Going to the Field

Four or five mornings a week, Immaculate or one of the other credit officers will go to the ‘field’ for what’s called a centre meeting. At the centre meeting, between 50-100 clients will meet with an MBF staff member and discuss what’s going on with their businesses as well as make payments against their loans. To the credit of the MBF staff, they will happily travel up to three hours roundtrip in the dalladalla to hold a centre meeting for those clients who would otherwise lack access to financial services. The first time I accompany Immaculate, we squash ourselves into the local taxis with the chickens and dried goods of the other people heading out to the rural areas and bump along for an hour and a half to arrive at the town of Ilula. During the course of our journey, one of the (live) chickens has somehow gotten lost under the overcrowded seats of the dalladalla and so we all have to take a moment upon arrival to help the owner locate it.

Due to road construction, we are late and as we walk the dusty paths to the centre meeting site, we knock on the doors of various clients to notify them of our arrival. The women pause in their work, selling vegetables or making chapatis for their food stalls to greet us and come to the meeting. The meeting site is a humble room, part of a complex of government buildings, with a cement floor, a long table and several couches that lack any cushions. As the women arrive, Immaculate explains who I am and that I am learning Swahili. She invites the clients to ask me any questions they might have about where I am from and what I am doing in Tanzania. This is a big mistake as the clients begin to drill me with questions, taking me through the paces of all of my Swahili. After 1 ½ hours, my brain train wrecks and I can no longer think let alone form sentences in Swahili.

Seeing that I have been taken out of the equation, they turn to chatting among themselves while they wait to see Immaculate. Given the opportunity to now just watch the proceedings, I am amazed by the level of organization that is managed with just a pencil and paper. One at a time, Immaculate calls up a group of 4 to 5 women. Each group has a name, which varies from the very practical, Ilula Market to the more flowery, God Bless or Hallelujah. All the group members carry small books that contain the details of their loan, their repayment efforts and their compulsory and voluntary savings which they present to Immaculate. Using a trusty calculator, Immaculate records the new balances of all their loans and savings in their books following their repayment. Their details are then separately recorded by one of the clients who has been elected as a secretary by the centre group. In this way, the women know who is on top of their repayment and who is behind. They can then encourage each other as well as keep each other accountable.

Considering that we will soon begin to develop the training arm of MBF, I watch all the proceedings with an eye to considering how basic business skills training can fit into this picture. It is clear that the centre meetings are a place of exchange. MBF has built up trust with this community, so that Immaculate and the staff can both joke comfortably with clients as well as discuss serious matters of hearth and home with them. When clients sit together and wait to see Immaculate or the other credit officers, they are constantly sharing information and experiences. I am excited that this lively time for exchange can be converted at least partially into training opportunities that we can hopefully match with their needs.