The face of poverty

Cotonou, Benin

What does the face of poverty look like? It looks like a man, rail thin, wearing old that are rumpled and torn. He is clean, though. He has come to tell us that his daughter-the one we helped him buy school supplies for last fall-had been very ill in the hospital. She was in the main hospital for three weeks and every day they fed three bottles of serum into her body by IV drip. He spent every cent he had and the church helped him out. This daughter, who was eight years old, was his only child. She died this afternoon at 3 p.m.

Now he needs to figure out what to do with the body. He doesn't have any more money. He can't pay to put the body in the morgue. He …