Cost of Living

I think Hamdiyah thinks I’m crazy because I’m always asking her how much everything costs. Sometimes it’s for my own benefit- how much can I expect to pay in the market for this particular item? Other times I’m more interested in getting an idea of how much things cost in relationship to how much people are earning.

The truth is that people in general are not earning very much. It seems to me that the most stable and best paying positions are with the international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like World Vision. They are paid a monthly salary, which in and of itself is a huge benefit, and they pay very well, relatively speaking. My guess is that they are paid between $250-500/month, depending on the position.

When Hamdiyah and I were in the capital we went to the Areeba office to buy my cell phone. We happened to bump into a friend of hers from university. I was later told that her colleagues from school who are doing customer service type work for a stable, growing company earn about $170/month. Even Hamdiyah found that number to be prohibitively low for an individual working in the capital and university educated.

So, for the gross majority of Ghanaians, if they do not have a job paying a monthly salary, where do they work? Quite simply, they work in the informal sector trying to sell whatever they can in order to make a days wage. This is why the markets and street vendors are so active in trying to entice you to buy whatever they are selling. These individuals range from young girls trying to sell bags of water that they’ve filled and chilled for market-goers to the numerous vendors selling phone cards for any of the three major cell phone companies. It’s a race to make enough money to eat the next day.

It’s the beginning of the rainy season now so farmers are planting and will expect to harvest in the early fall. This will be a “rich” time for families and when Pure Home Water hopes to be able to sell more filters because people will have money to spend.

To give you an idea of prices, here are some of the costs I’ve gathered over my four weeks here: (We’ll use a loose exchange rate of $1 = 10,000 cedis, but it’s closer to 9,000 cedis.)
1 egg = 1,000 cedis ~ $.10
Clove of garlic = 2,000 cedis ~ $.20
300 mL Coca Cola = 2,500 cedis ~ $.25 (small bottle)
1 pineapple = 10,000 cedis ~ $1
Seamstress cost to sew outfit (top and bottom) = 35,000 cedis ~ $3.50
250 unit phone card = 75,000 cedis ~ $7.50 (this is the most expensive card you can buy)
Fabric for a new outfit (top and bottom) = 75,000 – 250,000 cedis ~ $7.50 - $25
Monthly Rent = 100,000 ~ $10 (for one room in a compound of perhaps 4-5 rooms)
Pure Home Water ceramic filter = 170,000 cedis ~ $17
Sewing Machine = 350,000 cedis (starting) = $35
New, pay as you go cell phone = 390,000 cedis ~ $39
Private University Education Tuition (1 Year) = 10,000,000 cedis ~ $1,000

My daily food budget thus far is coming out to be about $2/day. Keep in mind this is not local fair, but rather high priced items such as peanut butter (45,000 cedis for one jar) and corn flakes (31,500 cedis for a mid-size box). The average family probably feeds the entire family for about $1/day/person, possibly less.

It’s a difficult life for people here in the north, little stable employment leading to economic instability for most families. It seems a daunting task to try and encourage economic development with few businesses willing to invest and create jobs for a largely uneducated population. It’s one reason why I’ve chosen health as a tangible way to help improve people’s economic opportunities. It still doesn’t make improvements inevitable and seems much more difficult when looking at the population and not the success of the individual. This is why Peace Corps was such a valuable way to achieve development; you were working with one population and saw the improvements in their lives as your projects came to completion. Population level projects can make an even greater impact, but it’s difficult to see the impact you make on individual people’s lives and that for me is less satisfying.