Day 1- Wednesday
The day starts early morning, but I have
to budget first, to make sure I limit myself to $4 for the whole day. I listed
the essentials of the day which was food and transport to school. The cost of
living is high therefore finding the meal to eat thrice in a day is essential
or at least twice. In the morning I ate a quarter of the white loaf of bread
left for school. Since the full bread costs around $2.76, the quarter will cost
me $0.69. I carried 1litre of drinking water to school. The cost of 1 liter of
water is $1.20. I was driven to school which cost $0.50. During lunch eating at
the cafeteria would cost a lot more than I wanted to spend, so I just ate two
bananas costing $0.51 and drunk the water throughout the day. I returned home
on foot hence saved on the $0.50 which I spent on supper. At dinner, we ate a
whole sum meal, but it fitted the remaining $1.10. I did not shower in the
evening as I usually do.
Reflection.
The whole day has been about minimizing
everything in my life. One of the main challenges has been trying to reduce the
amount of food I eat because normally not even one meal fits into the $4.00
budget. Today it did due to the calculation of everything I ate or did. I
limited my interaction with friends as they would influence me into spending
and which was not an easy task. The other thing was restraining myself from
using the phone. It was tough not chatting with my friends while the phone is
there. It is quite tempting. As at getting to bed, I do feel like my stomach is
a bit empty due to the limited amount of food I ate. I hope I will get some
sleep to get me through the few hours I will be sleeping.
Day 2- Thursday
Thursday started very early as I had
decided to wake up early. The empty stomach also contributed the early rising.
I did sleep for some few hours, but my stomach woke me up a little sooner. To
make the poverty challenge even more real, I did not take a shower, so I
dressed up and had my breakfast. Due to hunger pangs, I was feeling; I decided
to eat the quarter bread and two bananas at the same time. I carried my one
liter of water to school and walked all the way to avoid spending. I had also decided
that I would not bring my phone to school to avoid any
temptation to use it. During lunchtime, as the rest of the class was eating I
spent my time doing my assignments to pass the time as I did not have anything
to eat. I only drunk water through the entire time. In the evening I walked
back home. By evening, I had only spent $2.40 which was a bit lower than
Wednesday’s $2.90. The remaining amount would get me substantial meal compared
to Wednesday.
Reflection.
The day started with a delicate moment
where I could not be able to stomach my hunger pangs in bed anymore. Despite
having eaten a substantial breakfast, I could afford; it could not be enough to
keep my stomach full the whole day since I had to bear with my rumbling stomach
at a certain point in the day. The situation was embarrassing especially since
it happened immediately when everyone had resumed from lunch. A thought had
occurred to me to quit and just be grateful for the life I have but remembered
there I someone who lives that kind of life, and they do not have an option of
quitting it is their life. By the time I arrived at home from school, I felt so
exhausted and just wanted to eat and sleep. Due to exhaustion, I could not go
to sleep the way I was without showering a whole two days, so I showered just
before we ate dinner. Missing on showers had made me self-cautions all through
the day, and I could not take it especially going to dinner with everyone on
the table. It would be quite uncomfortable for everyone in the family
especially because I did sweat on my way home from school. As much as I want to
make the poverty challenge real, going for days without shower will mean
affecting people around me due to the bad odor.
Day 3- Friday
Today I wasn’t woken up by my stomach
since I ate yesternight enough. Although I walked for a long distance, showering
and sleeping earlier helped. I woke up fresh, but I had to wear the same
clothes I had worn for the three days as homeless people do not get the luxury
of washing their clothes on a daily basis or having a change of clothes. I
decided to adopt the same eating plan as for Thursday’s as I was quite
comfortable during the day only a few stomach rumbles at lunchtime and a mild
headache on my way home. I walked to school and back, which was also tiresome
but I was not going to shower today. I ate a quarter bread, two bananas and
carried one liter of water.
Reflection
The challenge has made me adopt a new
way of running things. One was minimizing the amount of food I ate to
necessity; the other is by secluding myself from a huge circle of friends, this
is because, with a large number of friends, you find yourself being influenced
to do things that will most probably result in spending money. Secluding myself
is helping, but I feel like by the end of the challenge I will have lost a lot
of friends because I seem to brush them off whenever they ask me to join them.
I did not carry my phone today too, and I found quite some calls I wasn’t there
to receive and unanswered text messages. My friend left a voice message, and
she sounded quite worried about me because I never miss calls. I had to call
her and assure her everything was okay. I also told her about the poverty
challenge, and she understood the whole situation. I feel the challenge is too
much and cannot be compared to things like being on a diet. It is very tasking.
