It's More or Less Expensive to Live Here

Somethings are really cheap in Senegal, but other things are really expensive. The cheap things are usually services that require manual labor, with the manual labor being the cheap part. The expensive things are usually European or American products (not where it's made so much as where it is used). For instance, our trash is collected 'curbside' twice a day, six days a week for only $4 a month. On the other hand, Gillette shaving cream, the kind that costs $0.97 in the US is $4 here. Or how about a 7 gallon electric water heater for $150? Yet a full time maid (40 hours per week) costs $150 per month? Or you can have your very own professional chef who cooks American, European, and African meals, two meals a day, for $250 per month. But if you want a washing machine for your maid to use, be ready to shell out nearly $1,000 for a typical American sized machine. Really good bananas are 20 cents per pound, but baby diapers are $5 for a package of 10 (50 cents a piece!). Chase's 'Medicine Candy' (cough drops) are 40 cents a pound, but a pack of 10 cheese slices is $3. Diesel fuel is $4 a gallon, but a heaping plate full of chebugen (pronounced che-bu-gen, it's one of my favorite African dishes, and a plate full will serve our family of three easily) is $1.50 at local restaurants. And the Ford-Focus-sized car to get you to the restaurant costs $20,000.