http://jesuisreconnaissant.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-beginning-to-look-like-link-tastic.html

My experience was in third grade when I temporarily moved to a city in Mexico called Cuernavaca, about a 2 hour drive through the winding mountains south of Mexico City. This town is beautiful and if you are able to look in the right places behind the vast walls, you will find the most beautiful palaces in the world; a city of extreme wealth and extreme poverty with little inbetween.

The first incident I’ll mention was when my mother took myself and my two younger siblings to McDonalds. After getting our food we chose to eat outside and enjoy the luscious weather that the town is named after. Surrounding the outside patio was a 10ft rod iron fence, with children pleading, begging, reaching their arms in, for food. Being a third grader and seeing kids my age, an older sister and her younger brother, begging for something I take completely for granted.. It’s scaring, but not necessarily a bad thing to have experienced.

The man was clearly dead. The picture of him in my mind is always what I think of when I think of true poverty.

Then I discovered that those cardboard boxes were used to make shelters for homeless, poverty stricken families. It made me feel sick to my stomach.

During my first 6 months in the PI, I felt overwhelmingly guilty about my fortunate position in life as opposed to those all around me who were scrambling to survive. Hungry, skinny children dressed in filthy rags, families digging through refuse bins for discarded food, women selling their bodies to feed their families – all became a regular part of the every day scenery.

If you have an ounce of compassion in your heart, an experience like that will forever profoundly change you.

Now, when I press my glass to my fridge door and get ice cubes and chilled, clean water, I am aware of how fortunate I am. As I plan and save for my future and retirement, I never forget how lucky I am to even have such options.

It’s difficult for those of us who live in the USA to realize just how fortunate we are, even in these bad times.

I hope everyone, though times be tight, will remember to donate to charities that help feed/support the poor.

Plonkee, yes Tijuana is just across the border from the USA south of San Diego.

Jim

Great collection of pictures. Poverty as you rightly said has many forms. The one that I hate is “Not having enough medications to survive”. People die of curable and preventable diseases. I wish every person on earth gets enough medication so that they don’t die because of diseases.

It’s amazing the difference a few miles and an accident of history can make in what poverty looks like.

@Kristina – Very good points!

@J.D. – I agree with your wife’s opinion. The pic of the woman with the dogs has “something” else going on with it. There seems to be a real attitude of cockiness and defiance, I don’t know. The woman in the pic reminds me of the attitudes I frequently ran across with my attempts to rent to low income types over the past 3 years. There is something about that pic that gets my back up. I prefer the one you actually ended up posting for some reason. Just my 2c.

Additionally, there are different types of poverty and not all of them need to be cured. Some forms of poverty mean that people are going without food or shelter, are working in slave-like conditions, etc. There are other situations around the world where people live at a subsistence level, but I would not consider them poor. I lived with people like this in Fiji, Bolivia, Costa Rica and other places. Their networth may be close to zero, but they still aren’t “poor” in the sense that they live in a lush and forgiving environment, they get all of the food they need from the environment around them, they build perfectly adequate housing from the environment around them, their other basic needs are met, and they would tell you they are happy and fine (until globalization and advertising come in and convince them that they need processed foods, jeans, a car, and a loan to make it all possible).

Ah, yes. The troublesome “U.S.A.” photo. As most of you probably noticed, I tried to select photos from diverse geographical regions. Curiously, there aren’t many Flickr photos from the U.S. tagged with “poor” or “poverty”, though there are many tagged with “homeless”. (By the way — I see what you all mean about there being a difference between homeless and poverty, but I’m not sure what that difference is. To me, homeless is a subset of poor. Is this not correct?)

I knew that I need a photo from the U.S., but didn’t like any of the ones that I found. First, I was trying to avoid racial stereotypes. Second, a lot of the photos I found were just like the one of mine I posted, but with different people. The photo I intended to use for most of the prep time (I worked on this post for two weeks) was this one here), but Kris rejected it as not being about poverty, either.

I was about to give up on the U.S. entirely, when I remembered a fellow I had met five years ago while taking photos on a Saturday morning. He was, indeed, homeless, and to me he seemed to embody the type of poverty I see in Portland. (I know it’s not the only sort of poverty that exists here, but it’s the kind I see.) This man — Talon — kept all of his belongings in a grocery cart, and he kept three cats on a leash.

