Diery Gueye does not have a bank account, a car or a house of his own, let alone a mortgage.

He has not heard of the global financial crisis that has sent markets tumbling and forced governments in the rich developed world to divvy up hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out collapsed banks and try to calm anguished homeowners and savers.

The only crisis he knows of is surviving day by day in his native Senegal, where the 45-year-old laborer barely earns enough to feed his wife and three kids and rent a room.