Kiva Field Update - News from Cambodia

Sophal, Rina and I eating suki soup after a long day at MAXIMA

My incredibly long update about MAXIMA just went out to all Kiva lenders who have made a loan to a MAXIMA borrower. Because I'm long-winded (it's hereditary) what was sent out was only a small part of what I had say. The whole, unedited mess is below:

Dear Lenders,

I was recently a Kiva Fellow at MAXIMA for 13 weeks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. During this time I had the chance to meet dozens of borrowers, hear their stories and learn more about how microfinance works on the ground and what sets MAXIMA apart from other MFIs. Since you’ve made a loan through MAXIMA in the past, I’d like to share with you some of what I learned about the organization during my time there.

Lending to women

In Cambodia women manage the money in every family. Even when men run the business, the women manage the finances. We joke that when payday comes men must give their paycheck to their wives with the envelope still sealed. We call this “thonikea bropon” or “wife bank.” It’s easy to make deposits but much more difficult to make withdrawals! This is because women are seen as more responsible with money in Cambodia.

MAXIMA make loans to both men and women but believe that loans to women can often benefit the family more. When a family’s income is not sufficient to meet their needs, often their only option is to send the women of the family to the city to work in the garment factories. Many of these families are located in the provinces far from the city so they are often forced to travel long distances in unsafe conditions, or rent inadequate housing in Phnom Penh. The pay is very low, around $55-60 a month, which forces them to work overtime. Starting or expanding a small business can be a good alternative.

Another issue is that rural families often take their daughters out of school due to school and transport costs and in order to have them help with the family business or farming. Helping these families boost their incomes increases the chances that their daughters will be allowed to continue their schooling.

MAXIMA hopes to contribute to the social good by helping to encourage small businesses. When women can work at home or in their village rather than in the factories, they have more time to spend with their families, look after their health and take their children to school.

MAXIMA and Farmers

Most of MAXIMA’s clients are farmers, weavers and factory workers. 80% of Cambodian people are farmers, many of whom are subsistence farmers. Most of the farming businesses are seasonal, so farmers also have other occupations during the year such as moto-taxi driving, fishing, food production and weaving.

MAXIMA loans have been able to help farmers by giving them consistent access to capital throughout the year. By the time a new planting season comes, many farmers cannot afford to buy necessary items such as seeds and fertilizers. They are forced to buy these things at highly inflated rates on credit, or borrow from a local moneylender at 5-10% a month (compared to MAXIMA’s loans at 1.9-2.8%).

Many of the loans MAXIMA gives to farmers are to buy equipment such as water pumps, tractors and rice threshers. Not having to do this work manually or rent the equipment on a daily basis allows farmers to expand their businesses.

What makes MAXIMA different?

MAXIMA’s competitive advantage is that they offer door-to-door services, which many of the local MFIs do not offer. A previous Kiva Fellow did a customer satisfaction survey and found that MAXIMA borrowers where very satisfied with the service they received, particularly the home/business delivery and payment collection.

They also try to offer service offices near where their clients are based and offer lower interest rates for clients that are willing to make payments at these offices. They are the only MFI to have services on Koh Dach Island and Koh Oknha Teh Island, two islands in the Mekong that are home to many of Cambodia’s silk weavers.

MAXIMA is a very small MFI compared to other MFIs in Cambodia (there are more than 20). Their 52 person staff is like a large family, eating lunch together and having social events on weekends. MAXIMA tries to hire local staff from the areas that they serve, and are unfailingly polite to their 2,472 clients, regardless of the status of their loans. This has earned them a great reputation among borrowers.

MAXIMA have had clients that have taken out 10 loans, one per year that they have been in business. With such a large number of local MFIs this customer loyalty speaks to MAXIMA’s dedication and their relationships with their clients.

MAXIMA’s Kiva Coordinator

MAXIMA lenders are probably already familiar with with our Kiva Coordinator, Sophal Ros. Sophal has been working at MAXIMA for almost two years and during that time has posted 1,334 loans and 1,359 journals (her journaling rate is one of the highest on Kiva).

Sophal is 25 and hails from an area of Kandal province where MAXIMA provides loans. She came to Phnom Penh in grade 12 to study. She was sponsored by an NGO, Association Française de Solidarité, that provides housing, food and school fees to poor students from the provinces who would not otherwise be able to continue their education.

Sophal has earned her Associate’s degree in IT systems and network administration and is now in her final year of university to receive her Bachelor’s degree in IT at Norton University. In addition to her 9-10 hour workdays at MAXIMA, she goes to school every weeknight and all day on Saturday.

