Gabe Francis is a kiva fellow.

“I used to talk to people on the ground all the time. I would ask them – what is poverty to you, and what is wealth? You see you could have a house with a cement floor and hardly a roof. You and your family eat rice and beans on the hard floor, maybe not even swept. And someone sees that and thinks – my, you have a house! And that is something, and you are rich.”

“Poverty is relative,” I nod.

“It is, indeed. Not just relative to others who have more or less than you, but relative to your expectations. It’s a question of vision. When you look at your life and it doesn’t look like your vision, it’s then that you feel poor.”

An excerpt from a beautiful dialogue on poverty from Taylor, former Kiva Fellow in Burundi. Read the whole blog post here: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2010/04/30/microfinance-skeptics-rethink-your-vision-of-success/