Minimum Wage

On Monday Corban and I are going to see an Orthopedic doctor to put a cast on his arm. It's scheduled during our "nap" time. It's already a chore to take 3 kids to the hospital let alone when they should be sleeping (i.e. cranky!). So I asked our househelper's daughter if she could come and stay with the boys while they sleep. There's really no such thing as babysitting here and that makes it difficult to know what the going babysitting rate is:)
As you'd expect min. daily wages are pretty low here. Previously, when our teenage friend from church watched the boys I paid $5 for 4 hours, and that's more than most people make in a day here. I felt cheap by American standards but I think she was happy.
So as I was trying to decide what to pay our sitter on Monday I looked up Minimum Wages for India on the internet. I was shocked to find out (although, i really shouldn't be) that the min. wage for domestic workers in our state is less than $2 a day! What floors me even more is that people can afford to eat here. Food is pretty expensive for that salary. I guess that's why people live on rice, vegetables and bread.
So if I pay her $5 she will be making more than 2 days salary. Incredible. Compare that to the going rate in the Woodlands, TX for a babysitter...$10 an hour!