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?