Inquisitors

My sixth reflection

Last week I interviewed a very inquisitive lender.

The dock in Siquijor

“How old are you?” She asked me after responding to one of my questions.  A few seconds later, “Do you like Dumaguete?”

The survey turned into a very strange contest of competing agendas.  After giving me a little morsel of information about her business she would require something in return.  “I have 50 clients,” she would say.  “Now, what hotel are you staying in?”

I didn’t really mind, because I’m short on friends here and not in a position to be picky about conversation.  She also inspired me to start being more inquisitive in general.  In an earlier post I wrote about trying to find a way to make the interviews more enjoyable for the lender; I’ve found that spicing up the survey with irrelevant but interesting sections seems to do the trick (in some cases).

My bungalow for a night

 

On Thursday, for example, I talked a lender in a small rural village up in the mountains; trying to pin him down on exact rates of default, I could tell that my interview was rapidly losing its charm.  We were seated on a pair of benches in front of his house.  Piled on a table nearby were a bunch of small packages wrapped in banana leaves, and instead of moving on to the next interview section (business cycles, always a favorite) I asked him about what was inside the tubes.  Cassava!, he exclaimed, and gave me some to snack on as he explained how it was produced.  When we returned to the survey he seemed somewhat reinvigorated and eager to answer.  It was a win-win for everyone: the lender got to talk about something he cared about, my translator got a break from the difficult economic terminology of my survey, and I learned that Philippine cassava snacks are very bland and should be avoided.