One of the questions I can recall from my initial Journey International interview was about stipends, and my comfort level with living on a minimal income every month.
“Fine,” I said. “I shouldn’t have a problem with it.”
Truthfully, I didn’t. I knew that our meals, housing, and transportation would be taken care of, and beyond that, what do you honestly, truly need to spend money on? Living with my grandfather, my biggest expenditures every month went toward transportation and student loans, and during my year in Indonesia, both of those would be put on hold. I had already assumed that I wouldn’t eat out much. I wouldn’t frequent the cinema. The spontaneous Amazon order would be a thing of the past. ("It’s 2 a.m. and these LED flashlights are on sale, darn it!”) My stipend would be put towards toothpaste, clothes, and the occasional souvenir. My indifference toward a tightly limited income wasn’t because I felt disciplined, it was because I couldn’t think of what I’d spend it all on.
That was, of course, before I realized the exchange rate between the U.S. dollars and the Indonesian rupiah.
At the time of this writing, one U.S. dollar was equal to approximately 13,000 Indonesian rupiah and rising. For perspective, purchasing a drink (sweet tea) in Indonesia will run you about 5,000 RP. Approximately $0.39 USD. A good meal at a standard restaurant might run you around 40,000 RP. Approximately $3.08 USD. Eating and purchasing local goods is, from an U.S. perspective, rather inexpensive, and par for the course here. Getting a drink at Starbucks, or a burger at McDonalds falls just about in line with American prices, meaning that going to Starbucks is a special occasion and McDonalds appeals to a different income bracket than it does in the United States. This also means that our stipends go a lot farther than they might other places, especially in the United States.
Cheap food is great. Cheap bus fare is great. Cheap movie tickets are great. However, it also comes with the understanding that, even though our stipend is modest, we usually find ourselves with more spending money than might be average for others around the area. Regardless of our tax bracket in the U.S., we’re often considered affluent by default here. It makes sense. We’re each from a place where not working for a year doesn’t mean starvation. We’re each from a community that has enough funds to allow us to participate in this program. We’re white, and we’re far away from home. That alone is enough for people to make assumptions on our monetary status, regardless of how we might classify ourselves in the United States.
I can get a massage here for 60,000RP. That’s $4.61USD. The massage lasts an hour, and includes reflexology for your feet. They’re pretty popular, and feel fantastic. They also are a tangible reminder that the person rubbing your feet is not making 60,000RP for that hour of work. They’re a tangible reminder that you probably have a very different perspective on money than the person that is spending an hour focused on your dirty feet and your imperfect body. It’s a humbling experience.
In a crowd in the United States, people can assume I’m part of the ambiguous, nearly all-encompassing ‘middle class,’ but not much else. Here, my affluence is pretty well represented by the fact that I am in Indonesia in the first place. I’ve got a passport. Even better, I’ve got a U.S. passport, meaning that there are few places in the world I can’t go. When I do go back to the States, even the legal minimum wage for a job would allow me amenities that simply aren’t possible for many people here. The average income of a job for a college graduate? Even more so.
In that sense, I suppose I was wrong in my initial interview for the Journey International program. I’m less comfortable with my stipend here than I thought I would be.
