First International Bank of Beza

This is what I will need to brand myself as if things keep up the way
they have been.

It's not unusual for the people who work at Beza to ask for loans--
they do it quite often from the bosses at the reserve, as well as from
the researchers. Loans are usually taken out against future salary,
and when I (and others in the past) make a loan, I always get approval
from the person's boss, or to be doubly sure, get an assurance that if
the person defaults on their loan, I can take it out of my monthly
camping fees.

The loan requests, though are getting bigger.

One of the guys who works for me recently asked to borrow 500,000
Ariary to buy a bull for his father-in-law's funeral. Since he's the
son in law, he needed to make a big showing at the funeral, and I was
able to loan him over half of what he needed (incidentally, the bull
was amazing. Black and white with beautifully recurved horns --
apparently the best for a funeral).

Someone else recently asked for 600,000 to work on his house. For
those of you keeping track at home, there are around 1970 ariary to 1
dollar. If we round out at a nice 2,000 conversion rate, this is
asking for $300. I was able to give him part of this, but man, the
loans are getting to be a serious burden on my own liquidity.

Most people's capitol is in the form of zebu. It's easier to count and
keep track of your cows than paper money, so when the time comes when
people see a need for quick cash, it's a bit more difficult to
mobilize your four legged hedge fund, and it becomes necessary to get
the money elsewhere. I'm happy to help out when I can, but I'm
starting to feel like I need to ask for loan applications and
introduce the concept of interest. This would, of course, never fly.

In the short few months that I've been here I've made many more (and
some substantial) loans. It's sort of shocking to me to think about
how much money has come and gone beween me and these other folks. I'm
used to dealing with plastic, and rarely have more then $20 or $30 on
me at any time (usually it's less than $5). Even though I know the
people fairly well that I'm loaning money to, sending these large sums
of money walking, only to come back little by little in the future
does make me a little bit uncomfortable. I'm going to continue to help
out as much as I can, but considering my own current issues with the
flow of money, it might not be as much as other people hope for.