Luxembourg Continued

We loved Clervaux. The small, town nestled among the mountains of the Ardennes, towered by its medieval castle and abbey, was exceptionally charming. But, the sun had also begun to set, and we knew it was wisest to move on to Vianden, the last stop in the Ardennes region, where we planned to stay for the night.

Driving was rather easy and particularly pleasant in Luxembourg. The driver seat is situated on the left side of the vehicle, which is driven on the “right” side of traffic (pun intended), as is done in the States. The tree-lined lanes are long and windy, and the trees’ leaves provided a refreshing shade as we glided through quaint towns and grassy landscapes, peppered with cows, castle towers, and church spires. On occasion, we would drive by schools of cyclists in proper gear, spandex and all, causing us to wonder whether the Tour de France possibly routed through Lux.

Bridge over the Our River in Vianden

We knew we were close to Vianden when we rounded the bend and were awestruck by the view of the most fairytale-like castle we had seen yet- the 9th century Chateaux de Vianden.
Vianden straddles the Our River and looks across to Germany’s forested Eifel region. In 1871, exiled French writer and Vianden resident Victor Hugo described the village as a “jewel set amid splendid scenery.” We would have to agree with him. The entrance to the town is a small pebble lane that descends right into the heart of the town. The narrow lanes lined with the most charming homes, butcher and sweet shops, churches and cafes are pleasantly disrupted by the Our River that flows right through the town. Victor Hugo lived adjacent to one of the most charming bridges here. Living in exile suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

Chateaux de Vianden

Cobblestone lanes of Vianden

Victor Hugo's home in exile near the Our River

Another look at the Chateaux de Vianden

After waking up to the ringing bells of the church located right outside of our room window, we wondered through a narrow set of stone stairs squeezed in between two row houses. After roughly a 30 minute walk up, we came across one of the most stunning views of the entire town. After a few more minutes, we reached the base of the Chateaux. This is one of the few, completely refurbished castles of Lux, and it was surreal to walk through this stunning morsel of history as our imaginations ran wild.

Monastery of the Trinitarian order courtyard

Blossoms

Divinity in the Trinitarian church

Glass windows in the Trinitarian church

View of the chateaux from the Our River

The Chateaux up close and personal

View from the Chateaux

Fairytale Vianden

Another view of the fairytale

Chateaux by Night

REGION: PETITE SUISSE
The following morning, we took a slight detour on our way to Echternach in Petite Suisse and visited another stunning castle in Beaufort, at the recommendation of our hostess in Vianden. Locals were celebrating a medieval fair, reliving the period in full flare—attire and even food preparation over an open fire!

Castle at Beaufort

Another view of Beaufort

Our last stop before reaching Lux City was Echternach. From the itinerary: “This enchanting little town is a living open-air museum, from its patrician houses and picturesque market square to its medieval walls and towers. Echternach has been the repository of the ages since the missionary St. Willibrord arrived from England in 658 and established the abbey that made this one of the area’s earliest centers of Christianity.”

St Willibrord Rooman Basilica

The Saint Himself

After Petite Suisse, we came back full circle to Luxembourg City for our last day in the country. The city is yet another one of those charming little European cities full of beautiful old architecture, a pedestrian friendly environment, and café culture. With the aid of a walking map, we were able to leisurely cover the main attractions of the city, including the oldest and most picturesque areas of Clausen, Grund, and Pfaffenthal. After enjoying an Italian dinner at the Place d’Armes, where our hotel was strategically located, our mini holiday concluded beautifully at an unanticipated outdoor concert where we enjoyed a live performance by Ben Harper. It was a road trip to remember.

View of Lux from the Adolphe Bridge

Quirinus Chapel

Palace of the Grand Dukes

A Friendly Face?