One of Sophal’s main duties at MAXIMA is to get written updates from the credit officers about clients and translate them into English for the wider Kiva audience. She says she has appreciated having so many Kiva Fellows to practice her English with. “I don’t think my English is good but I can communicate with foreigners, and I can just talk to them. If it is wrong I ask them to correct my grammar or ask for help with vocabulary.”

Sophal has read and enjoyed all of your responses to the journals she has written. Her message to Kiva lenders is “Thank you so much for supporting not only MAXIMA borrowers but all of the poor Cambodian borrowers on Kiva!”

All the best for 2011,

Lina Goldberg
MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co. Ltd.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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2011 Kiva Calendar

I'm very excited to announce that one of my photos of silk weaver Khon Phum has been included in the Kiva 2011 calendar.  You can order the calendar here. I haven't seen the mockup for the page (so I don't know what month she is) but I'm looking forward to see what they've written about Khon. My trip to meet her on Koh Oknah Tey Island was one of the most interesting (and depressing) field visits I did.

Right now I am working on my final Kiva blog post about the silk-weaving industry in Cambodia and my mass journal that will go out to all MAXIMA borrowers. I'm planning on getting those done in the next day or two and will post them here when I do. Then I'm off to Malaysia for the holidays and some much-needed rest, relaxation and pigging out.

Pchum Ben and Water Festival update

I posted about the Maxima trip to a pagoda for Pchum Ben on my food site, you can read about it here. On that site I mainly talk about food, so I'd like to add that it was a really nice day with my Maxima co-workers. The management team obviously care about the staff--the operations manager brought a bucket (seriously, she had lined it with plastic) of a very fancy red curry with chicken, chicken feet and blood for the entire staff to eat and it was clear that this was special occasion food. I also saw her slipping money to the girls who had forgotten to bring small bills for offerings at the pagoda. It was a lovely lunch and a day where I got to know my Maxima colleagues better and it nice that we went to a pagoda in Kandal province in an area where our clients live.

In other news, I think that most of my readers have heard about the recent tragedy in Phnom Penh. I was at Maxima during the weekend of the festival and my very sensible co-workers told me to avoid that area of town because it was "too crowded" and "crazy." So I am happy to report that save for one guy who was on the bridge and survived with some injury, the entire Maxima staff is safe and sound.

Only in Cambodia

On Twitter, a few people have started using the tag #onlyincambodia for their day-in-the-life encounters of the Cambodian kind. Here's an example from this morning.

A tuk tuk driver sees me and does a hair-screeching U-turn to pull up in front of me. "Tuk tuk?" he says hopefully. I ask him if he knows where the Intercontinental Hotel is. "Yes, Intercon, know," he says.

I persist. "Intercon squall?" This is my way of asking in awful Khmer if he knows where the Intercon is. He replies, "Yes, yes, know."

I propose 5,000 riel for the ride. He counters with 6,000, I repeat 5,000 again, both in English and Khmer as well as holding up five fingers to drive the point home, and he agrees. I show him that I only have a 10,000 riel note and say "Change?" He says "Okay, okay."

I get in and he immediately heads the wrong way. I realize that he obviously does not "squall" where the Intercon is and I have to give him turn by turn directions in Khmer. Three minutes in to the six minute trip he stops at a gas station to fill up--he's been trolling for business on a completely empty tank.

Luckily I'm not in a hurry. He then pays using all of his small change. I already know this is going to be a problem, but his English and my Khmer are so limited that there's nothing I can do.

When we finally I arrive and I hand him my 10,000 riel note he looks dumbfounded. He cannot believe that I do not have exact change. He then tries to raise the price to 8,000 ($2). I snatch the note out of his hand, visibly irritated.

He finally realizes that he's not going to get more than we agreed on, and starts flagging down passing cut-fruit vendors, cyclo drivers and other tuk tuks while I stand there, seething. He eventually gets change, and I glare at him while we do a simultaneous exchange, my 10,000 for his 5,000.

