so, thanks, Kiva, for giving me this extra added benefit of still another learning and viewing pleasure, on this relatively early if insomniacal morning-- well, it is for me, anyway.

P.S.  Funny, Scotty, about your Internet as Mere Fad comment....

[Jill]

Sometimes, I choose to make a loan just because I’m grateful for some tidbit of knowledge I pick up from the description or photograph of one of our entrepreneurs, or, because they propel me to go on a treasure hunt, where I find out all kinds of amazing things.....

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=72418&_tpos=3&_tpg=1

Mame Yacine Dieng – Retail – Senegal

In this particular loan, it’s the following** that captivated me:

“…. She also sells fruit juice that she prepares with monkey bread (the fruit of the baobab tree,) hibiscus flowers, and sugar. ..”
** Along with my love of food, trees, flowers, fooling around at Google Image (see, below) and the exotic, that is.



Photos #1-3:  Baobab trees.  Do click on these three tree photos to enlarge them.  They're really quite magnificent and pretty weird, too. 
Think: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
The one in the first photo is supposed to be a thousand years old. For the incredible variety of uses of this amazing tree,  besides providing one of the ingredients in our Entrepreneur’s fruit juice, see, also :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baobab


Photo #4: Baobab fruits in a photo taken in Malawi.

Photo #5: Baobab Body Butter.  I  found this when I was looking for Baobab tree fruits and smiled as it reminded me of one of my former students’ (and my) favorite tongue-twisting poems:  Betty Botter.

                        BETTY BOTTER

      Betty Botter bought some butter,
      But, she said, this butter’s bitter;
      If I put it in my batter,
      It will make my batter bitter,
      But a bit of better butter
      Will make my batter better.
      So she bought a bit of butter
      Better than her bitter butter,
      And she put it in her batter,
      And it made her batter better,
      So ‘twas a better Betty Botter
      Bought a bit of better butter.

Photo #6: A cake in the shape of a hibiscus flower.

"Off-Topic"  As though the entire post isn't already "off-topic".   
                          Nice "I Loan Because" post, Queen......

[Jill]

Riffing on a Baobab…..

Turns out that I’ve had this special reverence for trees ever since I was a little kid.   I've always just loved them!   After happening, this morning, on the fruit drink seller I mentioned in the post, above, who uses fruits from the baobab in her drink, I found myself wanting to delve further into the infinite wonders of those ohsostrange but spectacular creations of nature, the baobabs. 

Following are a couple of the more notable Baobabs I came across on this magic carpet ride quest I probably never would have begun had it not been for Senegalese entrepreneur, Mame Yacine Dieng and Kiva who featured her.  So, in case some of you were wondering how in the world I could contrive a connection between Kiva and baobabs, well, there you go!

According to Wikipedia, “….in African lore: after creation, each of the animals was given a tree to plant.   The hyena was given this tree and he planted the baobab upside-down….”

Photos #1-3: Limpopo, South Africa, has a pub inside a gigantic Baobab. The 6,000 year old tree has a 155 ft circumference, and is said to be one of the biggest living things on Earth.   The Big Baobab Pub is known to be “the world’s only bar inside a tree complete with electricity, dart board, telephone and room to comfortably fit 15 people...”
http://www.1075koolfm.com/Announcers/LisaMorgan.aspx  (See the July 31st entry).
“One year we had a party and squashed 54 people inside, but I wouldn’t recommend that.” said Mrs. van Heerden, one of the owners.
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/worlds-only-bar-inside-a-tree/offbeat-news&mobi&comments=2085&page=1

Photo #4:  Boab Prison Tree:   Boabs are baobabs, Australian style.  A very large, hollow baobab south of Derby, Western Australia was reputed to be used in the 1890s as a prison for Aboriginal convicts on their way to Derby for sentencing. The Boab Prison Tree still stands and is now a tourist attraction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boab_Prison_Tree

So, What did you learn from Kiva today........?

[wind5001]

I will post pictures of the baobabs (or, as we call them in German: "Affenbrotbaum" = "Monkey bread tree") I saw in Bots once I get back to my own computer in a few hours... Not as spectacular as yours, Jill, but still.

I heard the story in Bots that God was somewhat angry with the tree (forgot why) and therefore uprooted it and stuck it into the ground upside down. Similar to your hyena story, Jill. I find the tree fascinating...the trunks look like elephant legs.

[Jill]

I joined in on a group loan from Mali early this morning because all the members of the group, apparently, work together making implements and other functional objects out of gourds, and I really like gourds.


Plus, happening upon that loan provided me with an excuse to dust off my Internet magic carpet and go off in pursuit of gourd-related treasures instead of doing all the things I’d put off doing until this weekend because I wasn’t all that excited about doing them in the first place.

On my gourdian quest,  I came across this giant smile of a photo, below, of gourd art.  I discovered that there’s actually a festival specifically to honor gourds held every September in Mayfield, Kentucky.

And…. I learned that “…. calabash were very well suited to the keeping of insects, and some of the most beautiful antique insect cages are made of gourds…..”
http://books.google.com/books?id=5sgO9BuZQSEC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=%22most++beautiful+antique+insect+cages%22&source=web&ots=CPEcnMlKr6&sig=QTGHFwV-uDdz8_udcBxgBvkg1IY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
That last essential bit of information sent my mind tripping to a news photo I saw a couple of days ago, the second picture I’m posting, that had absolutely nothing to do with gourds but that was accompanied by the worlds-expanding, mind-provoking caption noted below:

Photo #1: What someone can create if armed with a whole bunch of gourds, I'm sure, a phenomenal amount of time, and a terrific imagination. 
Do be sure to click on this first pic for full viewing pleasure.

Photo #2: Crickets bred for fighting at a Chinese market. Shanghai police have smashed a professional cricket fighting ring in a raid that snared the city's most notorious handler of the insects, state media reported Thursday. (AFP/OFF)

[Jan & John]

Ever since I became a Kiva Friend I have travelled the web to places I never dreamed of... and now this song, even though I don't know the words, will be in my head all tonight... jan

Alo Alo Children’s Environmental Club
The Alo Alo (Barracuda) Club was developed by Blue Ventures to teach the children of Andavadoaka (on the coast of Madagascar) about local habitats and species.  The goal of Club Alo Alo is to create a new generation of conservation-minded people with the skills needed to improve their lives and their communities through the long-term protection of local natural resources.