LOAN 3: SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
Finally, Tabika stood up, the child tied to her back now awake and playing with her hair. Immediately, someone brought up Tabika’s outstanding loan. This didn’t faze her, and Tabika waited for a following speaker to remind the group that all year Tabika had loans that overlapped and had always paid them back on time.
There had been one occasion several months ago when Tabika’s youngest child, barely an infant at the time, was sick with malaria. She had spent most of her loan money on medications and then become ill herself, unable to buy the ingredients to prepare the meals she sold. Even then, Tabika’s husband had stepped in and given her money to make her regular payment.9 Besides being grateful to his wife and for her ability to access the money they needed to care for their infant, Tabika’s husband wanted to be sure that she remained in good standing with her savings group because it had taken on such an important role in their family’s budget.With a good record and visible, profitable businesses providing assurance, the group did not need to discuss Tabika’s request for long before agreeing to it.
Tabika thanked the group and sat down, conducting mental calculations of her own. Though her enterprises were some of the most successful of the group, Tabika’s trading had plateaued. She spent her loans on purchasing stock to trade, but her profits were constantly redirected to consumption needs for herself and her family. She was stuck in a pattern of taking out repeated loans to sustain the same activities as when she first joined her group.10
At the same time, while Tabika’s economic growth had stalled in the short term, she knew her savings and loans had enabled her to make economic decisions from a stable foundation upon which a better livelihood could be built—she could plan ahead knowing she had access to loans now and a share-out coming at the end of the year. This stability had a noticeable effect. Households in rural Mali operate in a climate of extreme and chronic vulnerability; unforeseen calamities such as malaria or drought regularly undermine planning for the long term. Perhaps over time, Tabika might be able to absorb greater risk and reinvest more and more of her earnings into a bigger business.