1 Year Anniversary

Juhudi Kilimo celebrated its one-year anniversary in April last month. We have come a long way but still have much further to go. Kenya is full of microfinance companies and and all of them would like to reach the rural poor smalholder farmer with products similar to ours. Juhudi is well positioned to be the first in the rural areas of Kenya but we still need to expand to secure our foothold.

The microfinance sector seems to be focused on Sub-Saharan Africa as Nairobi recently hosted the Africa Middle East Microcredit Summit. This Summit was attended by celebrities such as the Queen of Spain, the Princess of the Netherlands, President Kibaki of Kenya and Nobel Lauriat Muhammad Yunus. The sector is expanding exponentially since my first visit to a little non-profit called SKS in India. SKS is about to float an IPO and raise $250 million. Juhudi hopes to be the next success story in improving the livelihoods of the rural communities of Africa. We recently moved out of the pilot phase on Kiva and hope to reach our new monthly fundraising limit in May

For the first time since my arrival in Nairobi, I finally managed to pay a round of golf. Many of the Microcredit Summit attendees were stranded in Kenya due to the volcano and I entertained one of them at one of the golf courses in Nairobi.

I used up the last of my airline miles to make a nice trip to Egypt and the fantastic city of Cairo. The lifestyle and people of Cairo drew me in immediately. I could easily live there.

I made some good friends, rode fast camels and managed to get invited to an Egyptian wedding.

I spent many hours playing dominos over a cup of Egyptian tea or a water pipe and talking international trade in broken Arabic trade with old men who could not believe I had come to them from Kenya. The Egyptians were great at hassling foreigners and charging exorbitant prices for things like a camel ride. I threw them for a loop when I started paying them with Kenyan shillings, which they had no idea of value but accepted enthusiastically.

I do not have many more travels planned but there just may be a trip to DC in June or perhaps a journey to South Africa for the World Cup at some point this summer.