Living on Less Than $1 a Day: How Zainab Survives at 80 in Ghana

We met Zainab on a scorching afternoon in a quiet, overlooked corner of rural Ghana. The sun was merciless. The dust clung to our shoes, and the heat seemed to radiate from every wall.

She sat on the floor hunched over, frail, and still almost as if she had melted into the background. From a distance, you might not even notice her. But as we approached, she slowly lifted her head and offered a soft, tired smile.

Zainab is 80 years old. Her voice is weak. Her eyes look tired. And her legs have nearly given up on her. She can barely walk.

Her home is a tiny, crumbling room built from old cement and patched wood. Honestly, it felt like it belonged to a different time. The outer walls were cracked, and the roof sagged. The air was hot and heavy inside, with an old fan stirring it. The truth is that Zainab’s home didn’t feel like a home. It felt like the world had moved on and forgotten both this place and the woman inside it.

Zainab lives entirely alone. She has no husband nor children. She has no relatives and barely receives any visitors. It’s just her and time.

“I’ve been alone for many years,” she said slowly. “People used to pass by. But now, they don’t even know I’m still here.”

She never married. She never had children. And in her old age, there is no one coming to check on her. No family to call. No one to celebrate her birthdays or remind her to take medicine.

Zainab’s days are long and painfully slow. She wakes up, lies on her worn-out mattress for hours, and only gets up when her body forces her to. Crawling has become her default. It’s easier than standing. Her legs tremble with every attempt to walk, and the floor is the one surface she trusts.

Some days, she drags herself to the doorway to feel the sun. That small act of sitting outside is often the highlight of her entire day. But most days, she stays indoors, surrounded by silence and heat, staring at the walls and waiting for night to come so the day can end.

“Sometimes, I don’t know if it’s morning or evening,” she told us. “I just lie there… waiting.”

There’s a plastic bowl in the corner, possibly used for both eating and washing. A dusty water container sits near her bed. The floor is bare, the walls are stained with time, and the smell of old cement and trapped heat clings to everything. As I scanned her room, I saw no food in sight.

Her mattress (if you could call it that) is covered with piles of old clothes and plastic bags. It’s more storage space than a resting place. But it’s all she has. When we asked how she manages to survive, she gave us a slow, pained answer.

“God hasn’t taken me yet. I’m still here… I’m still breathing.”

She shed no tears nor made any dramatic cries for help. All I could see was just a woman who has quietly endured everything life didn’t protect her from.

A Corner No One Should Live With

In one dimly lit corner of Zainab’s room, no bigger than a meter wide, she has created a space meant for things no human should have to do indoors. There is no toilet. And certainly no plumbing nor privacy! Just a plastic pail, a cracked bucket, and an old rubber kettle she uses to pour water over herself when she can. That corner serves as both her bathroom and toilet. It is where she bathes, squatting and balancing carefully on shaky legs. It is also where she relieves herself when her body demands it, day or night, rain or shine.

The room itself is small, so the stench never really goes away. The air hangs heavy with humidity and old waste. Her bed, a thin foam mattress, sits barely an arm’s length away from this corner. There is no wall separating where she sleeps from where she squats.

When we asked how she manages this routine, Zainab looked away for a moment.

Then she said softly, “That’s where I do everything. I bathe there… and when I can’t hold myself, I go there too. I clean it with old rags and sometimes I use ashes.”

I asked about water. How does she get it? How often, and whether it is safe.

She replied, “A neighbor sometimes helps me. She brings a small bucket for me to use. But she also has her own problems.”

The help is occasional. On days no one comes, Zainab simply does not bathe. She waits, hoping someone will remember her. That someone will knock.

“If nobody brings water, I just stay like that. I can’t go and fetch it myself. My legs are tired now. They don’t move like before.”

There’s a drainage in her corner, which more often that not gets clogged. So after bathing or relieving herself, she must try to throw the used water out the doorway using a bowl, sometimes crawling, sometimes dragging herself.

The floor is permanently stained. And the smell is hard to ignore. But yet, she does her best to keep the corner clean with old rags and whatever scraps she can find.