By the time I arrive at my destination it has taken longer than it would have to walk and I am incredibly frustrated. In summary:

• Tuk tuk driver said he knew where something was when he didn't
• Agreed to give me change when he didn't know what I meant
• Didn't garner fhat the reason I was holding up a 10k bill after agreeing to a 5k price was because I wanted to pay with it
• Was riding around looking for business on an empty tank
• Had to stop to get gas on a six minute, quarter mile trip
• Gives all of his change to the gas station, forgetting that he would need to give me change
• Didn't know a major hotel, or one of the few major streets in Phnom Penh
• Forced me to give him turn by turn directions
• Tried to raise the price after arrival

Encounters such as this are not extreme by any means. This is just another daily occurrence that raises my blood pressure every time. The details vary every time but the grim satisfaction of having another #onlyincambodia moment--or more realistically, #typicalincambodia--is always the same.

Take a bow

Today is my final official day at Maxima. I say official because I have decided to stay in Phnom Penh for the next three months and am already scheduled to come back in three days. And although I will continue to work with Kiva's marketing team in San Francisco, today is the last official day of my Kiva fellowship.

Throughout my fellowship I've been tickled by the trend at Maxima of all of the girls wearing bows in their hair. I remembered looking wistfully at the American Girl catalog when I was 8 or 9, dreaming of owning one of my own. And today, on the last day of my fellowship, my dream has come true. The 22-year-old accountant at work has presented with a pink, rhinestone-bedecked satin bow which I was promptly urged to put in my hair. (I suspect they think it will advance my chances of marriage.)

I know I haven't updated this blog in a while but only because I've been working so hard! I've sent everyone that contributed more that $50 to my fellowship a postcard and I swear I wrote something different on each one. (Sending the small craft items are off the table until I am back in the US as they cost more that $15 to send each one because they only offer airmail). I have a lot more to say about Kiva, my fellowship and Cambodia so watch for more now that I have a little more time on my hands.

Maxima trip to a pagoda for Pchum Ben

How cute are my Maxima co-workers?

Field visit to National Road #6

Last week I went with a credit officer along National Road #6 for the first time. In there area there are a number of villages that are primarily Cham Muslim. The Cham people have lived in Cambodia since 1456 and have a friendly relationship with the rest of the population. When I was asking about them to some of my Khmer colleagues she said, "They aren't too strict (about their religion, I assume). They are just like Khmers, like us."

Cham Muslims were particularly targeted by the Khmer Rouge who sought to exterminate the entire population. Nearly 90% of the Cham people in Cambodia are Muslim and about 1.6% of the Cambodian population are Muslim.



All of our borrowers are friendly, but the families I met along Road #6 were particularly so, encouraging me to practice my Khmer with them and laughing at the results. They told me I was fat at least three times over the course of the day and had a big nose, but my favorite was being told by an old woman that I am both fat and pretty. (It was all very good-natured.)



My favorite visit of the day was to see Aisas and her family. It was the last day of Ramadan so everyone was still fasting, including not drinking water from sunup to sundown. With the temperature over 90 degrees farenheit and 60% humidity, not drinking water is an enormous test of faith and one that leaves many in this area virtually confined to their homes. Over the course of the day I drank 36 ounces of water and still ended up feeling sick from the sun, so I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for the borrowers I met.

Despite this, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, especially Aisas and her family. She immediately brought out cold tea and cakes for us, which I learned were made with duck eggs.



When we were leaving, Aisas ran back inside her home (which appeared to be made primarily of cardboard) and got a bag of cakes for us to take with us. I protested many times, but she wouldn't let me leave without them. The credit officer, Chantha, told me that during Ramadan they make hundreds of these cakes to eat for iftar, the meal that breaks the fast after sunset.



Chantha took me to his house for lunch since he and his wife are from the area. The commute is so long that he stays with his grandmother in Phnom Penh during the week and goes back home on the weekends. He gets to have lunch with his wife and daughter every weekday, though.

Luckily his daughter liked me--my last experience with a Khmer baby was slightly traumatic. He was smiling and happy but whenever he looked at me he would start screaming and crying. Must be the blue eyes. To combat this sort of thing one of the latest phrases I have picked up is kom Pheiy a own. Don't be afraid, little one.

You can view my photo album with the rest of my pictures from this trip.

Celebrating a new service office with lots of food

Sorry for the slow updates. I just posted on my other blog about the meal we had at Maxima to celebrate opening a new service office on National Road #2. Maxima is a very slow growth organization compared to the other MFIs in Cambodia, so a new service office was a big deal. (Check out my food post here)



The office is just a small storefront next to a hair salon. Two or three desks and a couple of tellers is all it contains, but it's a nice service for the borrowers in the area who aren't necessarily home when the credit officers go to pick up the monthly payments. The service office allows these people to pay when they want (or send a relative in for them) without having to travel to Maxima headquarters in Phnom Penh.


