Love Avenue Q?  Appreciate Jewish humor?
Watch what happens when the cast of Avenue Q mashes up with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof!

P.S.—I’d like to hat-tip a fellow blogger, but I can’t remember exactly where I first saw this (I just re-found it via a YouTube search).  Much apologies.  Next time, I’ll be more careful about blogtribution.

I’m usually a firm believer that charity—like praying—is best a private affair.  In particular, I have an especially high admiration for generous folks who give anonymously.

With that said, however, I’m going to share with you a business that I just helped fund… and I hope you will join in!

UPDATE: I’m thrilled to note that within 24 hours after I posted the original business profile here, that business was fully funded!  See the comments on this entry for more details.  The profile now shown below is selected randomly (on each page view) by Kiva.

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After evaluating many possible businesses / business people to invest in, I decided to support Ms. Wamaitha in Kenya in her drive to expand her current library and continue her support work fighting HIV/AIDS.  You can learn more about her and her efforts by clicking the photo above, and in the meantime, here’s a relevant snippet:

She is requesting a loan of US $ 2,000. Her budget is: US $ 1,000 to purchase assorted education books, journals and magazines, US $500 to purchase furniture for the reading space, US $ 300 to decorate the library and build shelves and US $ 200 advertise and acquire necessary license. This will increase her income to an average of US $ 100 per week. She plans to utilize the income to keep her children in school and to expand her business further. Jane is hard working and will be able to repay the loan.

You can make a loan for as little as $25… and in about 2 minutes via credit card (it’s done through PayPal, but you don’t need an account with them, just a credit card).  It’s also interesting to note that 100% of loans made through Kiva so far have been repaid in full!

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Unlike with my most recent post, I’m not going to tag anyone.  But I think it’d be a marvelous meme—SEO-blog or otherwise—having this opportunity propagated throughout the blogosphere.  So feel free to reverse-tag me and support Ms. Wamaitha or another worthy businessperson from Kiva, post about your contribution on your blog, and encourage others to do the same.  Let’s see if we can meet her modest business loan need by the end of this year, and—even better—see how many other businesses we can support .

Lastly, props to my friend Huy (yes, the awesome Huy of Orkut fame ) for letting me know about this wonderful site.

I don’t usually participate in bloggy memes, but two folks I like and respect (Aaron Shear and Aaron Pratt) have invited me to take part in a viral “Tell five things about yourself that few people likely know about” thingy.  So I will

1) I’m more introverted than folks suspect.
Though most folks see me as oft-smiling and reasonably social, I actually quite dislike large crowds, and am especially unfond of very large, loud parties.  I’ve gotten better at meeting people and making conversation, but I still much prefer small social gatherings (birthday parties, movie nights with 5-20 people I am comfortable with, long dinners with a handful of friends, and so on).  I also quite value my alone time… to read, think, rest, etc.