She told us, “I try to sweep and pour water there… just to feel clean. I don’t want to smell like this all the time.”

That sentence alone reveals a heartbreaking truth. Zainab still clings to her dignity, even when everything around her tries to take it away.

Honestly, no human being, young or old, should have to live like this.

This is the corner where Zainab bathes and relieves herself. As you can see, it is just steps from where she sleeps. 

Where She Cooks

Zainab’s entire life fits inside one small room and that includes her kitchen. In a corner just steps away from where she bathes and relieves herself, Zainab has arranged a small collection of cooking pots, metal bowls, plastic containers, and an old coal stove. This is where she cooks what little food she has, if any. There is no ventilation, no proper storage, no sink. Smoke from the coal mixes with the heavy air in the room, making it difficult to breathe when she lights the fire.

Everything is within reach not because of convenience, but because she can barely walk. She needs to be able to reach her water, her food, and her sleeping mat without standing for too long or at all.

When we asked how often she cooks, she replied: “Only when I have something to cook. Sometimes I just drink water and sleep.”

There is no separation between her cooking space, her toilet area, and her mattress. It is all one room. One space for eating, sleeping, washing, and surviving.

Even the pots stacked in the corner tell a quiet story. Some are dented. Some are rusting. All are carefully cleaned and neatly arranged, which according to me, is a small act of pride in a place where dignity is hard to hold onto.

“I try to keep my things clean. Even if I don’t have much, I keep them like that.”

Where She Sleeps

Next to that corner is her bed: a flattened foam mattress buried under a mess of old clothes, plastic bags, wrappers, and used containers. There is no real storage. Everything she owns is stacked beside or on top of where she sleeps.

I asked if she found it uncomfortable. She gave a faint smile and said, “At least I have somewhere to lie down.”

How She Survives

I asked the hardest question of all: How do you survive with no income, no support, and no safety net?

Zainab told us that from time to time, kind neighbors give her a little money. But many months can pass without anyone coming to her aid. Not because people don’t care but because they are struggling too.

From my observation and conversations, I estimate that she survives on around ₵200 Ghana cedis a month (about $15 USD). Some months, even less. But strangely enough, she doesn’t beg nor complain. She simply waits and hopes.

The Village That Tries

Before we left, we spoke with a few of her neighbors – men and women who sometimes bring her food, water, or just stop by to see if she’s okay.

“We want to help more,” one woman said. “But sometimes we don’t even have enough for ourselves.”

Another man added, “If she falls sick, we wouldn’t even know what to do. There’s no money for hospital, and she can’t walk.”

There’s no doubt they care. What’s lacking is not compassion… it’s more of an issue of capacity. These are people with hearts full of empathy and hands too empty to act.

What I Felt When I Walked Away

As I stepped out of Zainab’s room that day, something inside me shifted. I couldn’t stop thinking about how we celebrate our elders in speeches, in culture, in church but fail to protect them when it actually matters. I thought about my own grandmother. I thought about myself growing old one day.

The silence in her room wasn’t just from the lack of noise. It was the kind of silence that feels like the world has moved on without you. And the truth is if we hadn’t visited, no one would have known Zainab existed. No one would’ve seen that cracked pail in the corner. No one would’ve imagined an 80-year-old woman sleeping inches away from the place she bathes and goes to the toilet.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget her words: “I’m still here… I’m still breathing.”

A Silent Crisis Across Ghana

Zainab’s story, as heartbreaking as it is, isn’t unique. All across Ghana (and many parts of Africa) elderly people are quietly suffering in corners of society that the rest of the world rarely sees. Many have been left behind by families who migrated to cities or abroad. Others, like Zainab, never had children at all.

According to Ghana’s Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, a large number of older citizens (especially those in rural areas) live without any pension, stable support system, or access to healthcare.

And yet, Ghana is a country where we claim to respect our elders. We greet them with honor. We say “God bless you” when we pass them.
But too many are aging in silence, in poverty, in isolation.

The truth is, modern life has quietly broken the traditional family support structure. And Zainab is a living example of what happens when an aging person outlives their usefulness in the eyes of society.