The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Almost three years ago I wrote on the original Red Ink Diary, (the blogger version) about my philosophy of giving and my participation on Kiva. Every time a loan was repaid I recycled the original $25 into a new loan, adding money from advertising and affiliate income to top up the available capital and enable an additional loan.

You can read updates here, and here. This post link marks the first loan to an American businesswoman and the eighth loan. Loans nine and ten are covered here and I expect to make loan number 13 by April.

Kiva Loan #11
Aiymbubu Kudaybergenova is 48 years old and has four children. She lives in Bory-Bash village, Kyrgyzstan.

Aiymbubu was born into a low-income family and from early childhood, she had to help her parents around the house and earn money at the local diary factory. Aiymbubu got married at the age of 20. Soon she gave a birth to three daughters and one son. Unfortunately, her family life was not happy and she was divorced from her husband in 1997.

As Aiymbubu became the only breadwinner for her children, she decided to start animal breeding. Using an initial amount of 15,000 Kyrgyz soms, she bought one milk cow, whose milk she sold to the dairy factory. Later on, her livestock grew and in order to reduce her expenses for the livestock's foraging, she pastured her livestock in the mountainous areas with native grasses. Now, Aiymbubu has two milk cows, two horses and 15 sheep at her farm. On the weekends, Aiymbubu and her son sells meat at the local market.

Aiymbubu is a very hardworking person, she is also engaged in sewing mattresses, cushions and coverings, which became very popular in her local area because of the low prices and good quality of her products. Now, Aiymbubu requests a loan of 50,000 Kyrgyz soms to buy two bull calves for fattening and reselling. It allows her further development of her household and business. In the future, she plans to hold her daughters’ weddings and give good dowries for them. Aiymbubu in a very positive person, who according to her motto, “nothing seek, nothing find”, makes every effort to provide her children with a prosperous life.



Kiva Loan #12

Islam Dunyamaliyev is a 43 year-old man who is married and lives in the city of Saatli in Southern Azerbaijan. He is the head of a big family. He has two daughters and one son. He sells meat and dairy produced in his cattle-breeding business at the Saatli bazaar. Before Islam started his business in 2005, his family lacked the means to cover all of their expenses. Since then the business has been the only source of income for Islam's family. His brother helps him in his business. This is Islam’s first loan from Kiva. Islam used the 1000 AZN loan to buy two cows. Now Islam has three cows. After repaying this loan Islam plans to take out another loan to buy five more cows.

Meanwhile, if you are planning on buying something at Amazon please use the advertisement box in this blog to go there. So far advertising on this blog has funded twelve Kiva loans and a Cystic Fibrosis Research donation.

Y'all come back!