Many (most?) loans are now predispersed, and your Kiva loan backfills it... but they are still individual loans. The repayments come back to you according to that borrower's repayments, and sometimes the borrowers do fall behind or default on the loan, in which case you'll get a short explanation of what happened in their particular circumstance and why they defaulted.

So there is a direct connection between you & the borrower, and even more so on Kiva Zip where you can contact the borrower.