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.
