Afterthoughts

A full weekend has just passed after the $2 a day project. Friday I was hosting a prospective student from NYU. She spent the night Thursday, and I told her about the project because I figured it was only fair that she knew I didn't normally smell or look like this. I think she understood, hopefully. But I remember feeling ashamed. I was ashamed on Thursday when I went to meet her because I hadn't showered, I didn't have any make-up on, and I felt gross. I was ashamed Friday morning when we got dressed as I took note of all her fancy New York clothes and accessories, taking 30 minutes to get ready whereas I rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth and threw on my shoes. I felt ashamed of seeming poor. I kept fighting back the urge to constantly state every 2 seconds "I don't normally look like this, you know," ..."you know, I don't normally..." Why? When she left I felt ashamed for feeling shame. I did. I rebuked myself for attempting to apologize for simplicity.
On Friday night I went home and took about an hour long bath, ate wonderful home-cooked food, and then came back to school and poured myself one, or two or erh, several glasses of wine. The rest of the weekend flew by as usual, with one exception. Whether I dressed myself to go out or dressed down to stay in, there would be moments throughout the weekend where I'd stop and think "this one purchase just squandered two months livelihood of 2.8 billion people," or thoughts similar to that.

We were extremely lucky with our timing for this whole endeavor. Saturday morning many of us woke to the unnatural surprise of an inch of snow on the ground. It snowed saturday, in April!? Also on saturday I had my period. Timing was on our side in this project, absolutely. As I walked around town saturday I kept thinking about those who had to wake up on saturday to cold, hunger, poverty, and snow. I also thought about how many of the 2.8 people are women, about how many of them live on the burden of $2 a day accompanied by the burden I'm feeling right now. Wherever I went and whatever I did this weekend there persisted subconscious feeling of gratitude and perspective.

I went back to the Dollar General saturday to buy an easter basket for my Little in Big Brothers Big Sisters, and I smiled. I smiled because the Dollar General is inexorably linked to my hardships this past week. When I went into Wal-mart today I also smiled, for the very same reason. Normally I just roll my eyes and annoyingly brush past the crowd of mumbling immigrants, but not any more. I hadn't had anything but an apple and a coffee all day (out of stupidity, not poverty) and so when I passed these HUGE bags of animal crackers I gasped silently to myself and thought "I want those." So I grabbe the kiddy pack and heady to the register. But as I stood in line I realized that I never checked their price. Normally I would have just gaffed it off and buy it, but when it was my turn the first thing I did was ask the cashier how much the box of animal crackers was. "96 cents," she said. Deal. As I walked back to my car with several animal crackers in my mouth, I thought "wow, these are almost half of what 2.8 billion people live on in one day.....I closed the crackers, threw them into my car and drove back to school.

Liberation

It is 4:20, Friday, April 6th 2007 and I have just finished the challenge of living on $2 a day. I feel as if a great weight has been lifted, and to be honest I don't really know what it is. Besides the obvious excitement of bathing like a normal person, I think the overwhelming burden is a matter of attitude; while living on $2 a day I had to severely monitor my lifestyle and to take strong measures not to act wastefully. As soon as 4:00 came around, it was as if this smothering blanket of scarcity or cautiousness was just torn off of me. But to be honest once more, I fear of my behavior this weekend. I don't want to go on a binge or anything like that because that would just make a mockery of my life this week and the lives of 2.8 billion people for whom this isn't just some project. I hope with the greatest fervor that this experience will innately change me for the better, and that it will make me spend more wisely, appreciate more profoundly, and live more conservatively.

Empty Stomach, Full Heart

It's day three of the challenge, and I can see the light. I think we've been really fortunate with this project, or at least I have been, especially since I'm a college student. There are random yet constant opportunities that arise for free food that has really saved me from the monotony of my fridge. This morning as I was walking back from class I passed the shanty town when I saw Isaac with a bag of food. Growling from hunger, Isaac gave me a cinnamon raison bagel!!!!!! It was delicious. =-). Then later today at 6pm there was a matzos balls & soup event for passover in my dorm; the sign said "just bring a bowl," and so I did. During the matzos & soup feast someone told me that there was FREE ice cream in the wash room.....and so I went down to the nest and had a bowl of ice cream as well. I met Katie there, another girl living on $2 a day, and we both commented on how rich the ice cream seemed, almost to the point of nausea actually. And not to mention I felt lame eating ice cream while I was supposed to be similating the life of a poor person. I don't know why. I just feel like as a college student I'm exposed to an enormous amount of generosity in comparison with the reality of life on the streets, and whenever I take advantage of these freebies I'm somehow cutting corners.