I ended up using my own photo because it was easy, and because I was running out of time. The entire project would have been easier if I wasn’t ham-strung by copyright laws.

Again, I’d like to point out that we have to take the photographers at their word that these people are poor (or homeless). Kris told me that she doesn’t think the family from Bolivia (photo 18) looks poor. Is that because they’re dressed colorfully? Because they’re smiling? All I know is that the photographer labelled them as poor, and these are the only people he did so among many other photos of Bolivia.

To me, the kids from Jordan don’t necessarily look poor, but again, that’s my point. We each have certain notions about what poverty is and looks like. Poverty takes many forms, though. No one form of poverty is “better” than any other.

Anyhow, it’s good to remember how fortunate we are but let’s try not to pity everyone too much. If they have a loving family they probably don’t mind that they can’t afford an iPhone.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to question whether all of these photos actually depict poverty. The little child in China, for example, is a bit dirty (have any of our children passed through that age sterling clean every minute?) but looks plump, adequately clothed, and healthy. There are no flies in his eyes; no eczema on his face or head; no visible sign of congenital syphilis; no bloated belly. The family in Madagascar: is that their field? If so, they may not regard themselves as poor — they may define themselves as rural and hardworking, which is different from truly poor. Ditto the tribal women in Bolivia: they don’t appear to be starving. How do they define themselves, and why?

The people who appear to be homeless mentally ill represent a subset of the poverty issue that relates to the failure of societies — some of them very affluent societies, such as the one we live in — to attend to members who can’t care for themselves. While this is poverty of the worst kind, it strikes me as different from the issues pictured in the photos of people in Nicaragua and Cambodia. It’s more a healthcare issue than an economic one.

Also, a lot of self-made people are very very driven, and that generally isn’t a recipe for overt displays of happiness. This doesn’t mean they aren’t happy, just that they won’t show it as much.

His other book, The Consolations of Philosophy, also discusses what philosophy has to say about ‘Not Having Enough Money.’

(Sorry, I don’t know how to do italics or fancy links!)

http://www.amazon.com/Status-Anxiety-Alain-Botton/dp/0375420835

http://www.amazon.com/Consolations-Philosophy-Alain-Botton/dp/0679779175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224153618&sr=1-1

case in point: i’m sure many of you wouldn’t think twice of giving $1 to any of the people in the photos if you walked past them and they were begging. Because we don’t think about economies of scale or relativeness in doing so. $1 doesn’t get you much in the US, but $1 stretches far in other places (i.e. cost of living). Would they all be poor in the US? Most assuredly. Would they be poor elsewhere? Up to debate.

I agree that overall, people in poor countries are happier. I grew up in a third world country and all my life I was generally happy because I was surrounded by family and friends. Here in the US, more and more we are turning to material things to find happiness. We move so much, we don’t get to spend more time with family and friends.

You’re right — my experience doesn’t compare to the experience of these people. But my family *was* poor relative to its peers, and that mindset has stuck with me. We weren’t the poorest family in our community, and I cannot relate to the experience of the people in the photographs I’ve found. But that doesn’t mean my own experience isn’t valid, or that I’m demeaning anyone. It’s not a contest. There are no winners with poverty.

I will say, though, that finding these photographs *did* make me think, made me realize how important it is for me to help others, not just in writing about money, but contributing time and money.

@Farbie
What does poor look like? Are poor people always unhappy? That’s kind of what I was trying to get at in my opening statements on this post. Of course, we can’t know if the photographer’s assessment of each situation is accurate, but each claims that her subjects is in poverty.

(Also, in some cases it helps to read the stories behind the photos.)

Poverty comes in many forms. Some are more shocking than others. None of it is good.

Thank you for keeping these images diverse. Too many people associate poverty – especially in imagery – with Africa and Asia. I found the geography of these photographs just as intriguing and surprising as the subject matter.

Alan

My favorite picture, though, is the one of the kid in the recepticle — in Cambodia. Truly captures the essence of what you’re talking about.

Keep up the great work here at Getrichslowly.