I have seen poverty in many places, but an urban section of Johannesburg, South Africa called Soweto has always served as a benchmark for me. A kind of barometer for just how terribly people in the very same world in which I am living, could be living. In Soweto, a patchwork of AIDS-ridden shanty villages contrast with affluent malls and housing complexes in the suburban foothills. The poor always walk. The wealthy drive. The poor serve. The wealthy consume. In short, the poverty is incredible not only in itself but because resources and opportunity are so nearby.
