53%

Today, I was working on editing a report by someone in the education department.  On pretty much every report there is a background section telling about the poverty statistics in The Gambia.  One sentence that is always there is:

“53 percent of the population lives below the US$2 per day.”  (Okay, so sometimes the sentence is more or less grammatically correct but this is it copied from the current report and you get the idea.)

I decided to calculate how I compare to that.  Right now, Peace Corps pays me: 

my stipend

+ they pay me a city supplement because living in the city is way more expensive than anywhere else

+ WFP pays my rent.  

All of this money added up, divided out, and converted to dollars comes to roughly $13.50 per day.

That’s pretty impressive considering the $6 a day I used to get when I lived in village. 

Of my $13.50, $5 goes to rent, which leaves me $8.50/day to live off of.  I am RICH.