Poverty Project International Stories

There is a park in the middle of town on the island of Colon in Bocas Del Toro, Panama. Streets run around all four sides of it. Fantastically huge trees grow in the park and the peeling-painted benches offer seating to travelers and locals alike. If you walk down the street on the west side of the park and you see Good Times walking down the street on the east side of the park, you better hurry up and decide if you want to buy one of his free newspapers. Yes, buy one. Good Times is my nick name for Sergio because he is always trying to sell me a copy of the little free newspaper called The Good Times. I get it. He needs to eat and he doesn't want to beg. I buy his newspaper occasionally and sometimes I just buy him lunch. But this is not about his financial situation. It's about his intuition. If you walk down the west street and Good Times is walking in the opposite direction down the east street and you just catch a glimpse of him through those great trees, the one...

We crossed a swinging bridge in the mountains of Costa Rica and climbed the hill to where the Watsi village spread out among the trees. Thatched roofed homes greeted us, and simple people opened their hearts wide and took us in. The Watsi are delightful. They live close to the earth and in connection with a sacred chocolate forest.   ​ “Cacao is the Mother of us all,” the daughter of the village medicine man explained as she led us past stone statutes of warriors and crocodiles guarding the entrance to the ancient cacao grove. We entered a dark hut where a tiny wrinkled woman was roasting dried beans over an open fire. She scooped up the hot beans and spread then out on a well-worn stone. She rocked another stone back and forth over the beans until they were crushed into a warm paste which she formed into a ball. ​ “This is the cacao,” she explained in heavily accented Spanish. She let me taste it. It was bitter. ​ Theobroma—Greek for God Food—is the ...