All done! Here are my final reflections in a form of a Q and A.
Why did you stop 1 week early?
It started to interfere with my work. I was always tired, short-tempered, and lazy. I wasn’t myself anymore, and little things that bugged me had the potential of ruining my entire day. I feel like I achieved my goal to spread awareness and will continue to involve people in dialogue about the world’s economic inequalities.
How much money did you spend on food in 45 days?
15,615 yen or about $156.00
Over 45 days, how much did you spend on food each day on average?
About 347 yen, or $350
How much money do you think you saved?
LOTS! I spend about $7 per day on average, depending if I eat out a lot or do grocery shopping… it varies. So I saved probably around $200.
What did I eat?
Mostly rice. It was my main staple because it is so cheap and could curb my hunger. I would have preferred to eat brown rice, but white was cheaper even though was not as healthy. I also ate a lot of soup. For fruits, I ate bananas mostly. Meats and alternatives, I ate a few cans of fish and peanut butter. For veggies, cheap produce was a challenge to find. I mostly ate spinach and carrots. I didn’t end up buying frozen veggies, because I think they weren’t that much cheaper. Milk and milk products were hard because it’s not a big staple in the Japanese diet. I drank soymilk when I could, and sometime yoghurt. I tried to drink as much tea, coffee, and water I could as to keep up my fluid intake. Most of the time I mixed leftovers or anything that was still edible into some interesting concoctions.
What was the most challenging?
Budgeting and preparing meals everyday. Smelling and seeing delicious food. Resisting the urge to splurge. Becoming another person – having low energy, being moody and irritable. Trying to stay motivated. Not being able to go out for dinner or get take-out with friends.
How many people responded to your question?
The question was: 2.8 billion people worldwide survive on less than $2/day… what can our generation do to lower this number. I got probably around a hundred verbal and written responses. I got 12 short and long essays from people who really gave a lot of thought to the question. I hope that more people will continue to write me their opinion and keep the dialogue going. I also hope that people for different countries/backgrounds, age groups can become engaged in the dialogue. Most of my responses came from 20-30 year olds.
Thanks so much for everything who took the time to offer me words of encouragement, check out my blog, and offer their opinions. I REALLY appreciate the support!
Will I do it again?
Probably not. But I would like to do some more projects either by myself or with a group to create a greater awareness about how important it is that we do something about the grave inequalities. If we don’t do something now, we will face a great war or revolution that “the haves” will not be able to hide away from.
What will you do with the information you collected?
I am hoping to use it for my graduate studies that will commence in September. Before that, I want to create a report for the UN Millennium Development Team to advise them how they can engage young people into achieving the goals, even though the goals are a bit unrealistic. For more info, Google: UN MGDs (UN Millennium Development Goals)
How much weight did you loose?
It wasn’t the purpose of the project, not it’s not important.
How has this changed your perspective about the question?
In several ways. I will elaborate later. I am still a firm believer that foreign aid is not the answer and that to some extent foreign aid workers should pull out of “poor” nations because most (not ALL) of them are imposing a neo-colonial agenda. There are many organizations and people that mean well, and feel they have a moral obligation to help low-income peoples. Who or what organizations am I specifically referring to? I don’t have the specific data, but I am referring to organizations that are led by foreigners, not locals, in other words, organizations that don’t promote capacity building. For example, do you think an organization that has its main headquarters in London really “helping” people in Sierra Leone? I am working for a NGO that has its headquarters in Addis Ababa and is led by Ethiopians. Some of its funding comes from international donors, but ultimately the agenda is Ethiopian-driven.
Some will disagree with me and say that if “we” leave “them” they will die or be killed. Of course I am not saying that this is right, that people should die. In an ideal world, people would be able to take care and/or defend themselves. I guess what I am getting at is people shouldn’t be going to “poor” countries with the pre-determined, utopian idea they are going to SAVE them. This is the same idea the colonists of the 1800s had when they went to Africa: we will save them with Christianity and make these savages into civilized human beings. I’m not against Evangelicalism completely, and I’m not saying the conversion movement was all bad news, but I think we have to respect other people’s right to lead their own lives.
That brings me to another point. I can’t stand it when people talk about “eliminate poverty”, or “poor countries”, etc. The words “poor” and “poverty” have negative connotations and hinder the progress of many low-income countries because the rhetoric indicates that these people have no agency! We don’t realize that there are rich, and VERY rich people who live in these countries and some of them are doing great things to change their country. The last thing they need is more Angelinas to “save” the children of Africa and Asia. She is a great spokeswoman, but adoption isn’t always a good idea.
I apologize if my rant isn’t as coherent as I would like it to be. I don’t mean to offend anyone who is genuinely trying to “do their part”. Most people want to do good and want to learn about other countries and help in any way they can. But somehow our efforts should be redirected into a different capacity. For example, instead of going to Zimbabwe to volunteer at an orphanage, one should lobby their home government to redirect aid to Zimbabwe’s local NGOs and not the government. It’s not the answer, but the former method of aid is treating the symptoms of the situation, the latter is getting to the cause of the “illness”, or at least 1 of the causes.
Did you achieve your purpose or goal?
Yes, I think I did. I created some awareness within my network and hopefully they will tell their friends about it and talk about the question.
What is the answer to the $2/day question?
No idea! Right now, it seems to be a process of elimination. Right now, I’ve eliminated the possibility of “increasing foreign aid” to being an answer. Like any complicated question, there will most likely be a multifaceted answer.
What is your next project?
Not sure yet. For now, I will be busy trying to create some kind of report and present it to anyone who will listen.
Stay tuned.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, criticism, and support. Thanks! Arigato! 
Filed under: *eating $2/day project* - My Journal
