Life in Latin America during the twentieth century was
             a far cry from the life that we were accustomed to. Many
             of her countries were and still are devastated by poverty
             and corruption in government. There are two people with
             unique yet similar life stories that help to illustrate the
             sadness and pain felt by the poor in Latin America.
             Carolina Maria De Jesus was born in 1913 in Sacramento, a small town in the inner part of Brazil. She is the author of Child of the Dark. This is her first hand account of life in a Brazilian favelas, or slum. She moved to the favelas with her three children after three different men had abandoned her as well as her employers. It was in this favelas where she would spend the next agonizing eleven years of her life.
             Each day she would wake up between five o'clock and seven o'clock in the morning to wait in line for water for her children. She would come home and cook them breakfast if she had any food. The rest of her day was spent searching the town for scraps of paper, metal and, food. She would trade the scrap metal and paper for next to nothing, and then spend all of it that day on food and other necessities. She would bring the food home to her children but it was never enough to fill their stomachs. It would kill her to her them ask for more when she new that she couldn't give it to them. The next day she would wake up and go through the same never ending routine.
             What she did every day is a perfect example of why their was no economic growth for the people in the favelas. She would make just enough to barely survive that day; thus there was no money to save. This is why she despised the favelas. It was her prison and it tortured her every day.
             Inhumane activities occurred daily in the favelas. Carolina would come home to her that grown woman and men had attacked her children. One day she speaks of how a woman threw dog feces in her sons face. ...