Salvation Amy

While goofing around the internet, and looking at a bizarro picture of a praying mantis, I found this site called Stumbleupon.  If you haven’t been there, you should.  It’s very very cool.  You install a toolbar in your browser, tell it your interests, and then hit a little button, and it takes you to random sites.  You tell it if you like the sites, or if you don’t, and apparently it gets better and better at finding fun sites for you to surf.

While playing with Stumbleupon, I found kiva.  Kiva is a non-profit, that matches entrepreneurs in third world locations to individuals willing to loan them money.  For example, you could loan Esther Usiosefe some or all of the additional $75 she needs toward her needed loan of $1,200 to buy inventory for her provision and foodstuff store in Benin City, Nigeria.  She pays it back over 8 months.  When the loan is repaid, you can either put it into a new loan, or get it back.  I think it’s a fascinating idea, and judging by the loans that have been made, I didn’t discover it, but I’m glad I know about it.