Where is Our Kiva Friend ________ ______________ ???

[Guest]

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[Jill]

Where is our Kiva Friend ……..  ?
       Funny, how really, amazingly connected and caring some of us have come to feel toward people we’ve “met” here – at Kiva Friends.  It’s kind of a strange and fascinating experience for me.  Strange, especially, because all of this is done via some machine or another.  It almost “does not compute” (smile) for this oldster who is accustomed to human relations  being more human, more “in person,” anyway. 

      That said, while this brave new world of relationship-building has definitely been expanding this old dog’s ** horizons, it’s become rather undeniable that the feelings are there, that friendships, and what feel like “real” friendships, are getting established and are feeling as though they are growing and growing.

      But, because we are (mostly) all so long-distance from one another, far beyond the reach of a quick walk around the neighborhood or even a short car ride, it occurred to me this morning, when I was wondering about one of our K-Friends who hasn’t been posting lately ***, that it would be possible for any one of us to fall off the face of the earth, or, at least, seem as though we had fallen off the face of the earth, without any of the rest of us being able to go double-check to make sure that everything was all right with that person.

       
So, I’m starting this thread for two reasons:

One: To provide a regular place where any of us might come and post to inquire as to the whereabouts of some
        Kiva Friend or another.  And, where, hopefully, another of us might be able to post right back with a(n)
        (reassuring?) answer.                                                                                                                                              and


Two: To solicit ideas/posts for suggestions of “the best way” to ensure that we would be able to track somebody down,
         to confirm that s/he was all right, if any of us ever wanted to.
         
        (I had two immediate thoughts, myself, about how we might do this which I’ll post later if other, hopefully better ideas aren’t offered, first).


** A nod to Oli's colorful Post #10 @ http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1734.10.html

*** A guy whom I regard as having one of the bigger hearts around here, one whom I fondly think of as our resident
       “Flower Child.”       

[Henry]

I use the 'PM' feature if I'm looking for someone, it usually works.

[Jill]

     Thanks, Henry.  Looks like I'd better clarify.
      I'm talking about a situation where a person does not respond either to Personal Messages, or to E-Mails (for those few friends who may have an e-mail address avenue to that person, if anyone does) or to Phone Calls (a few of us have a phone number for one or more K-Friends). 
       
      I'm envisioning the possibility of it feeling as though someone has disappeared, of a worry that something might have happened to someone -- this, after a period of time, maybe weeks have passed without any response to the above attempts at communicating on the part of one of us or another..
     

[Sherri]

Maybe he's the one who changed his username to "NowSkepticalofKiva" due to the new contract?

Hehe, Jill, I love how you use footnotes all the time... they're so cute* !

Anyway, people do have an expectation that they can drop out of their 'online relationships' without wrapping up loose ends. I'm sure that if something serious did happen to someone, then it would be their geographically close friends and family who would most likely look into it. From my perspective, if I wanted to disappear from an online community, I wouldn't want the police knocking on my door to check if I'm alright because someone called in a concern. But.. then again, Jill I can see it the other way too. Maybe you're right...

* Cute/quirky/seldom seen on message boards... lol.

[Jill]

Hey....
     I was just now able to get into my e-mail, including my PMs, after being unable to access them since yesterday evening.   I'm trying to get out of here for the day, so I'm not going to individually respond to the PMs, this time, but I do thank you, Nicole and Odette, for writing.

First, Yes, it was Stevie whose absence precipitated my thinking about this, though, no, I wasn't really worried about him, not now, this time.
        I'd thought I'd remembered his saying something about being gone for awhile, but I couldn't remember.  Odette, turns out, recalls
        something  similar.  Funny and sweet... that it wasn't much of a mystery for you to solve when I mentioned "big heart" and "Flower Child!"

