Living on One Dollar Page #2

situation. [ Cash register dings

] A little bit bumpy, too.

Whoa! Ooh. [

Chuckles ] Ooh.

[ Sighs ] All right.

[ Blows ]

[ Slurps ] Ahh! This

is the best thing I've

ever eaten. [ Chuckles ] [

Pencil scratching paper ]

1 pounds of black beans gives us 1,600 calories.

1 pounds of yellow rice gives

us 2,000, roughly. But, still, like, 3,600

calories split amongst four people is not

good enough for our daily

value.

[ Chuckling ] Yeah. Zach

fell flat on his ass after.

Every time we stand up, for some

reason, like, get huge head rushes.

I've almost passed out, like -- I don't

know -- today probably like three times.

And I don't know if that's a lack of nutrition

or what the deal is, but Zach actually went

for it today. We had our first full-on

fall, and when he came to, he was only

speaking in Spanish. [ Thunder rumbling

] I'm used to eating a lot.

I'm used to being active a lot. But when you're

not eating anything -- when you're eating

like 500 calories, you become incredibly lethargic.

You have zero energy to do

anything.

[ Speaking native language ]

[ Girl giggling ]

[ Machete chopping ]

This is only my second week actually in pea

blanca, and I feel like we're already showing

signs of being worn down and dejected.

We all have these pulgas.

We all kind of got destroyed on our dirt floors.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

And, you know, that was [Chuckles] that was

the point where I was like, "I want to go"

home. Like, I need

to get out of here.

"Why am I doing this?" And we were eating

better than a lot of the people in the

community.

Jose enrico just brought us a gift.

He wrote us a letter.

[ Speaking Spanish ] s?

Aw, gracias, Jose.

S.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Indistinct shouting ] Oh.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Speaking Spanish ] [

Children giggling ] Oh.

Yay! Okay. [

Speaking Spanish ]

[ Speaking Spanish ] S.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Chuckles ] [ Indistinct

talking in Spanish ]

[ School bell rings ] [ Children shouting

excitedly ] That was absolutely nuts.

Did you see that madness? That was 315 kids

playing with like 6 different balls at the

same time. And I don't know.

What's up, Carlos?

And I don't how many games and, like,

snacks were distributed, but that was nuts.

That was nuts. How fun. Yeah. How fun.

[ Both speaking Spanish ]

We really didn't know who he was, initially,

that he was kind of just the kid that was

always around. And he was just,

like, so eager to learn.

[ Speaking Spanish ] How...

Are you?

Pssh! Hi. It turns

out chino's family

couldn't afford the $25 cost of books and supplies

for school. They had a family of eight

that lived in a single room. They no longer had

electricity, because they couldn't pay for

it. You know, his father never knew

when he was gonna work or not,

'cause he worked as a day laborer.

And chino, who is 12, had to

work in the fields.

We'd see him coming, walking up the Mountain

with this thing wrapped around his head and,

like, a huge bundle of, like, logs and

sticks behind him. At one point, Chris asked

chino, like, you know, "if you could

do anything, what would you be?"

And chino's response was, you know, "I'm gonna

be a farmer." And Chris was like, "no, like,

what would you be if you could be

anything? " And, I mean, he was like, " I'd

be a pro soccer player." But at 12 years

old, chino had accepted the fate that he was

gonna be a farmer.

[ Speaking native language ]

Chino, like most of the people here,

speaks Kaqchikel and only a few words of

Spanish. [ Speaking Spanish

] [ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Speaking indistinctly ] Aguacate.

Aguacate.

O? En ingls, eavocado.

Avoca-- avocado.

S. Avocado.

Both:
Avocado.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Food. [ Speaking

Spanish ] Ik?

Ik. Both:
Ik. Ik. [

Both speaking Spanish ]

Both:
Candle. Candle.

A candl.

Candl. Yeah, I mean, I think

I completely saw myself in a lot

of them. You know, I was, like, eager

to learn, where you're, like, so

excited about building little things outside

of our house, and, you know, that's

what I did for my childhood, and realizing

that it is the situation that they're in

that's holding them back, not

who they are.

Hey. cmo ests? How...

How are you?

How are you? How are you?

"How... are... you?"

[ Rooster crows ] The rbanare growing.

I know.

I'm gonna pay off on my finance loan.

[ Sniffs ]

I'm gonna eat more. [ Chuckles

] It's gonna happen, man.

I can sense it already. [

Chuckles ] Very clumpy, though.

They are really clumpy.

That's bad, right?

Everything about a banana just brings me joy here.

You peel it back. It's naked.

It's a naked fruit. [ Speaks indistinctly

] I just take a bite and savor

it each time like it's the best bite of

banana I will ever take, every single time.

I just make sure, like, the top

of the banana is always even after.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, your teeth

marks kind of indent it like this.

Yeah. So then you got to play

the game and, like, reverse the

bite. Oh, nice. Yeah. Move it up.

So that it's even, you know?

And it slows down your eating,

too.

As economics majors, Chris and I were really

interested in, how did a person living under a

dollar a day manage their money?

So we were asking people

questions like, "how much money do you make?

What are your expenses?"

Where do you save money? Do you

have any outstanding loans?"

You know, these are really personal questions

for anyone. Hola. Buenas tardes.

Hola. Buenas.

[ Speaking Spanish ] Anthony, in, I

think, the first week we were there, he

was, like, the first grown-up from the community

to come to our house, introduce himself.

You know, he was so excited to

meet us.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Chuckles ] [

Grunts ] [ Chuckles ]

Ah. See? Just 24 and 20 years

old, Anthony and rosa already manage

a household of eight people. Mm.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Baby coos ] [

Chuckles ] Oh.

No? [ Baby crying

] [ Chuckles ]

As a family, they survive on $1.25 each per day

to pay for not only food, but larger costs

of a new baby, their kids' education,

and repairs to their house.

Like, his wife is 20. I'm 20.

And she has three children.

His wife's younger than me, dude.

He's 24.

I look up to her so much. [ Both speaking

Spanish ] They're teaching us how to more

efficiently make fires... cook more substantive food...

And better bargain in town.

Living so close to the edge, these small changes

are having huge impacts on our lives.

Probably the most important one is lard.

We bought some straight lard

today in town to try to add to our fat content.

If you could feel this texture

right now, it is one of the

foulest things ever. [ Sizzling ]

This lard right here has -- what was it -- 208

grams of fat and 1,080 calories, which is the

equivalent of more than the rice or beans that

we were eating. And we started mashing our

beans and refrying our beans in lard.

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