What does 2 dollars a day look like?

In Nicaragua half of the population lives under the World Banks measure of poverty: 2 dollars of income a day. One of the many activities during the delegations hosted by Witness for Peace (WFP) is students are put in groups of four to simulate a family then given 80 Cordobas (4 dollars), 40 from each working parent. The groups then are given an hour to navigate through a Nicaraguan Market and purchase enough food for their family to eat.

Today I attempted to complete this activity. I hired my Nicaraguan brother, Jorge, to drive me and help me navigate through the Mercado Oriental - the largest market in all of Central America.

Now in Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina I went to the public markets alone, or with other tourist friends, but in Nicaragua, at this time of year it was necessary to be accompanied by a Nicaraguan friend. The Market Oriental is where the poor go shopping and is by no means a place tourists go. The safer market, Mercado Huembres, is where the WFP brings there students, but I wanted to experience the largest market in Central America and where the poor go shopping.

I leave all my valuables with Jorge - camera, watch, wallet - and I enter the market with only 40 Cordobas. Imagining Jorge and I are a family - adult and child - with us making the average Nicaraguan salary: 2 dollars a day.

Other factors to consider: This is imagining that all 40 Cordobas (2 dollars) can be used for food. No one in the family is sick, no transportation cost to work, no rent, and assuming there is access to water, and a kitchen to cook with. Therefore, this experiment is far more forgiving then the reality.

Entering the market is a surprising experience. Arriving there you wonder, where is the market? But after following Jorge through a shoe store, that turns into a store of rice, to a store of socks, then one of fruit, then of dried herbs, then suits, dvds, hair products... (all of this easily within a 10 feet area), I quickly understood we were in the market. The maze of stores is impossible to navigate through, without Jorge I would be lost after 30 feet (as what happened to Neil and me in the open market in Mexico City).

Light beams in and out of parts of the market. Every dozen steps the scenery changes, not just the products but the roof, the walls, and floor. So many people are crammed in there. I get asked perhaps every 20 seconds what I am looking for. My hair gets pulled a few times, I stand out worse than a sore thumb. Finally we find an area that appears to have a variety of rice and bean stands. I scan for a cheap brand, ask how much is sufficient for two people and purchase a pound of beans and a pound of rice - 1 dollar. This is already the average per day income of almost a million Nicaraguans and over a billion people in the world (1 in every six people).

Starring at how little a pound of rice and beans feels I cannot even begin to imagine surviving on 1 dollar of food a day. It appears to be enough for the side of an average lunch for two - not the only thing to eat for the entire day.

Searching for vegetables takes sometime. I struggle to follow Jorge, who has less remorse to cut people off and speed walk through the allies hardly big enough for me to fit through alone. Each corner brings another surprise - a blind lady canning for change, a little person scaling a shoe rack for the correct size, a limping barefoot senior missing his right foot.

Walking in the markets is a constant paranoia. Everyone seems to be yelling. You are stared at intensely as the next savior about to make everyone’s big purchase for the day. The floor is filled with ankle breaking cracks so you are forced to constantly watch your step but you rarely can see more then 5 feet in front of you. And in the back of your head your wondering who the person walking so tightly behind you is.

Finally we find a vegetable stand. I buy 4 small tomatoes, 50 cents, and 5 small onions, 50 cents.

25 minutes of weaving through the chaotic market and Jorge finally finds our way back to the car.

1 pound of rice: 10 Cordobas (50 cents)
1 pound of beans: 10 Cordobas
4 small tomatoes: 10 Cordobas
5 small onions: 10 Cordobas