Living on One Dollar

Introduction
Meet college students, Chris, Zach, Sean, and Ryan, who are setting out on an intense
adventure to live in extreme poverty, on just $1 a day for 56 days. As they travel from the U.S. to
the small village of Peña Blanca in rural Guatemala, they raise questions and fears about their
next two months. What will they eat every day, how will they budget such a small income and
what does it truly mean to be “poor”? Will they be surprised by what they find in Peña Blanca or
have the statistics they learned in school already told them everything?

1. How do the four college students live on $1.00 a day? (Explain with details from the
documentary)

They would each day pull a different number from a hat ranging from 1-9. And based
on that day they could pull out that much many. They did this because the farmers
worked in the field and were day labors and never knew when they would get paid and
how much

2. What kind of food can the villagers/students afford on $1 a day, and what does it really
mean to be malnourished? What does that make you think about self-importance in our
country?

Bananas, beans and riceis some of the food they could afford.To really be
malnourished it means to constantly be tired and not have enough energy to be able
to do the daily needs. I think it helps me reliazes how fortunate I am to be able to
afford snacks and three meals a day plus dessert.
3. What barriers do the poor in the village face in finding jobs and how do they make a
living in the village? How does working as a community show that self-reliance works?
The barriers in the village in finding jobs is that can’t afford a ride to get there and
work. They make a living working in the village by selling whats on there farm or
working in the fields. Working as a community shows self-reliance works because they
are still able to support themselves in some kind of way.

4. What happened to Chris in the video when he drank the village water? How did this
probably impact the villagers every day?
When he drank the water he contracted gharadera, which is a parasite of a bug in his
small intestine which causes bloating and stomach pressure. This impacts the
villagers because they could afford testing but if they can’t afford the medicine they are
stuck.

5. Self-Reflection: In his 2011 New York Times article “The Foul Reign of Emerson’s
Self-Reliance,” Benjamin Anastas says that instead of truly being self-reliant, we have
become self-important and consider ourselves more important than those around us. In
a well-developed paragraph response, explain the difference between self-reliance and
self-importance, and explain how the village in the documentary really practices
self-reliance.
Self reliance is relating to your own resources rather than anyone elses while
self importance is relating to your own self and kind of being selfish. The
documentary really stresses on self reliance because you have to rely on
yourself to really pull through and be able to eat.