National Road #2

Learning Khmer

A neighbor wrote me a note in Khmer about how happy she was that I visited

One of the tasks I have set about for myself is learning at least survival Khmer. Khmer is the language of Cambodia and is filled with unfamiliar sounds such as improbable combinations of N and G, B and P, rolling Rs and words that to my ears clearly denote Khmer as a tonal language, regardless of what Wikipedia says.

After avoiding the issue for my first few weeks and experiencing countless frustrations because of it, I finally decided to start taking lessons. As someone who has never successfully learned a second language, I find the process incredibly frustrating. My Spanish lessons earlier this year brought me to tears more than once, and I have the tendency to shut down after a few hours. My face goes blank, my hearing disappears and I go to my safe space to try and hide from the relentless barrage of unintelligible words.

The process here is similar, although I am having more opportunity to practice. I work entirely with Khmer speakers except for one volunteer that is here part time. My colleagues are incredibly patient with me and sit with me laughing hysterical while I try and say chhanh (delicious) over and over.

So far I have managed to learn about 50 unrelated words, I can count to 59 and have mastered a few key phrases such as "I don't like your face" and "I cry like a baby pig when I study Khmer." Obviously these are a big hit with my colleagues.

Perhaps most importantly, I have learned how to say "turn left," "turn right," "go straight" and "stop." I have started to question the future of small business in Cambodia after realizing that 95% of the moto drivers in Phnom Penh have no geographic knowledge of the city they drive in every day. They are usually map illiterate as well so it is up to me, a topographical cretin, to try and analyze a map, figure out what street we are on (most are unlabeled) and shriek directions in Khmer at the same time, often in the dark.

I'm in the process of deciding how long I will stay in Cambodia. I have a lease until February but my Kiva fellowship is over in early November. I can extend it by an extra month but not an extra three months, something I had originally hoped to do. There are a number of other charities here that I can volunteer for or I can potentially stay on at Maxima as a volunteer, I just need to do a little research and make a plan.

*Addendum: This morning I realized I had lost my Khmer study notebook and couldn't figure out where I might have left it. I walked everywhere I had been last Friday asking for it, trying to mime out the word "notebook." I eventually got to the small noodle shop near my house. I peeked in and a woman shouted "your book!" and went and retrieved it from the refrigerator she had been storing it in. She told me that if I wanted to practice my Khmer with her I could come in anytime, even if I wasn't buying anything to eat. True evidence of the kindness of the Cambodian people, because listening to me speak Khmer must be beyond excruciating.

In the rice paddy

This weekend I went deep into Kandal province to visit my friend Rina's parents. Rina is an accountant here at work and her mother is a rice farmer. On the weekends, Rina goes home to help during the planting and harvesting season, and I've seen her limping around work with aching muscles on Monday morning. Needless to say, I was delighted with the prospect of trying my hand at some excruciating manual labor.

The road to the village in Kandal province

In the fields before it rained (possibly the best picture I have ever taken). Rice farming is very dependent on the rainy season, and we were lucky that it had just rained the night before because it made uprooting the rice much easier.

The children in the neighborhood were delighted to see me and practice their English. I found myself surrounded by children for the entire weekend and when I went upstairs to take a nap I was woken up a little while later by a chorus of "Lina, Lina, play, play!" There was also a baby named Lina, and everyone was astonished (as am I) that I somehow have a Khmer name.

I lasted a sum total of 90 minutes in the rice paddy. We were there to pull up all the plants by the roots, gather them into bundles and then the next day, replant them spaced further apart. Apparently they can't grow to their full size unless they have enough space. As you would expect, the work is backbreaking and filthy.

Don't let my chirpy smile fool you, my shirt in this picture is soaked in sweat and covered in mud. I spent the majority of the time on my haunches trying not to fall in while uprooting rice plants. Rina's mother eventually shouted at Rina to take me inside before I got sick. I think she noticed the crimson hue my skin was beginning to take on despite the so-called waterproof SPF 55 I was wearing.

The Kiva Coordinator from work also came to help.

At the end of an exhausting day we took showers using a pan and rainwater (there's no running water in most of the Cambodian countryside) and had a delicious Khmer lunch that included all of the snails and freshwater crabs that we found in the rice paddy while we were working.

Despite ruining one of my only 6 shirts and my sore legs, I was glad to get to see where all of this rice I have been eating comes from. I now understand why some many cultures believe it is rude to not eat every grain of rice that is given to you--it's a lot of work to get it!