Grand Duchess Charlotte in Clairefontaine Square

C.C.R.N. Abbaye de Neumunster

MicroInsurance in Paris and Luxembourg Castles

Transitioning back to life in the United States, to Washington, D.C., and to a headquarters-based development job with a new organization amongst many other things has been challenging to put it as mildly as possible. I suppose I might be lost in transition, but I’ll elaborate on this another time. My sole survival tool (or maybe it’s a coping mechanism), aside from my dear family and friends, originates from my healthy (at least, I think so) addiction to traveling the world. My new job continues to feed this wonderful passion for the 3 E’s- exploration, education, and exposure. Every other month, and sometimes even more frequent, I’m required to engage in field visits for projects all over the world. These days, I’ve been traveling primarily to India, but for a change of pace in July, my work took me to Europe. And, it really was a pleasant change of pace.

The journey started in Paris, where I attended a conference on micro-insurance (MI). MI is the latest craze in the broader industry of microfinance. Practitioners claim that the poor are in as much need, if not greater than those in the “developed” world, for insurance services that extend beyond credit life. My team at GF, Solutions for the Poorest, is exploring the value of MI as a risk management tool to protect the poorest from their greatest vulnerabilities, namely, in agriculture as a primary income source and health as their primary asset to engage in such labor-intensive activities. While there are clear benefits to MI products and services, ascertaining their true value, particularly from the perspective of the very poor, poses a real challenge. The exposure to the innovations occurring within this space and the passion with which these are being pursued by such talented individuals from both the private and public sector was inspiring.

Of course, all of this happening right in the heart of Paris made it evermore exhilarating. I love this city for the beautiful people, breathtaking architecture, the French language, thought-provoking culture and art, rue la la shopping, and the laissez faire café lifestyle. The cherry on top was the rendezvous with my younger sister as we enjoyed all that this city had to offer before beginning our road trip through Luxembourg.

Plaza Republique, Paris

Liberty in Plaza Republique, Paris

Paris

Off into the distance

Pensive

At the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at Le Petit Palais

Classic metro sign in Paris

A Walk in the Clouds

La Notre Dame

"Foot soldiers" of La Notre Dame

Spires and gargoyles of Notre Dame

Paris, je t'aime

Lux turned out to be an unexpected, delectable treat that left us wanting for more by the end. This 999 square mile country with a population of just over half a million offers a tasty variety to the visitor from the wine country of Moselle Valley and the red earth mines in the Land of the Red Rocks to the castles and churches of the middle ages in the Ardennes and more castles and ancient Roman camps situated in Petite Suisse or Little Switzerland. With our rented cute, yet very powerful Audi hatchback, we covered nearly 2/3 of the country during our 2 day road trip.

We followed a loop itinerary that was planned out well in advance by my sister. We began our journey from the capital city and traveled north to the Luxembourg Ardennes, cutting mid east to Petite Suisse, before heading back down to conclude our visit in Luxembourg city. Presenting the itinerary for day 1:

The Valley of the Seven Castles (10 miles total)

Steinfort (Stengefort), 16 km northwest of Luxembourg City on N4 is entry point to the valley. Thereafter, follow the route northeast to Koerich (Käerch), and its ruined medieval castle. As we follow the course of the river (which is really no more than a stream), next up is Septfontaines (Simmer), a high-sited village dominated by its ruined 13th-century castle. Below the castle are the seven springs that give the village its name.

Church at Steinfort

Septfontaines

From here, the valley road turns east to Ansembourg (Aansebuerg), which has two castles, a 12th century one with later modifications high on a hill, and a 17th-century one in the valley. A little way north is Hollenfels (Huelmes), with an 18th-century castle constructed around a 13th-century keep dramatically situated on a cliff top (it’s now a youth hostel). From there you go north-east on a minor road to the castle at Schoenfels (Schendels).

Go north now, to Mersch (Miersch), the geographical center of the Grand Duchy. In addition to the early feudal Pettingen Castle, we find here the remains of a Roman villa that exhibits mosaics, sculpture, and wall paintings.

