Warm Welcome

Yesterday I showed up unannounced at a woman’s house with a translator and asked if I could interview her about her unregistered moneylending business.  I thought this seemed a bit optimistic.

  

the road there

My translator assured me that it would be fine; he knew the woman, he said, and she would be glad to talk to me.  Sure enough, within minutes I was reclining on a Chinese-style wooden sofa and sipping ice water as we talked about the number of clients she had and what sort of interest rates she charged.  After completing the interview we retired to the living room, where we watched Ice Age and ate some homemade bananas crème, a dessert of cooked bananas drenched in a toffee sauce.  The visit ended with the lender’s husband driving us back to the bus stop.  I don’t want to extrapolate too quickly, but based on this and other visits it seems that Filipinos are very hospitable.  Or maybe they just really love talking to Americans about moneylending.  Either way, I intend to include questions about desserts in future interviews.