The overarching point of this project isn't to teach us how to cut corners, or even really to teach us what it's like to be poor. For me, this project is all about reintroducing ourselves to the basics of our humanity. It's about the nuanced simplicities central to existence that have been crowded out by our lavish lifestyles. What I'm fumbling to say is that in the present day, average americans spend so much of their time searching for food to fill their stomach or webpages to fill their time. When on the contrary I've learned that the relationships we make with others every day have filled me moer than any bowl of rice and beans.

Back to Basics

It's the night of the second day, and I think I'll get through this. I keep telling myself it's not so bad, that I only have three more days, 68 more hours. I'm trying to find creative ways to eat my food, so today I put my left over rice and beans from last night's dinner and put it on a tortilla, it was taco bell delicious, sort of. Close enough anyway. And this two outfits thing isn't so bad, I was pretty creative with layers anyway. But the hardest part was watching my deteriorating state of cleanliness throughout the day. For my 9:30 class my hair was fine, manageable really. but then at about 3:30 it was an ungodly sight. I actually looked like I was living on $2 a day, or so I imagined. All I wanted yesterday was to have some ice cream, and the only thing I could think about today was bathing in the sink, getting clean! But somehow things kept coming up, people kept stoping by, and I never got around to bathing until nightfall. In fact my hair is still wet from my dunk in the sink.
The experience of bathing in a sink was a lot of fun actually, and quite entertaining. It kind of reminded me of when I was a little girl in the summer time. When I was young I would always play games outside with the other kids from my street, like flashlight tag or bloody murder. We'd stay outside for hours hiding, seeking, and thrilling ourselves senseless. And whenever my parents would call us in for bed I remember how discusting I would feel. My knees would be all scraped with grass stains, I would feel sticky and sweaty. I'd go upstares and tell my mom I can't go to bed because I was all "icky and gross." She'd just tell me to suck it up or sponge bathe. And so tonight as I feebly attempted to get every inch of my head covered in water and shampoo, the warm night air coming through the door took me right back to my summers as a kid.
I really do think I can get through this. Living on $2 a day might sound horrifying to most people, but it can be rewarding beyond measure. Now I watch girls as they walk down campus walk and I notice all of the little accesories they have on, like a ring or earings, makeup, etc. and I think of all of the rivolous and silly things for which we waste our money. I haven't used makeup since the challenge started, and to tell you the truth, my skin feels and looks great. Living on $2 a day just simplifies things, brings things back to basics.
Basically, I think I'm down with that.

Shanty-gans of a beggar's life

The first day went by rather easily, until the first night came around. I was relatively excited about my dinner for that evening. So excited in fact, that the whole time I was having "girl talk" with my friend the only thing I could think about was how wonderful my rice and beans would be! It was 7:30 when I decided to make my dinner. That night I cooked dinner for myself for the first time in, well, ever here at school. (Note to self: start cooking earlier.) I made one cup of white rice, and heated up a little bit of baked beans and grabbed one tortilla, which is the poor man's french baguette. I was really looking forward to this meal! Since I was using the communal kitchen, a bunch of people kept coming and going. This one girl in particular came out to shove a bag of popcorn in the microwave as I was just in the middle of boiling my rice. She came back out to throw away the popcorn she had already made and consumed, and there I was still waiting on my beans to heat up. The first few bites were delicious, probably only because I had hyped it up so much in my mind. But then the final few bites were torture, the taste was so monotous that I couldn't eat anymore. And so I had the rest of the tortilla and shamefully threw away the remaining spoonfulls of my rice and beans.
Then I headed over to the library to use the electricity for the next two hours to so some homework. I had received an e-mail from Dr. Humphrey that the "Shanty town" was a go. After my work I decided to check it out, to see who was in the shanty town. When I got to ball circle I saw a good 10 people from my class including our professor sitting on the benches in front of lee, with several sleeping bags laid out on the grass behind them. At about 12:15 that night we each crawled into our respective beds and prepared for the next 8 hours. It was like a big sleepover woodstock style!!!....erh, or maybe not. Normally most people are accustomed to falling asleep to the music on their ipod, or the slushing of the fountain by Monroe. Those of us in the shanty town last night were lullabied to sleep by the sirens of ambulances, drunken college students hollering slurred obscurities, and the shrills of a madman. I'm serious. There's this man, he walks around the perimeter of campus along sunken, and just walks the length of the campus shrieking in agony at intervals. Just a bit unsettling, I'll say. Needless to say in between the madman and the drop in temperature, I gave up the shanty idea and called it a night at 2:14 am. I skuttled out of my sleeping bag and left my cluster of classmates and headed back to my dorm.
The first thing my professor does when he walks into class this morning is stumble into the chalk board, slip his stuff onto the table, and head in search for some coffee beans...
....Twas a great sleep last night for me though.

