the course of our stays or that 544,000 civilization would certainly watch our videos on YouTube
and be a part of our journey.
You are watching: Why do chris and zach want to replace their beans and rice with corn?
For 2 months, the beautiful highlands of Guatemala
came to be our home.
Unfortunately though, this beauty was likewise backdrop
to rampant poverty and also malnourishment,
with even more than fifty percent of the country"s populace living in poverty
and also more than 15 percent in too much poverty.
ZI: Now we knew that we would certainly never have the ability to replicate the too much hardship
knowledgeable by the too much bad,
however we wanted to simulate 2 key aspects of it:
First, the too much bad often don"t recognize when they are going to acquire passist.
Their earnings is very unpredictable.
So instead of giving ourselves one dollar each day,
we took our budget for the summer, 56 dollars each,
and also divided it right into random incomes that we drew from a hat each morning.
The amount that we attracted from the hat was the amount that we obtained each day.
2nd, the extreme poor usage a facility combination
of financial tools in order to endure.
So at the start of the summer, we took a tiny loan of 126 dollars,
in order to pay for our large-ticket items such as the renting of a residence,
our fertilizer, seed, and a little plot of land also to prosper radishes on.
Eincredibly 2 weeks we passist in installment on this loan plus interest,
on our dollar a day budobtain.
So besides ending up being proficient radish farmers,
what did we do in Guatemala for two months?
We invested many of our time conducting informal and also formal research.
As students of economic advance,
we were interested in three things:
How do the bad regulate their money,
what services carry out they use in order to carry out so,
and also how can we enhance these services
in order to better fit their financial requirements.
CT: But our most instant need wregarding make it through lengthy enough
to also begin our study.
On the first night, I remember lying there on the dirt floor,
listening to the sounds of Zach vomiting external,
and also reasoning tright here was really no method we were going to last 2 months.
And by the second week, we were struggling most
from continuous hunger and also lethargy.
In one journal entry on June 1nine, I explained how we tilled
our neighbor"s corn fields for an entire day without eating any type of food.
Experiencing that level of manual labor on an empty stomach
was a debilitating feeling that I will never forobtain.
And this was a reality that challenged many kind of of our neighbors
in Peña Blanca day after day.
So what we wanted to execute, was to get to understand these neighbors,
to construct their trust so that we could much better learn
from them and conduct our research.
The trust was necessary, because we were interviewing twelve family members,
exploring every little thing from their family dimension, to levels of education,
asset riches, inflows and outflows of capital
and also ultimately what instruments carry out they usage to manage their money.
As our time ongoing tright here, our lives really ended up being a regimen.
We would like to present you a day in the life.
(Video Plays) (Penis Crowing)
Chris: What time is it?
Zach: Six forty-five.
You pulled a nine!
Dude, he"s great.
Deliciously cold breakquick of rice and also beans.
What are we going to perform today?
We are going to observe some micro-finance borrowers,
have actually a short interview via them
and also begin our research study.
Chris: Like how many people live there?
(Spanish) ... over tbelow, in the facility of tvery own ...
... I"m thinking about ...
... life insurance, right?
... maybe at some point we"ll earn enough money and ...
... yes, keep studying, so they learn more ...
Zach: Eversteustatiushistory.orgng depends on the soil content
that we have no idea around.
It counts on how much fertilizer we need.
Zach: We should recognize exactly how to farm, and also we simply do not.
Chris: So maybe as soon as we go fulfill him tomorrow morning
we can ask him if he"s willing to teach us
Carlos: (Spanish) ... there are bigger ones ...
Carlos: ... this method, ok?
Chris: (Spanish) Thanks Don Carlos.
Chris: (Spanish) Thank you very much.
Zach: The climb prices 6 Quetzals,
the beans cost 6 Quetzals,
the lard prices 1.5 Quetzals.
We eat this meal for the whole day,
which is 3 meals.
Divide that by three
so that"s approximately 16 cents for each meal.
Rosa: (Spanish) Thank you extremely a lot.
Anthony: (Spanish) You guys prepare well.
Rosa: (Spanish) Yes.
Chris: (Spanish) But it"s not prefer Rosa"s.
