Privacy is not enforced in the caisse they way it is in the USA. I have access to some records of customers. I was reviewing a 3-ring binder labeled 'women customers'. Gender is a very important descriptor in Mali. Many lists and categories are kept by gender. I thought that the numbers painted a very interesting picture of life in Markala. Here is a sampling of the financial information that I saw. All data here are for women. Currency in this table is in dollars. I have converted the records from fcfa (french cfa) which is the local currency. All numbers are to be used as they are presented, there is no multiplication by 1000.
I will leave to you to paint your own picture with these numbers. Allow me to point out a couple of observations.
> the first woman was born in Aug 1954, and requested a loan for $200. Her total assets in the world are $3,070
> the 2d woman ??does not know her birthday.
> the 4th woman from the bottom borrowed money to buy food
> the last woman borrowed $200, she has $0 savings, and $35 cash on hand. Her total assets are $1,534 of which half is represented by a refridgerator. (When I saw that, I shed a tear.)
** Please share the picture that you see by posting your observations on the website.**
birthday reason amount savings cash furniture appliances television moto home total
for loan of loan total total assets
8/54 business 200 50 40 180 1000 3070
? business 1000 176 50 0 400 360 400 3000 4206
?/40 ? 800 124 150 500 2075
12/68 business 2000 600 150 700 6000 13250
3/59 business 800 850 80 800 3310
?/57 business 600 204 60 800 2164
? food 400 20 100 150 750 (refridgerator) 250 1270
?/56 buy moto 400 80 90 160 500 (refridgerator) 1430
8/67 ? 600 40 100 13600 14770
12/68 business 200 0 35 600 (refridgerator) 1534