There’s something at the core of education that’s more important than other services. Start with financial education. We all learn how to manage money. It starts with parents handing us our allowance and it ends with trying to understand the 2008 financial crisis and what a CDO is. Somewhere in the middle – between […]
Debt. The word has a negative connotation in our culture. Debt as opposed to ‘loan,’ which sounds like a package of productive stuff. The bedrock of microfinance are small loans, which sounds good: tiny investments in tiny businesses. Some call it the “trickle up” effect,[1]and many decades of capital have gone to good use. I don’t want to […]
Everyone graduates an amateur in what comes next. It first hit me that I wasn’t a student anymore when I filled out the immigration form on the plane to Honduras. “Student” was no longer a good cop-out for the profession question. When the plane touched the tarmac, it was as if I’d arrived in the land […]
October 19th, 2015 – Dery calls a client. Dery works on our Constant Client Contact team (CCC), responsible for keeping up communications between students and clients. He asks her if she has any other questions or concerns. She says ‘yes’ and that she’s worried about her loan. They talk for thirteen minutes. He recommends she […]
I love this job. I love being the Program Director of La Ceiba Microfinance. Before graduating, I walked through the university columns every day and took my seat behind a desk. I learned how to think and how others thought for themselves. Sporting a cap and gown, I prayed to be spared a desk job […]
“It’s important you share what you’ve learned, but do not include my name. I feel that this is my personal information.” We talked a bit about her daughters, one of which I taught in the bilingual school, and touched on current issues like the community’s water pump that broke and a number of neighbors she was […]
I stood on the side of the road with a bag of chicken. The moon had risen into the sky and the cars came with headlights blazing. I had just finished eating at the Carcamo’s, a family who had worked with La Ceiba for years. It was the grandmother, Donia Sonia, who started inviting me […]
These are my best photos from my time here. I figured I would share them on the blog…
We all remember the shape shifting appearance of things through drunk goggles. It was a fantastic way to show us high school kids just how deformed the world appeared to our inebriated senses. What I have learned beyond the walls of academia is there are many goggles we don’t even know we’re wearing. They can […]
In June, a deaf kid approached me under a small apple tree. I had no idea who he was nor why he was trying to sign to me. I assumed someone had told him to seek out the gringo as a joke. I politely mimed I wasn’t the right person and took my leave. In […]
Jeff Paddock
Suddenly-Human 