Today I had a mild headache during the day, and it could be attributed to long
hours without eating. I took a painkiller to cool it down. I feel like giving
up, but I think I am already halfway, so I will take one day after the other as
it comes.
Day 4- Saturday
Just like Thursday, I woke up feeling
hungry, so the first thing I did was eating breakfast. I was not planning to go
anywhere, so I was going to stay in and to my assignments and some laundry. My
breakfast was the same as usual. A quarter bread and two bananas and by
lunchtime I was already hungry. I could not be able to stay without eating
especially because most of my family members were in so I ate lunch with the
rest of them. After lunch, we were to go to the mall, but I opted to stay home
and sleep since I had woken up early. I slept through most of the time until
they came back in the evening. At dinner time I was already feeling hungry, so
I ate. The day cost me more than $4.00 because I was unable to hold my hunger
pangs at lunchtime.
Reflection
It was a tough day because I succumbed
to eating until I spent all my $4.00 limit. I can only attribute this to
staying at home with my family who did not understand the essence of the
challenge. I tried to resist food, but my mum insisted that I should eat since
the food is already available. She challenged my stand by saying that instead
of trying to live on the level of poor people I should try and find ways of
improving their lives since I am in a better position to do so. We had a huge
debate on this, but I finally gave in by eating the lunch. Denying myself the
opportunity to go with the rest of the family to the mall was a tough decision.
I also had difficulty in keeping myself from watching when they were gone, so
the only solution was sleeping or walking outside which I did after I was tired
of sleeping. I also know if I continued to sleep, I will lack sleep at night
which would make the night long. With so much free time on the table, I found
myself thinking so much about my life the future I want for myself and what I
can do presently to stop wasting so much time on unimportant things like social
media.
Day 5- Sunday
I slept soundly throughout the night and
only woke up when my alarm rang. Today I was ready to correct my slips and just
go throughout the day without any slips. I ate the bread and two bananas,
dressed up and went to church without showering and by foot. After service, I
went back home by foot to where I did several assignments as I read through
various books. I just drunk water the entire. I also slept for 2 hours during
the day. By the time it was supper, my stomach was rumbling loudly due to
hunger. We finally ate, and I went to sleep. I had achieved going through the
entire day within the $4.00 limit.
Reflection
Being the last day of the challenge, I
wanted to finish with a win. I did not want to be left with the guilt that I
had felt on Saturday for failing to control myself. The challenge was to
educate oneself on how one in poverty feels, but it felt more of a personal
challenge especially on testing my resilience. Due to lack of things like
phones, televisions and the luxurious items, one has a lot of time, and most of
it is used for conversations with people, and when you do not have people to
talk to or the energy to talk due to hunger, one spends it on thoughts. In my
understanding, this could be one of the reasons why people living in poverty
may be depressed or use their money on things like alcohol which act as
antidepressants. I also got to understand that they go through a lot of
suffering as they are and it is very unfair that people treat them the way they
do as they have done nothing to be poor. The poor need love and support from
the rest of the world as they already go through a lot every day. The only way
they make their life easier is by showing them love and not discriminating them
due to their current state.
My expectations when
going into the challenge.
Limiting my life to $4.00 per day was a
task that seemed to be impossible. I did not expect to make it work especially
because people surround me. I was expecting to fail at it because with the
economic situation today the cost of living is very high. I found out that it
would be possible even if it meant skipping out on a meal and deny yourself a
lot of things. It is only through prioritizing that living in $4.00 a day is
possible.
Inconveniences and
uncomfortableness of the experience
One of the main difficulty I had was
waking up in the middle of the night or very early because I was hungry. It is
something I never experience on regular days. The other thing was secluding
myself for my friends and my family. I was doing this to avoid the temptation
of spending and also because most of the time I was not showering. The later
made me self-conscience because I would not want to be in a situation where I
made the people around me uncomfortable due to my body odor. The other one is
where I had to walk all the way to and from school. It is not something I am
used to hence I got tired by the time I got home. The other one was having to
spend most of the time hungry. Food was one of the main issues in the whole
experience as I had to skip lunch so that I could have a substantial amount of
money to be able to afford a decent meal at night. Lastly, having to spend the
time alone without my phone was very uncomfortable. Usually, I could stay
comfortably alone but with the phone since a can chat with my friends. Shunning
myself away from my friends without phone calls and text messages made the
whole situation uncomfortable and lonely.
Life from the
perspective of a poor person.
Comparison of my
experience with someone who is poor.
My situation was bearable because I knew
that I am not poor and I know the situation will be ending in just a few days.
It is challenging for someone who lives in it for entire of his/her life. The reason
I kept going is the fact that I knew that it would only last for five days.
