Poverty

NASHIK, India -- On a recent afternoon, Seetabai Atthre heard a faint cry from the edge of a vineyard her family has cultivated for more than 40 years on the arid plains of northern Maharashtra state. Searching through the furrows, she found her husband, Vishal, smoldering on the ground next to an empty can of kerosene. He died in a local hospital three days later from severe burns.

The Atthre farm had not turned a profit in more than two years, and 65-year-old Vishal could no longer secure loans from local banks to pay off the interest on the $5,600 he already owed.

The Dongria Kond are an indigenous tribe native to the virgin forest of India's southwestern Orissa state. For centuries they have lived high in the Niyamgiri hills, relying on its bounty of fruits and vegetables, and the wild game they hunt with bow and arrow. The Indian government once slated the range to become a protected reserve. The Dongria, for their part, hold it to be a sacred God.

Niyamgiri, India — As he recalled a recent trip to the nation's capital, Drika Kadraka came to a sudden halt on a footpath that winds sharply to his village. He then raised his arms in a gesture of thanks to the vast night sky.

"Without our moon, our stars, we Dongria started to feel lost, missing our home," the indigenous leader said, alluding to the dense smog that often blankets New Delhi. "We are lucky here. I know we must never leave these beautiful hills."

Every day, three times a day, the women and young girls of Dillo Town, Ethiopia have to walk an hour and a half hauling water from a natural spring to take care of their families' daily needs. The water is brackish, contaminated by livestock and unfit to drink. But they do drink it and often get sick. Jessica Partnow offers this Day in the Life portrait of a water walker as typical of thousands of women around the world who have to walk miles every day just to get drinking water.

It's only mid-morning, and sitting in his simple studio in the shadow of some of Rangoon's wealthiest mansions, Thein Soe is already exhausted.

"In your country, you work two days and you have food for a week," says Maung Lwin, a welder taking a break for tea after lunch. "Here, you work for one day and you eat for one day." Lwin supports his family on an average daily wage of $2.30, the same salary the government pays a specialized doctor. Money is so tight that even sitting down for a 15 cent cup of tea takes careful consideration.

"You are human, I am also human," he tells me. "But my luck is not the same as your luck."

We stood in the pre-dawn glow of the streetlamps, greeted by intoxicated heckles from the previous night’s most diligent drinkers. A battered, extended cab Toyota Hilux pickup pulled up, carrying a mound of mysterious goods under a green tarp and bearing faded Ethiopian Red Cross decals on its doors.

Deep in the virgin jungle of southern Chhattisgarh, Naxalite guerillas live, train and recruit beyond the reach of government forces.

During its 46-year rule, Burma's military government has turned one of the wealthiest countries of Southeast Asia into one of the poorest and most isolated nations in the world.

The damages are evident everywhere; pre-WWII commuter buses growl through the cities and grinding poverty forces beggars and prostitutes to ply the streets beneath Orwellian billboards.

5:30 a.m. and still dark. But the rooster knows the sun is coming and his crow trills up past the sulfurous street lamps into the still night sky.

He’s woken the dogs, and suddenly their frantic howling seems to come from the top of every hill in Addis, making the city seem surrounded by their feral packs.

The sharp barks are soon undercut by the rising moan of the muezzin. He sings the same words that have woken me around the world, but his melody here is unique, more of a monotonous chanting than the sung declaration I’ve heard before.