What is Poverty?

Composting Toilet at the Lodge on the Beach

             What is poverty?  As I got ready to leave for Peace Corps, I also got ready to live in poverty.  I looked at this as the opportunity to see what it is to not have, to struggle and see how life is for so many who go without in the world.  However after Peace Corps and now being in Africa for the first time, I can’t help but think what really is poverty.  Where on the scale of have or have not do you have to fall to be living in poverty?  Is the definition different from country to country, culture to culture, and community to community?

             A St. Lucian once asked me if I realized that the lifestyle I was living was better than most people living in the country, something that yes I had realized.  People in my community didn’t see me as living in poverty; however, I think most people in the States would think I was.  If you have running water and electricity 100% of the time never have to worry about how much food costs, and always have an abundance of if, that obviously isn’t poverty, but how many people really live like that even in the US?  What if you have running water and electricity, but only can afford cheap food? Or ocassionally don’t have running water, but can afford expensive food?

            Do the people living in poverty even see themselves that way or is that just a label someone with more puts on them, and would someone with less see that person living in poverty as someone with money?  I didn’t view myself as living in poverty in peace corps, mostly because I knew I still had so much more than others did, both in my country and in the world, but I’m not sure how my people in the US viewed my situation.  Would I view someone living in the US the way I did in St. Lucia as someone living in poverty, most likely.  The standard of living is so much higher in the US, so I guess this means the definition of poverty is relatively higher than somewhere with a lower standard of living?

            Is poverty partially about priorities?  Would you trade some food and material comfort for a house by the ocean with coconut trees all around you and sand beneath your feet.? What about running water for a slower pace of life, hot water for living in a place you never had to shovel snow, a cleaner environment for a flush toilet?  

Not the Africa Everyone Expects.

Fancy Building in a medium sized city, Takoradi

         As a I flew into the capital of Ghana, Accra, at night, the scene below was not one of a small city without electricity, but a massive sprawl of lights.  I was shocked by how big the city is.  To me Accra feels bigger than Boston or D.C., it may actually be.   On the drive from the airport to our house I saw fancy modern architecture that at first reaction made me think I have never seen a building so nice in the “paradise” I used to call home.  As we drive along the coast to do a site visit the scene reminds me of St. Lucia, the ocean, coconut trees and luscious green.  I even took a few pictures that if they got mixed up with my Lucian photos I would think I took them there.

Sunrise at the beach in South Western Ghana

Pool next to the Ocean Busua Ghana

             I have yet to see a mud hut with a thatched roof in Accra and I would be shocked to find one in the city (I have seen them in more rural areas).  I have however seen a 3-story club with fancy nice décor, went to a lounge with Ghanaian friends that was nicer than any place I frequent in the states. They served mojitos and other fancy mixed drinks and played a combination of old school US hip-hop/r&b, Jamaican music, and the latest from Nigerian and Ghanaian artists.  There are coffee shops, places to get gelato, sushi, Indian food, and even a KFC. 

View from the Lodge near Dixcove Ghana

            There is a lot of wealth and a lot of development.  Of course there is also poverty.  There may be more poverty than in other parts of the world; or maybe less hidden then in other places.   Maybe though its that when we come to Africa we seek out this poverty in a way we never would in the US or Europe.  There we do everything possible to avoid poverty.  When’s the last time you heard someone with a university degree say, you know let’s tour around the inner city, I want to see what life is like there?  It seems however anytime anyone comes to Africa myself included, we don’t feel we are getting “the real” African experience if we don’t see mud huts and poverty.  But the real Africa is the nightclubs and the development, it’s the Africa everyone in the development field hopes will start to happen isn’t it? So why do we try to hide from this part of the experience, why do we feel like we are cheating or aren’t getting the real experience if we have running water and hang out with African friends at fancy clubs?