This teacher gets to school by - guess what?

You will never complain about commuting to school again.

Now on the morning train, I smile just thinking of Juvencia's story.

Last December I started volunteering as a Spanish to English translator for Kiva.org, a micro-finance non-profit based in California. This animation explains how Kiva works.

Last weekend I translated this loan for Juvencia and was surprised to read her reason for requesting a loan to purchase a motorcycle.

First of all, Juvencia and I have something in common. She has been a teacher all her life. Now her commute to school is where our life stories start to differ drastically.

[screenshot from Kiva.org]

It turns out that to do her job as the head of a school district in El Sauce, Nicaragua, Juvencia has been riding to all of the schools in her district by horse, and at her age, she's a little tired of it. So she would like take out a small loan so that she can zip around her schools on a motorbike.

I was astounded, especially while translating it didn't occur to me that the second half of the sentence would include any horseback commuting.

So this Christmas I will be thankful that I take a speedy, warm, clean train to school.

In fact if you need any gift ideas for Christmas, a Kiva gift card is a great option.

As of publishing this post, Juvencia's loan is still funding so please consider helping her out.