| Kiva blues: Palestinian in default |
[May. 17th, 2006|07:59 am] |
A while back I lent money to Azam Construction Supplies in Rafah El Sahabura, Gaza. You can call me an "international lender" - you can call yourself that for as little as $25 through Kiva.
I haven't really been following the news since Hamas got voted in, but I had heard enough to know things weren't rosy. I feel sorry for Azam, and not just because I may never get my money back. There's a risk to assume if you want to be an "international lender" :)
Azam's repayment difficulty makes his local political reality far more tangible. Although the economic side certainly is a big impact for the borrowers, for us lenders this is part of what's transformational: simply learning about another person's reality. Ideally, a peer-lending system could highlight good sources of information. Lenders could have a role helping people on the ground that are fighting all those things that make prosperity elusive such as corruption and red-tape. We might convince our governments to put pressure, and tie foreign aid to clean-up results.
Now I wonder how I would like to be treated if I were in his shoes. The longer this goes on, the harder it could be for him to repay. Should the remainder of his loan be forgiven if this lasts 6 months? A year? Is it necessary to wait, or is it already bad enough to be forgiven? |
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| Train conversations |
[May. 7th, 2006|12:31 pm] |
Trains are great for the conversations you can have. Once, on my way to Montreal I had a woman tell me I should accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. Usually people aren't preachy.
Yesterday I met Houssan, a tall man in his mid to late 30's. Originally from Lebanon he's living in Montreal, getting by on small jobs while waiting to write his equivalency tests to practice dentistry. Until September then he's working to get by and travel a bit- probably less stressful than his life as a student in Paris. [That's right; he's a French-certified dentist, and he still has to wait months to pass an equivalency exam]
Our conversation explored several topics, but it's what he said about Canada that stuck with me. His brother has a small shop and some of his customers are Orthodox Jews. "He could get in trouble back home; but here it's normal. Canada is great, people get along. Jews, Muslim, Hindu, White, Black, it doesn't matter." For the most part, he's right: compared to a lot of other places we seem like paragons of tolerance.
We spoke about the political situation in Lebanon, and the root cause of Middle Eastern woes that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Houssan first heard bombs explode when he was five. "The noise they make, you have no idea, it's unbelievable. The wind can knock you out, it happened to me several times.
No doubt his brother also experienced conflict first hand. Hearing Houssan's story first hand gave me an appreciation for how emotionally difficult it must be to run a shop and carry on normal relations with those that in your home would have been mortal enemies. I asked him what he thought Canada could do, although we don't have much influence on the US. We exchanged a few ideas but none really seemed very world-changing.
Thinking back, it seems obvious now that Canada is already a place where people from conflict regions can come and experience some "peace". In Halifax there is a group of Jews and Muslims working for peace in the Middle East. Encouraging the formation and growth of such groups could be a powerful catalyst in transforming conflict, and reinforcing the idea of Canada as a place where peace can flourish. |
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