I just went and re-read your review (and dear god I'm now viewing those three Rs in a row with horror) and the thing you mention when you're discussing her attitude towards poverty is a bit reminiscent, of a particular blog I'm reading now, which is by a library technician from WV who went on a medical mission to Central America this past spring. It's fascinating - he's updating day-by-day with his day-by-day experiences, and he's confronting a lot of poverty and having culture shock. But every so often he mentions the desperate poverty, or posts a picture of something he calls a shack, which isn't a shack at all but a fairly decent low-income house for the third world. And it makes me wonder if he's even seen some of the desperate poverty in his own state, or if he's seeing poverty anywhere near the poverty of the Nairobi slums, which is what I tend to think of when people talk about desperate poverty. It seems - emphasis on the seems - like he's dealing with a lot of poor people, but not people who don't know where tonight's meal is coming from, or who are making the decision about which child to feed.