A $25 Kiva loan to a Rwandan I hope to meet

Just lent a few bucks via Kiva.org to Mary Louise Nyiranzabandora here, a mother of four who runs a shoeselling business in Kigali.  She’s planning to increase her profits by expanding her stock.

Marie Louise Nyiranzabandora

Rwanda has made an amazing comeback from one of history’s worst genocides.  I’ll be visiting in a couple of weeks, and I hope to try to understand (at least a little) how people can possibly move on.  And I don’t know any better way to find out than to ask.  I’ve already got appointments set to meet with a number of small entrepreneurs there — ordinary folks just getting on with their lives — whose stories are worth telling.  I’m not sure if I’ll get to meet Ms. Nyiranzabandora herself, but whatever I learn will be in the upcoming book, but I’ll also try to share what I can here, too.  Not sure if I’ll meet

This is my 1932nd loan, by the way, and the repayment rate is still over 99 percent.  If you’d like to help out with a loan of your own, it takes about five minutes.  Join my team!

And I thought a 5-hour layover was bad

Trapped in Washington Dullest International Airport waiting for a flight to Dubai. But I can’t complain.

The guy next to me was going Los Angeles to Dullest to Doha to Peshawar. This takes something like 30 hours but must feel like two weeks.

Someday I’d love to visit Peshawar and visit the Khyber Pass.  But for now the idea of getting blown up by the Taliban makes this somewhat unappealing. The city is currently still reasonably visitable, though. Maybe someday.

Hope my new friend doesn’t watch too many in-flight movies. How much Jennifer Aniston can one man take before breaking?