52 Weeks 52 Tests - Week 14 - Lending Money to Complete Strangers

Truth be told, I did not do anything new last week. I sort of failed at sustaining the rhythm of my  experimentation challenge. I was expecting a delivery of some items who will keep me busy test wise. But delivery did not come. I had planned to go try an activity on  Sunday, but I was too hungover to leave home. Life happens. 

But that's the good life, I can't complain. 

So instead of doing something new, well, I did it again. 

I put some of my money in the hands of complete strangers. 

Never seen them, never heard of them before, but we came across each other online. I gave my credit card information and my money was split and sent over towards different destinations: Cambodia, Kenya, Indonesia, Philippines...  They say they will pay me back. 

How do I know this ? Because there are teams of professionals on the ground who take care of this. Without beating these strangers up, that is.

Sounds crazy, right?

Well, it's not. It is called Kiva, and it is a crowdfinancing platform geared towards emerging countries. Kiva puts in relation lenders from all around the world to borrowers with lesser income around the world, in order to help the latter complete pragmatic, down-to-earth projects at a human scale that will move their lives forward. 

Instead of sitting on your account and being leveraged by the bank to gamble risky FX swaps trades on the global derivative markets, your hard earned money can help fund people with needs that are more pressing than yours. You can contribute to farming, education, sanitation, commerce, worldwide. Your 25 or 50$ loan, added to that of thousands of other lenders can make a lasting change in people's lives, and the beautiful Kiva platform allows just that. 

All you have to do is go to www.kiva.org and create an account. 

Select the people and the projects you want to lend your money too, and checkout. 

Soon enough, you will receive emails confirming that your loan is getting repaid, dollar by dollar, every week. 

Kiva is one of these digital initiatives that give you hope for the future, and faith in the power of humans to harness technology for the greater good.

Every now and then, I go to my Kiva dashboard and I realise that Chan, Eduardo, Anita - these people I have never met - have been repaying their loans enough for me to lend to someone else.

So I'll do it again: I'll put my money in the hands of complete strangers. 

Will you?

For the comprehensive list of my weekly tests so far this year, click here

52 Weeks 52 Tests - Week 13 - Crocodile Soup

Work is pretty busy these days and I have not had time to plan for a structured experimentation. Nevertheless, there is always a way to get out of the comfort zone, even close to home. Especially, when you live in South East Asia. 

I had already spotted several weird foods you can find in Singapore, but never sampled a "delicacy" I saw on a few seafood billboards around town: crocodile. 

Singapore was originally a very swampy island, and salted water crocs can be spotted from time to time in the wetlands... Crocodiles have always been residents of Singapore. Heck, there is even a Crocodile brand clothing company, not dissimilar to a famous french one... 

The local brand since then changed their logo to this

I guess they lost their trial...

Anyway, back to our topic: I had to try food with some crocontent.

With my equally adventurous friends Emma and Yohann, we headed to a Geylang seafood restaurant on Sunday evening to sample one of those dishes.

Plenty of choice, but lured by the ressuring "Like" thumb sign on the menu, we opted for the "paw" stew...

A Carlsberg pint later (for courage), the stew landed on our table, dressed like your usual claypot soup:

We spent some time trying to understand what was crocodile, and what was everything else (spring onions, onions, mushrooms, etc...)

This is Croc.

Check the grey claw in the spoon...

The following has French comments, but my reaction at : will give you an idea of my appreciation of the dish...

It was slimy, bony, with a weird taste. I'm not trying this again. Or maybe proper crocodile flesh, like a crocodile fillet or some'. Croco paws were already intermediate level.

Disclaimer:
The crocodile you can eat at the restaurant come from a farm and is not an endangered species. Yet the door lady told me that crocodile was good for lungs. I do not believe in these TCM claims on the virtues of rare or wild animals to cure such or such ailment. I picture too easily a dodgy, convincing Chinese merchant totally making a claim up hundreds of years ago just to get rid of his stock, and the claim then propagating through word-of-mouth until integrated in popular culture...

Some TCM beliefs do have a very negative impact on the biodiversity, and accelerate the extinction of entire species such as tigers, rhinos, pangolin, and sharks. 

In particular, I'm shocked that shark's fin soup is still not yet banned from Singapore restaurants. Shark fishing has devastating effects on the equilibrium of the marine ecosystem, and it could have dramatic effects for the humans as well. I invite you to look at the following 5 minutes documentary on the effects of shark finning, to never eat shark fin, not to give any money to restaurant offering shark fin on the menu and to spread the word. 

For them, and for our children, thanks in advance