This is Joshua Mwangi, a Kenyan farmer, who needs $1,200 to buy a dairy cow.

I just "loaned" $50 Joshua Mwangi to buy that cow. Actually, I shouldn't've put quotes around "loaned" because it implies that it's not a real loan, but it is, in fact, a loan from me to Joshua Mwangi, via a non-profit organization called Kiva.org. I also probably shouldn't've used a double-contracted word like "shouldn't've." But I have no regrets about loaning the money to Joshua Mwangi because I know $50 means a lot more to him than it does to me. Besides, half of the money was initially a gift to me from Greg, who gave me a $25 gift-certificate to Kiva.org for Valentine's Day (or maybe for my birthday) and I simply decided to match his gift.

I know it's silly, but ultimately the reason I decided to loan the money to Joshua Mwangi instead of the other entrepreneurs in need is because I spotted a fellow "Joshua M." among the list.

I sincerely hope Joshua Mwangi will be able to repay my tiny portion of his loan from Kiva.org because it means that he and his farm are successfully self-sustaining and because I'll be able to re-loan the money to other entrepreneurs.

I've added a banner to my "affiliates" section at the bottom of the left menu sidebar to track the total funds of Mwangi's loan, which is currently at 52%. (If you can't see the banner, then it means you're probably a Firefox user like me and you've got Adblock and/or NoScript extensions enabled so I recommend adding Kiva.org to your exclusions white-list).

Oh ya, and here's a Frontline/World story about Kiva.org:
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/