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Poverty The Young girl thought to herself as she sat under the Cypress tree in the blazing sun watching the heat waves shimmer above the blinding brightness of the hot sand, “I wish I had food in my stomach. My back aches and my body feels weak and enervated. In the last week, I have eaten only rice and beans. Sometimes I only eat two or three times a week. Having to sleep in one room with the rest of my family on the hard, uncomfortable floor and listen to my brother cough all night, I am sleep deprived. I never know what the next day may bring. I just hope to survive.” Sadly, this is a typical life for someone living in poverty. Half of the world population lives on less than two dollars a day (Hogan). Poverty, a growing problem throughout the world, is a severe situation in which people endure critical shortages, such as the basic necessities to survive. A blind woman from Maldova describes life as a poor individual: “For a poor person everything is terrible, illness, humiliation, shame. We are cripples; we are afraid of everything; we depend on everyone. No one needs us” (qtd. in “Dying” 9). People in poverty have lived voiceless and silent, but are finally beginning to get their voices heard.