Monopoly

Two dice tumble across a sturdy board. Upon landing these dice cause a golden hat to move forward some spaces and then abruptly stop. Baltic Avenue has not been purchased yet, and the owner of this golden hat loves the color purple. $60 is exchanged for a deed card, and the dice are rolled again and again. The golden hat then finds itself on a large square space written, “GO” with an “→” symbol pointing it again in the correct direction. The owner of the golden hat collects $200.

I own that golden hat. And my financial matters are simply a game. In many ways, I am living the game of Monopoly.

First, because I make $200 a month. Each month is like a full trip around the Monopoly board, and each month I have enough to sustain myself. But $200 a month? That would be a day's salary for many people in America, or much less. And if I calculate how much I am working (“working”) or doing work related activities, it sums to 6 or 7 days out of the week. Essentially, I get paid $1 per hour. It's no wonder they call us Peace Corps Volunteers. But $200 a month? How can anyone live on that?

So here's how the prices break down.

Food – especially in the rural areas, food is astoundingly cheap. Outdoor markets offer the cheapest prices for produce, and these markets are made up of groups of mamas either sitting on the floor with their produce laid out for sale, or standing with their wares piled on a rickety stand. For 12 pennies, you can buy 3 small mangoes, 4 small bananas, or a large avocado. And this is relatively expensive to what people's budgets allow. For 35 to 45 pennies, you can buy a kilogram (2.2 lbs) of kale, spinach, or a kilogram of corn flour. That quantity of vegetables and flour will be enough for three hearty meals. But if you want fancier foods like wine, cheese, chocolate, or peanut butter, larger supermarkets sell them at American prices.

Clothes – these can be purchased or hand-made for cheap prices as well. A pair of used but quality slacks can be anywhere from $2 to $7, and hand-made, African-style shirts are between $4 to $6. A while back, I purchased a very nice, collared, tuxedo dress shirt for 25 cents at a Kenyan auction (Kenyan auctions start high and proceed to lower prices until someone says they will buy). The shirt, in my opinion (and hopefully my future wife's opinion as well), is nice enough to be married in.

Transport – This by far is the most expensive thing relative to other living costs. To go just 10 kilometers down the road (6 miles) the fare is 60 cents. Though it sounds like a small sum of money, one trip could comparatively purchase enough food for 3 meals, and you still have to pay for the fare to return home. A 100 kilometer trip on paved roads will be about $3.25 one way.

Electronics – These are available in Nairobi, but only for American prices. Cheap, China-made rip offs are often a choice buy for those on a tight budget, but unfortunately they break relentlessly.

When I learned about how people in impoverished countries lived on “less than a dollar per day”, I was shocked and appalled that such a thing could exist in our world. Admittedly, less than a dollar per day would be suffocating even in my village, but it would not be entirely unmanageable. And I am making 7 dollars a day. The $200 per month is more than enough.


Second, living in the village is amazingly similar to being “In Jail” in Monopoly. It seems everyone is moving and progressing around you, building houses or going bankrupt, but you are stuck in a place where you receive no income, have very few costs, and cannot ever leave. Land is plentiful in the village, and mud houses can be constructed at a low price. Mortgage payments, insurance, taxes, electricity, monthly fuel payments...these are all non-existent. People make their way by living off the land. Transportation costs are so restrictive, the poorest can literally never leave. The impoverished have essentially been born inside Monopoly's “Jail” and will serve a life's sentence there. But as for me and my golden hat, I spend all my time on the “Just Visiting” sliver of the “Jail” square in Monopoly. I quickly make my rounds to pass “Go” with some necessary travel, and make my way back again. Unfortunately I will never truly know the stuffy smell of the Monopoly jail cell like many of the villagers whom I have grown to care for.


Finally, even the denominations of money are surprisingly similar to Monopoly money. Monopoly has 1's, 5's 10's 20's 50's 100s and 500s. Kenyan money has all the same denominations, except with “1000s” as well. With a “1000” shilling note, you will feel beyond wealthy in the rural village. Even in Monopoly, if you had a 1000 shilling note, you could purchase both Park Place and Boardwalk, and still have enough for “Income Tax” should you be so unfortunate to land on that space. I remember as a child my sister and I would play “house” or play “supermarket”, and we would use Monopoly money as our currency. If we used American prices with Monopoly denominations, it would be an awful chore to get change for a $2 gallon of milk when you pay with a $500 Monopoly note. But to some degree, this is how I feel when I use Kenyan money.

I don't mean to sound condescending, but the stakes are simply lower here. If you wanted to invest in a plot of land or build a school, the costs are not going to break the American bank account. Still, there are plenty of Kenyans who are much wealthier than many Americans, and it is not impossible to “live a good life” when it comes to physical comfort and matters of money.


I have always thought the freeways in America, especially at night, are like the veins and arteries of the country's economy. The stream of red or white tail lights carry supplies from place to place, carry workers to their jobs, and carry travelers to different markets. In some places the lanes are 10 wide; our economy pulses vigorously with life and strength. But here in Kenya, there is but one main paved road that cuts across the country, and this road is two-lanes. Transportation infrastructure is a firm indicator of economic status, and this feeble road displays the long process of development that Kenya will eventually undergo. And the numbers support this claim: Kenya's GDP accounts for 0.160% of America's GDP. Yet this crowded two-lane highway hosts many trucks and buses which must pass each other by using the other side of the road. Because of this dangerous restriction, vehicles using this road come remarkably close to head on collisions, and often one can see an overturned semi-truck on the side with streams of people like ants gathering the spilled materials. These overturned trucks remind me of burst blood cells, and the double-lane road is such a constricted passageway for these carriers to pass through. These ruined trucks remind me just how fragile the economy is here in Kenya, like a growing child who suffers from anemia. But development is on the way, and perhaps somewhere down the line every family in Kenya will have enough to afford the game of Monopoly, so each child can play it on a board instead of live it with their lives.