New York
April 5, 2011

The Bank of Ray

I’ve been interested in microloans for some time.  Are you familiar with the concept?  You make loans in tiny amounts to people across the globe that you’ve never met.

I finally decided to take the plunge.  I joined Kiva, an organization I highly recommend (www.kiva.org). The site is well-organized, which makes it easy to zero in on what kind of loan you’d like to make.

I skipped over the boring stuff like farming and manufacturing and went straight to Entertainment.  Hey, just because I’m being altruistic doesn’t mean I have to stop being shallow.

After only a couple of minutes of searching I found my guy:  Sugar Ayush, a married father of one, wants to raise money to expand one room of his small grocery store to make a PC gaming center.  Well, that’s an idea I can get behind!  Just because a kid lives in Mongolia shouldn’t mean he can’t get his Gears of War on, right?

At first I was worried, because I was the very first person to loan Sugar a chunk of the amount he was trying to raise.  But in just a week, other wise lenders had followed my lead and I was delighted to see that his loan amount had been met!  I’m actually quite proud that my name is listed as the first lender right on his page.  The smug feeling of righteousness I feel when I think about Sugar’s PC game room is well worth the $25 I lent him to expand his business.

So.  The next time you’re in Ulan Bator and you have a hankerin’ for some Halo, go see my client Sugar and tell him Ray sent you.

Other Microloans I Should Make

• Help open a bodybuilding gym
• Help pay for World of Warcraft subscriptions in a developing country
• No Child Left Behind (Without Her Own GameBoy)
• Open a Mrs. Fields in a developing country

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Here are some more photos I’ve taken while in New York. 

I’m still learning both my Nikon D90 and Lightroom 3.