Could You Live on $2 a Day?

I miss having coffee with my friends back in Oregon, but it might be hard to go back to spending $3 or $4 on a latte again. That’s because this trip is really bringing home to me the poverty that informs the lives of so many other people in the world. As unemployed as I am, and as uncertain as I am about my future, I can see that my life will always be more privileged than most lives on this planet, and that is a very humbling thought.

When we get home, I’m thinking of decorating one wall in the kitchen with the World Population Data Sheet. It’s fascinating reading, a pile of statistics on each country in the world -- fertility rate, gross national product, AIDS/HIV rate, infant mortality, etc. One of the statistics that keeps calling out to me is the number of people in the world who live on less than $2 a day. It’s a pretty shocking number: 48 percent. Of the countries we are visiting, India at 76% and Cambodia at 68% are definitely in worst shape. In Africa, we will visit South Africa, at 43%, and Ghana, at 54%. But for the African continent as a whole, the sad statistic is 65% of people living on less than $2 a day, and in several African countries the numbers run upwards of 90%. In Liberia, 95% of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Can you imagine it?

Today we can see Africa for the first time from the ship. We are hugging the South African coast as we round the tip headed for Cape Town, because the seas farther out are rough and roiling. I’m not sure why all these statistics keep floating in my head. Maybe it’s because I‘m about to see more statistics turn into real, live human beings. And I’m wondering: What does it mean? What can I do about it?

The students on the ship are working in groups to create projects on sustainability for their Global Studies class. One group is having its members take turns trying to survive on $2 a day as we visit each country, and another student is shooting video. We have some concerns about safety--$2 a day isn’t even enough to buy bottled water, and it doesn’t seem safe to sleep on the streets, which is about all you can afford on $2. But I’ll be really interested in seeing their presentation and hearing what they learn. I’ll keep you posted.