“At this moment,” he said, taking up where I left off, “eighty percent of the country lives that way, without a decent place to take a shit. The small amount of land they might once have had has been carved up over generations. They don’t have enough to feed themselves. They are forced into illiteracy by lack of education. Their life expectancy is about forty-seven years for the men, slightly more for the women. I told you that one in five children dies before the age of five, mostly of dehydration caused by dysentery and also by diseases like measles. These kids don’t get vaccinated for
...more