Anyone who lives through that on an average basis and does not have an escape
from it is strong. He/she does not deserve the discrimination they get. The
poor people need to be shown love and support for them to emerge as
psychologically stable people. The situation was depressing for me, and it only
lasted five days, one cannot get a clear understanding of how these people
survive, and only God takes them through every single day.
How I spent the money.
I spent the entire $4 on food. The
economy of our country makes it impossible for someone to save anything
especially if you are living under the poverty cut. Even when spending the
entire amount on food, it is still not enough to satisfy you completely even
for a single day. The quality of food one eats is not nutritious, and if one
eats the meal for a long time, he/she may become susceptible to diseases due to
lack of vital nutrients in the body.
Spending money wisely
The question of whether the money was
spent wisely is not easy to answer. I put my health first, therefore, spent
everything on food. Spending money wisely means spending it on the things
necessary and save. I spent all my money on food but was unable to save because
there was nothing to save. I tried to find the cheapest things I can survive on
with the little budget. Therefore, I did spend it wisely.
The reaction of others
and the impact it had on me.
How people treated me
There was a lot of pity in those close to
me. One of them was my mum who did not see the essence of the whole situation.
She could not wait for the 5-day challenge to end. Her constant challenge on
the importance of the challenge, made me eat lunch on Saturday yet I was not
supposed to eat. Walking to and from school made some of my friends question
the financial situation of my parents. It did not affect me since the challenge
was personal and not related to the real situation with my parents.
Things learned about
poverty and how they affected me.
One of the thing that is clear is that
the poor do not like being in the situation they experience. Being poor is not
a choice, and the situation is terrible. One would do anything to get out of
it. From this, I learned that being kind to anyone poor does not cost anything
it only gives the poor hope that there is someone who could afford to smile
back at them and support them in this life. I have the belief that the poor are
the way they are because they do not want to change but from this experience, I
learned that nobody wants to be in that situation. In fact, they want to
change, but the resources are limited especially if you earn and spend all of
it with nothing to spare.
A comparison of my
findings to those of Mike Yankosi.
Mike’s findings were more comprehensive
on the treatment of the poor than mine because he went deep into living with
the poor. My situation was personal; I was only observing the difficulties I
had when trying to adapt to the situation. I had my family around me.
Therefore, I did not live in poverty and experiences it firsthand like Mike. It
was more of an experiment that the real-life situation. What both of the
situations brought to light is the fact that no poor person wants to remain
poor. However, the situation does not allow them to be free of the poverty. It
is a difficult situation, and the only way one gets through that is by having a
strong circle of friends and family to share the burden.
How poverty influences
one’s self-image, attitude and social function.
Poverty lowers an individual’s
self-confidence. One of the reasons for this being the fact that one does not
get the privilege to dress properly and fit in with the rest of the society. As
a result, one may decide to seclude him/herself from the remainder of the world
just to feel comfortable. Self-seclusion affects relationships with other
people hence one lives a lonely life. The situation is not just physical but
also affects the mental health of the individual, with very few people to interact
with the person may end up being depressed hence the poor quality of life. As a
result of lack some of the things others in the society have, one may question
their existence in the world.
How my experience
impacted on my self-image, attitude and social function.
I secluded myself from the rest of my
friends as one step. The reason why I took this step is that I was
self-cautious due to not showering and wearing the same clothes for more than
two days. To make matters worse, I am a lady, and I went all through with no
make-up which to some extent helps with self-confidence. I was cranky all the
time and easily irritable especially when I got hungry and as a result ruining
any interactions with people around me.
How to be open-handed
to the poor.
Being poor is not a choice hence one of
the ways we can be open-handed is by assisting the poor. We can be of help to
them by sharing the resources we have like food, clothes and if possible
shelter. The basic needs are important, and if a poor person gets assistance
from those who have them, they can be able to improve themselves. Another way
of doing this is by showing love to them despite their situation. Most people
ignore the poor or the homeless, but just a warm smile could make a difference
in the person’s day.
Impact of the
assignment.
From this assignment, I have learned not
to take anything in life for granted. There are those people born in poverty
and they still grown to become successful like Liz Murray. God gives
everything, and it is not only for me but the poor too around me. God has given
me whatever I have to serve Him through touching the lives of the poor around
me. Through the assignment, I have learned the need to be kind to the poor as
it makes their life easy.
Recommendation for
future classes.
I would recommend the experience to
future classes. One of the reasons for this is because through the experience
one can learn about the poor first hand. It is one thing to be told and the
other to experience it in your life. Experiencing it gives one exposure to
something if taught one would not take it seriously.
Changes in the
experience
The instructions to this experience are
quite clear, and I would not like anything to change. The situation was easy to
learn as the budget was tight and one had to make sound decisions to fit their
needs to the budget.
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