Extraordinary Beginnings (Day 1)

This day been unusual even from its very beginning. I didn't go to classes today, and so I had the self-induced luxury of sleeping in until 10 am. I woke with this unquenchable thirst, though! Normally I would just brush off the sheets and roll over to my sink where I'd sloppily sip some water from my hands. But no. The sensation I felt as I touched my parched lips was immediately followed by the unpleasant reminder that any water I consume over the next 5 days must be boiled first. WHAT? I just woke up, all I want is a drizzle of water; I don't want to excert the effort to boil it for 10 minutes and THEN have the satisfaction of drinking it. Satisfaction would be seriously diminished if I had to go through all that just for a cup of water first thing in the morning! And so I decided to forego my first sip of water for the day.
I plopped down at my computer desk and started to do my test (we get out of taking showers but not of doing work.) Hmm....breakfast.....All I wanted was a coffee and cornetto from the Nest. The next best thing was my can of pineapple...lukewarm because I didn't put it in the fridge from last night's shopping. Alright, whatever. I can deal. Then as I searched for words to fill in the screen, I deterred and began to rummage for food to fill my stomach. Half of a tortilla. In between stalling to write my paper I decided to brush my teeth. So I opened my handy travel-sized toothbrush and toothpaste. Finally at about noon I gave in...I opened my first pack of Ramen. Beef flavored. I boiled my water and then, voila, I had my noodles. After I consumed the whole bowl I was reminded of how much I HATE ramen noodles. I had to open my travel sized toothpaste once more to erase the aweful aftertaste! Anyone want to make a trade of one cup of Coffee for 5 Ramen packages?! (beef flavored...come on...) Wait, scratch the coffee and make it an Ice cream cone!
It's 85 today, so if I'm outside I'm not too hungry. To go outside I wore my tride and true black gouche pants, three layers of tanktops and flipflops. No sunglasses though. I went to sit on a nearby bench by the fountain and squinted my way through the reading of Dante's Paradiso. I didn't get very far in between the squinting and everyone walking by with cups of ice cream!! AH. I'd give anything for one of those right now. I can do without the typical lunch, Oh but how I want an ice cream right now. Instead I'm eating more of my pineapple with chopsticks. But I should probably put it away now, it's already half empty and it's only day one.....
of five days.....

$2 a Day Begins

For Dr. Shawn Humphrey's Economic Development Class (Econ 384) I and 21 other students am going to be living on $2 a day for one week starting six hours from this post. Why, you might ask? -- Indeed. Why would an average American want to live on the equivalent of ONLY one small, or is it venti, Starbucks coffee per day for five days straight? The answer is that 2.8 billion people do just that every day. Out of the 6 billion people in the world, roughly a third of them live on less than $2 a day, 1.3 billion (or all of China) live on less than $1 a day. And so I wanted to see what it was like to live not as an average American, but rather like an average citizen of the rest of the world.

Today was the first great challenge of American Capitalism. I had to venture out into the mayhem of Central Park, and more specifically that of Wal-Mart to see just how far $10 would take me. The items that I was able to purchase with my money include:
A six pack of Ramen = .25 cents
Bush Baked Beans = .88 cents
One can of Pineapple = .87 cents
One bag of Tortilla = $1.22
One bag of Rice = .88 cents
(The remaining items courtesy of the Dollar General Store near Giant.)
Shampoo = .75 cents
Conditioner = .75 cents
Travel sized packet of toothbrush and toothpaste = $1
Miniature Deodorant = $1
Face bar = $1
TOTAL = $9.23

.....Now, how about that Venti frappuccino...any generous donations from the crowd?