Chris: (Spanish) Rosa is the best prepare in the world.
"¿Cómo estás?," Do you remember?
"How are you?"
(Spanish) Yes, right! It"s three words.
(Spanish) This in English?
(Spanish) This is a "candle".
Candle.
(Spanish) How perform you say it in Kaqchiquel?
Candel.
"Candel" in Kaqchiquel? Oh, it"s almost the same! (End of Video)
(Applause)
ZI: After eight weeks, we shed an unified 18 kilos,
struggle via Giardia and E-Coli
and also virtually offered our parents a heart attack.
Here"s why.
(Video Sequence)
ZI: Chris looks pretty horrible, I need to say.
So was this worth it?
Absolutely.
Our friends in Peña Blanca ended up being the finest teachers
we have ever before had in our lives.
They took abstract concepts that we were learning
in the classroom, and also made them genuine.
Specifically, they taught us 3 secrets
of the financial resides of the extreme negative.
First, we learned that the negative are active money managers.
It would seem that the poor are living hand-to-mouth,
that they are placing together the small amount of income
they have eextremely day and spending it all on food.
And to just begin this aobtain the next day
yet in reality the poor"s resides couldn"t be any different.
We learned the bad need to budobtain their money intensely
in order to not just pay for brief term requirements such as food,
emergencies, sickness and also times without revenue,
but likewise lengthy term and more expensive demands such as their children"s education,
a home, and also also starting a organization for the future.
Amazingly, all of this money monitoring is done in their heads.
Incredibly, it is very accurate. When we asked them how carry out you save this
all straight in your mind, they told us that it was always on their mind,
that all day they were reasoning about
exactly how they were going to budacquire their money.
Our very own experiences verified this to be true.
Chris and I were required to continuously talk and also think about
exactly how we were going to budacquire our money.
How we were going to buy enough food for the week,
did we have sufficient firelumber,
were we going to have sufficient money to pay off our little microfinance loan
and also did we have sufficient money for soap?
Which as you have the right to check out we didn"t have most money for soap.
So this obsession with money and also money administration was so powerful
because the distinction in between 50 cents supposed if we were going to eat or not.
CT: The second financial trick of the poor that we learned
was that they regulated their money making use of many type of various devices.
Anthony, or Toño as he was generally referred to as in the neighborhood,
was using 4 various financial tools to manage
his average daily revenue of 10 dollars,
this earnings sustained his entire family members of eight world.
What he would perform was he would borrow and also loan money to friends,
he collected assets for re-sale,
produced savings clubs, and also even used microfinance.
The reason that he supplied so many type of various tools
was that there wasn"t a solitary tool that was enough enough to meet
both his brief and his long-term demands.
Toño is also a great example of how the bad can be very innovative
at developing solutions to meet their needs,
solutions that are not accessible to them from regional financial institutions.
What he did was begin a savings club via 12 of his friends.
These are typically recognized as a RoSCA around the civilization,
some of you might have actually heard of them.
Eextremely month each member would certainly come together in a meeting and provide 12 dollars.
At the finish of the meeting the full amount of $144
was randomly dispersed to among the human being.
For the remainder of the year, they would then repeat this process every month
until each member had actually received this lump amount of $144.
What"s really exceptional around this system that they created
is that if you get your payment
near the beginning of the cycle it acts as a loan,
however if you"re one of the last people to get it,
it attributes even more as a technique of savings.
ZI: The third financial secret was that flexibility
and also relicapability are benefits that the bad are actually willing to pay for.
The bad are able to improvise totally free services such as Toño"s RoSCA
however tright here are some downsides.
You might obtain your lump amount, your big sum of money at the wrong time,
not once you actually need it.
Also, your fellow members may not be able to pay
their monthly due or at times they may even steal from you.
This is why microfinance is attrenergetic to the poor.
Microfinance is a method to empower the poor to carry themselves out of poverty
by giving reliable financial solutions that accomplish their financial needs.
Microfinance is similar to a RoSCA but tbelow are some crucial differences.
You are not borrowing from your friends
you are borrowing from a formal institution.
Also, you are receiving the amount of money instantly and when you need it.
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Finally, you do not need to count on your friends to bring in that monthly earnings.