The Wealth Index

One day when I was at the market, I was wondering why Tanzanian women, who are shopping for families of like eight people, carry wee shopping baskets, and I, who am shopping for just Andrew and myself, have this huge basket that I lug around the market filled to the top. I watched them, and realized that they were buying just a couple items. They bought large quantities of these items, like 2-3 kilos of potatoes instead of the 1/2 I was buying, but that would still only be enough for a dinner or two for a big family.

When reading a very good book the other day, "A Passage to Africa" by George Alagiah, I found out why there was a disparity between our basket sizes: I only shop once a week. Here's what he has to say about that:

"... that great ritual of the rich world, the weekly shopping trip. You know those United Nations tables that compare countries according to gross national product per capita or hospital beds per thousand people? Well, I'd like to offer a new, and just as meaningful, category: the number of shopping trips per family per year. Only relatively rich people can be sure enough of their income next week to blow a whole load of cash this week on food. Only people wealthy enough to have their own transport or to pay for a taxi can manage to get all those goodies back home. And only those with money will have fridges and freezers to keep what they've bought fresh enough to be consumed days later."

I think this holds true in developed and developing countries both. For example, in America, the wealthy can afford to buy in bulk, so Costco appeals to the middle class and above groups, but the local mini-mart down the road which sells milk by the quart instead of 2 gallons at a time like Costco is where the lower-class shops. In Musoma, I go to the main market once a week and my Tanzanian neighbors without a car or electricity go each day to the little neighborhood stand and get the food for that night's dinner. Prices are lower in the main market than at the little stands, so just like milk bought by the gallons at Costco is cheaper per cup than the minimart milk sold by the quart, I pay less for what I buy, because I have the luxury of a car to get there and back home again.

To summarize: The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.