How are you metering the photograph? There is no one aperture/shutter-speed/iso combo for any situation, you either need to get an accurate meter reading or 'guess'. When I say 'guess' I mean use the Sunny 16 rule which is:

In daylight, the appropriate shutter speed at f16 is 1/ISO

So if your ISO is 200 and your aperture is f16 then your shutter speed is 1/200 (or 1/250), from this you can figure out any other aperture/shutter-speed combo 'guess': f11 would be 1/400, f8 would be 1/800 etc.

Given this starting point you can hold the camera up and get a meter reading to see how far off the guess is and adjust accordingly by looking at the meter in the view finder and changing your aperture/shutter-speed until it reads a good exposure. You may also want to try changing metering modes to be tighter (spot) or wider (matrix) which has a pretty good discussion going here:

When best to use Multi-Zone/Matrix, Spot, or Center-Weight?

EDIT (given the OP's edit):

The problem most certainly is metering. The camera is metering for the scene which sounds like its 90% The Sun and 10% your subject, you need to meter for your subject. You can accomplish this in a variety of ways:

-You could switch to spot metering and take a meter reading off your subject first and then use that for the photograph

-You could get really close to your subject and meter their chest/face such that they fill up most of the frame for metering and then go back to your original position and use that reading.

-You could look around near you for something in a similar amount of light (the ground in front of or behind your feet) and take a reading and use that

-Get more light on your subject somehow

-etc