A note she left for her father voiced anguished fears that Colombia's drug-fueled guerrilla war would engulf her family, refugees to this poverty-stricken village along with dozens of others.

Before the railroad arrived, it was virtually inaccessible: a collection of poverty-stricken villages whose common trait was suspicion of the world outside.

That seems to be the case here in this poverty-stricken village, where hundreds of colleagues of Mr. Li, the peasant who was paid, are still fighting city hall for their wages.

Fontamara itself is merely a poverty-stricken village in one of the most forsaken corners of Southern Italy.

After finishing teacher-training college, he taught at the poverty-stricken villages of Gilan-e-Gharb and Shah Abad (nowadays called Islam Abad).

Cousins Benny Silatoli and Josefa Ramacake, both 56, are barely surviving in poverty-stricken Fijian villages hit by a recent hurricane.

But in recent years, what had once been a poverty-stricken village has become the world's biggest shipbreaking yard.

He also attacked the group for building lavish camps in which to live next to poverty-stricken villages.

In the mud, it seemed like what it was--a poverty-stricken rural village.

But less than 50 miles away, in the poverty-stricken village of Sheri Ram Reddy Guda, the old India is alive and unwell.