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He couldn't have been more than seven-years old and yet there he was, sitting on the hood of my car with his squeegee in hand washing the windshield as I waited for the light to turn green. Then the light turned green and he hopped down off the hood, and stood there holding out his hand in the hopes that I would give him a tip.

My family and I were on our way home in Santa Cruz, Bolivia when we passed through this intersection. We were proud of our new car, and had just finished driving around town showing it off, when we hit the red light that forever changed my views on what poverty is.

We had probably passed through this intersection several hundred times riding in a taxi or a "micro" (a mini-bus), but this was the first time that I was driving myself. This was the first time I had ever seen a young boy risking his life to clean a windshield in the hopes of getting the equivalent of an American dime. Then I considered the times I had been riding as a passenger in a taxi. Little boys hopping on the hood of the taxi only to meet the spray of wiper fluid, as the driver refused to pay a tip.

Therefore, in the thirty-second interruption of our lives at this red light, I made a decision. As we cleared the intersection, I made a right-hand turn into the parking lot of "Nana's Snack", a small hamburger stand. My family and I crawled out of the car and took a table under the awning as Nana came out to serve us. The price was five pesos (about $0.80) for a large cheeseburger, large fries and a 16-oz bottle of coke.

As we ordered food for the family, I asked Nana to call the boys from the intersection over and serve them all dinner. She quickly sent her daughter running over to the intersection as she threw some more hamburgers on the grill and potatoes into the fryer. As word spread around the intersection, the boys and girls risking their lives for a pittance were sitting around the various tables waiting for their dinner.

The little boy who had washed my windshield was sitting at the table next to me, and I watched as he hungrily wolfed down his French fries. Then, after he finished half his fries, I watched with curiosity as he carefully folded napkins around his hamburger as if he were preparing for a takeout. So I asked him if he was going to save it to eat later at his home.

He answered that he was taking the food home to feed his mother and his two young siblings.

He couldn't have been more than seven-years old and yet he was the man of the family.

That was when I realized the savage truth of poverty.

Learn more about this author, Alan Fernald.
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