Schoenfels Castle

Castle at Ansembourg

Luxembourg Ardennes

DIEKIRCH (DIKRECH):
Standing mostly on the north bank of the Sure River, Diekirch was a Celtic stronghold in the days before the Roman legions arrived. Here we visit the Eglise St-Laurent, a church dating back to the 6th and 8th centures, Musee Minicipal on place Guillame II for old Roman mosaics, and then into the hills to a prehistoric Celtic dolmen (stone tomb), dubbed the Deiwelselter (Devil’s Altar).

WILTZ (WOLTZ):
Wiltz is split right down the middle, with a difference in height of 150 m (500 ft) between Oberwiltz (uptown) and Niederwiltz (downtown). This popular vacation town, which lies in a beautiful and heavily wooded setting and is a great place for hiking and other outdoor activities, witnessed fierce fighting in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge.

Here, we see the 12th century chateau, modernized in the 1600s, and the Romanesque and Renaissance Eglise Niederwiltz.

Town of Wiltz

CLERVAUX (KLIERF):
The handsome old village occupies an incredibly scenic location in a steep valley of the Clerve River. It is the main tourist center in Luxembourg’s northern reaches (one of our favorites!). In their 12th century castle, we relished in the Edward Steichen photo exhibit “Family of Man.”

Clervaux Castle

Abbey at Clervaux

The one day felt like ages, and in a very good way, as we raced through Luxembourg’s countryside and centuries of history. We could only imagine what awaited us on day 2.

Enlightening Exposures in Gaya, Bihar

My professional and leisure travels this past year have inadvertently taken me through three of Buddhism’s four most significant sites from Lumbini, Nepal, where Siddhartha Gautama was born and became witness to the three tragedies of mortal life, to Sarnath, where Buddha gave his first sermon after enlightenment. During my trip to Bihar earlier this month, I was taken to Bodh Gaya, where Buddha ostensibly gained enlightenment under the neem tree that continues to draw pilgrims and devotees aspiring for the same. Interestingly, it was the high poverty levels characterizing the areas surrounding these holy sites that ultimately incited my visits, and admittedly, I can’t help wondering what the correlation is between the two, if any.

After spending a night in Patna, Bihar’s capital, we traveled to the district of Gaya to conduct field visits as part of the area identification process for the pilot program discussed in the last entry. We engaged in discussions primarily with the women of some of the poorest villages in Gaya, where mainstream microfinance has very little or no reach. Government schemes targeting these individuals are often politicized and tend to benefit those with links to the local elite, including acquiring Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards which qualify individuals for such assistance. Our meetings were conducted in vacant school houses or under a community tree in the sweltering and harsh +120˚ heat of India in villages deprived of running water, electricity, and basic infrastructure.

Female members of an 'extreme poor' village in Gaya

Children observing the village meeting on poverty

As the women relayed what they considered to be the biggest challenges for generating more reliable incomes, I noticed the young girls just outside the classroom rolling the mounds of scented black clay-like substance into agarbatti or incense sticks. I learned that Bihar is one of India’s largest producers of the product, and middlemen from the supply chain provide rural women enough of the raw materials for roughly 10,000 sticks to be handed over in exchange for only wage labor at the end of each week. They, then, sell the near finished or packaged product at a much higher price than the input cost and reap a handsome profit. Income generation through exactly such means keeps these women and their households in extreme poverty because they don’t benefit from the profits of at least reselling the value-added near finished product back to the middleman or directly in the market. Rather, they are exploited for their labor and paid atrociously low wages. Some women have taken loans to purchase the raw materials themselves and take better control of their income generating potential, but how many women can profitably become agarbatti producers without saturating the market? Our answer is diversifying income streams.

Female SHG members gather in Bela block of Gaya district, Bihar

Children playing among the agarbatti production

SHG members share their challenges with us

After several days of such intense exposures, the visit to Bodh Gaya served as a convenient reprieve. The tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment still stands behind a newly constructed temple to commemorate the auspicious site. Pilgrims and tourists from all over the world, but predominantly from East and South Asia, were numerous. I was reminded that even with a thriving albeit relatively small tourism industry that clearly attracted high revenues in the form of donations, charity, and fees, without a commitment from the state government and private sector, that wealth would never be seen by most Biharis.

Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya

Mini stupas surrounding the temple grounds

At the rear of the temple under the tree where it all happened

Front of the Mahabodhi Temple




Buddhist statues in the naves of the temple

Bihar, surprisingly, has a wealth of historically and religiously significant sites, including Nalanda, the ancient Buddhist center of higher learning from 427 to 1197 CE. Its library was one of the eastern world’s greatest treasures and attracted scholars from China, Greece, and Persia. Ostensibly, the library’s collection was so immense that it burned for three months after it was set on fire at its downfall.

Sariputta Stupa at Nalanda University


Back of the Sariputta Stupa


Another view of the temples srrounding the stupa

As we prepare the launch of our pilot program, I’m gearing up for another set of field visits in this once forlorn part of India. Stay tuned for updates.

From Bottom Billion to Next Billion

Prior to joining GF, while conducting an impact assessment for a savings and credit cooperative in Nepal, I saw how poverty cannot be addressed solely by financial means. Particularly for those living in extreme poverty, the solution cannot be limited to providing access to microfinance’s traditional product: an enterprise loan. During the fifty interviews I conducted for the assessment, nearly all the clients claimed that had they undergone appropriate skills development or received training on value addition for the goods and services they were selling, their microenterprises could have generated the additional income required for them to sustainably progress out of poverty. The Solutions for the Poorest team at GF is joining a small but growing group of microfinance practitioners that recognize this and are looking at how microfinance can incorporate new ways of doing business that better meet the needs of the very poor. One approach we are testing couples livelihoods support with microfinance in a financially sustainable manner, contributing to what has been termed the “double bottom line.”

Solutions for the Poorest has partnered with BASIX/The Livelihood School India, a pioneering livelihood promotion institute, in this pilot project. On April 13-14, 2010, we kicked off the partnership with a Consultative Workshop on Solutions for the Poorest at the Chandra Gupta Institute of Management in Patna, Bihar. We began working together to design an integrated and sustainable methodology to provide financial and non-financial services to the extreme poor that BASIX would not typically serve through its mainstream microfinance activities. Microfinance practitioners and academics such as Bandhan’s CEO, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, and Dr. Manesh Choubey from the Center for Microfinance Research shared key learnings from their own experiences in working with the poorest, resulting in a successful exchange of ideas that will help effectively shape our own program.

To broaden our understanding of existing pro-poor microfinance initiatives, my colleague, Malini, and I also travelled to Calcutta to visit Bandhan’s Targeting the Hard Core Poor (THP) program. THP targets female headed households with no or very erratic income opportunities and provides them with the skills and assets required to jumpstart a microenterprise. This support, supplemented with confidence-building measures, cultivates a seemingly limitless entrepreneurial spirit.

One such inspiring example was Shahida Bibi, who with her seven children and disabled husband, survived on a weekly income of $2 Shahida earned as a housemaid. Without any productive skills and regular income, Shahida was not considered creditworthy by other MFIs. THP provided her with four goats eighteen months ago to help generate a more consistent income stream that has allowed Shahida to provide for her family while also nurturing the habit of savings. Since then, she sold one goat for $43, then diversified her income stream by buying chickens and selling eggs, and later by selling coconuts and vegetables to her neighbors. Shahida is a client many microfinance institutions would have overlooked previously, but has now grown into a real business woman, generating a weekly income of $43, and already planning for additional ventures.

Having the opportunity to practically address the issue of global poverty in a holistic way has made the past month’s immersions in Solutions for the Poorest initiatives an intellectually stimulating and inspiring experience. I look forward to continuing our work to propel the bottom billion into the next billion.

SHG members gather in Maner, Bihar

Bandhan THP client with produce from her own farm

Bengali script on wall advertisement

Children of Bandhan THP clients in West Bengal

SHG members in Maner, Bihar

Edited version published on Grameen Foundation's Creating a World Without Poverty.