(above) Ayacucho, Peru, one of my field sites.

I received an unexpected boon this week in the form of a $300 check — my stimulus check from the government.

As an experiment, I’ve decided to loan the money to organizations in Latin America who will distribute the funds as microfinance loans. I’ve selected three organizations — principally women’s collectives — in the highland Andes, where I work as a cultural anthropologist, to receive these loans.

As it stands now, I am not a wholly unqualified supporter of microfinance (my biggest bone of contention is the extremely high interest rates microfinance institutions charge for the loan.) However, my little experiment ought to allow me more insight to the inner workings of microfinance so that I can take a better informed stance in the future.

To redistribute the funds, I’ve chosen Kiva, a US based group that calls itself a “person-to-person micro-lending website.” What this means is they redistribute 100% of your funds to microfinance institutions in the ‘global south.’ Their expenses are paid through voluntary donations from individual lenders and those given by a panoply of deep-pocketed cooperations, though I imagine that the lion’s share comes from the latter, their institutional partners.

I’ll write more about my participation as I continue the process, but for now, have a look at Kiva’s website for yourself.