The following blog post was written by Timothy Hall, Africa Regional Field Specialist for VisionFund International.

There are myriad challenges to doing business in East Africa- barriers of culture and language, infrastructure and connectivity problems, and a lack of training in the more remote areas.  I became intimately familiar with some of these challenges on a recent training mission to Kenya’s dusty Eastern Province…

I was on the road from Mombasa on the coast to Nairobi in the West.  My bus was running about three hours late, so I was sure I had missed the next bus from Kibwezi to Mutomo, which is another four hour drive through the drought stricken region.   I finally arrived at the stop and was greeted immediately by Ambrose, the local loan officer who was to be my guide for the next two days.  He grabbed my bags and put me on a motorcycle taxi, and we quickly went to the bus station for the next leg.  Happily, this bus was also two hours late on its departure, and was still waiting while all of the passengers’ goods –everything from sofa sets to jerry cans filled with cooking oil—were strapped to the roof of the bus.  The inside of the bus was overloaded as well- I estimated about seventy people were crowded into a space intended for forty-five.  Since Ambrose and I were some of the last arrivals, we had to squeeze into the aisle with the rest of the excess people.  It was uncomfortable to say the least, especially considering that the roads in this part of Kenya were unpaved and deeply rutted from the rains and the heavy trucks that use it.

Ambrose, my guide, translator, and companion for my time there, serves the entire area, including 500 clients, single-handedly.  He lives with his wife and children in a city a couple hours up the main highway, but two times a week makes the six hour bus ride to the town, and then takes a motorcycle for at least two more hours to visit clients.  In more densely populated areas, there are usually proper branch offices with cashiers, information systems staff, and a branch manager. In Ambrose’s particular area, however, he is the only one.  He singlehandedly does the work of several people- so that he can help the poor entrepreneurs of Mutomo, and so he can provide a better life for his family.  The client groups treated him with respect, and were visibly happy when he came to visit.

Working with him gave me hope- his good cheer and hard work was a reminder that Africa’s best days are still ahead of it.  Despite the extreme poverty of the area he works in, and the challenges of accomplishing his tasks, I saw no trace of despair- only the simple knowledge that when his clients have access to the microfinance loans that he distributes, they will be better off than they were before.

Pictured above is an entrepreneur who received a loan from World Vision’s MFI in Kenya.