Yes, it isn't cheap and I was also surprised when I heard about food prices. In general, it doesn't seem much lower than Europe here.
I have to admit that the prices surprised me, especially after I found data on
average salaries that are incomparably lower than the EU average - so a construction worker and a teacher earn about $370 a month, and a maintenance and cleaning crew only $166.
I don't know if we can reach 10k here, maybe it's also possible to scale it down but it was based on my estimations from last round (we collected almost 0.1BTC in our German local board very quickly but BTC price was at 30k when we collected it).
I believe that the situation has changed with this price increase, people see that the price is rising and there are stories that 1 BTC will be worth maybe a few hundred thousand $. There comes a time when every satoshi will be appreciated - but I hope the project will succeed, although it may take a little longer than it did before.