Second, No, it wasn't anybody in particular that I was thinking about.  I was just thinking about people in general, particularly, I suppose, some
           of the "old dogs," whom I've gotten to know a little better.  At the same time, if some of the newer dogs, mostly, young pups they,
           if some of you disappeared without a word or an apparent reason, over (an extended period of) time, I might become concerned about
           some of you, too.

      What I'm talking about is an imaginary situation where, say, one or the other of your favorite or one of the most familiar/prolific Post-ers, here, either just disappeared, stopped posting out of nowhere or..... where some Kiva Friend whom you knew had intentionally gone off for a specific period of time didn't return as anticipated.  And -- in spite of PMs, possibly e-mails, possibly phone calls to that person, turned out to be nowhere to be found.   Where nobody could say what had happened to them.

     
      What I'm thinking of, Sherri and everybody else, particularly wanting to be careful of "privacy concerns", (my privacy being super-important to me, so that one is easy), would be an Absolutely Voluntary Thing.  Because some of us are hundreds, thousands of miles and maybe an ocean or two away from one another, I just thought  IF PEOPLE WANTED TO,  we might do a "Contact in Case of Fell Off The Face of The Earth" scenario, where somehow or another, we would make available (TO WHOM & HOW TO would be big questions)

       a couple of our close family's/friends' phone numbers/ e-mail addresses as potential "Contact People", probably never to be used, but there,
just in case......

[Tatiana]

First, Yes, it was Stevie whose absence precipitated my thinking about this, though, no, I wasn't really worried about him, not now, this time. I'd thought I'd remembered his saying something about being gone for awhile, but I couldn't remember.  Odette, turns out, recalls something  similar. 

This is what he wrote in the epinionstopic:

I'll be on vacation for a couple weeks in Feb.

[Robert]

On a similar note: what happened to several extremely motivated KivaFriends from the beginning? When rereading posts from that time, I see plans for making albums with all the loans, hanging up world maps covered with pins in the hall and living room where no visitor can escape them, hanging them up at the workplace where no fellow worker can escape them, working on people until these don't talk any longer to them, translating loan descriptions around the clock, leaving folders under windscreen wipers or in telephone boxes, etc. And then overnight you hear nothing from these KivaFriends. And when you look at their Kiva portfolio, you see only old loans.

Is too much enthusiasm counterproductive in the long run? So that silent people have not fallen off the face of the earth, as Jill is afraid of, but are just weary of Kiva? And a more alarming question: are we, committed lenders, doomed to become weary, or is a sustainable Kiva experience possible?

Robert

[Diane R]

Robert, how long was the enthusiasm period seen in those you are talking about?  Several of the "regulars" here may not have been here in March '07 when KF began, but some of us are from very near that time and are still going strong...  In some cases, life may have intervened.

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. 


--Diane.

[Robert]

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. 

If it's "just" life, then it's reassuring and there are no grounds for my fear.

[Jill]

                 This is only for those of you who either, now, at this time, or, who later, perhaps, might feel inclined to do this:

      I’d like to suggest that if either you now have a Kiva Friend or two that you simply trust, and/or to whom you feel sufficiently close, or if sometime later on, that happy situation befalls you….

      Perhaps in addition to giving that person/s your e-mail address and/or phone number, perhaps it would be good to provide “Contact in Case It Appears I’ve Fallen Off the Face of the Earth” contact information in the form of e-mail addresses and/or phone numbers for either good friends, family members or close neighbors of yours.   

      I’m suggesting this ONLY for those of you who can themselves, imagine how unsettling it would be for you if one or another of your Kiva Friends vanished without word (if, in fact, it would be disturbing to you at all).    This contact information that I’m suggesting you either give to or exchange with someone else would be for people whom some Kiva Friend or another would contact (only) in the unlikely event that it appeared that you inexplicably disappeared, and for whatever reason, could not be reached either through PMs, e-mail or telephone avenues of communications.

      For perhaps the great majority of people here who are not now and who may never be at a point where this would seem either desirable or important, that’s absolutely and totally all right.