I have met Amin several times. He’s a teacher at the school and he’s also an Imam. I think that he teaches both language and Islam studies at the school. I knew that he lived upstairs from us, but I never really thought about it. Well, today I went to the roof to hang up my laundry (I’ll spare you the recount of my first time doing laundry by hand) and I realized that there were no other roomsd above us. I looked around on the roof and saw what I had always figured was a storage room. Turns out that that is where he lives. My room is at least 4 times larger than his, and I pay $200 a month for it. I had the option of a smaller room at the $150 a month that was originally quoted but I opted for the larger room. Anyway, if his rent is 1/4 of mine, that means that he’s paying around $50 a month. He’s most likely paying less since he works for the school and he’s not a westerner. He commented on the size of my room before and I now realize that he’d really like a larger one but it doesn’t seem that he can afford more than $50 a month at most. Here’s the kicker, he seems to be living pretty well as compared to many people I pass in the street every day. Kind of puts everything in perspective…
Isaac