Many Westerners picture Papua New Guinea as a place where naked savages seek to satisfy their cannibalistic cravings by inviting unsuspecting foreigners to dinner. Most National Geographic specials focus on the cultural traditions of ancestral worship and traditional dances with less than modest clothing. This is not the real PNG. On the main street of Goroka, the fifth-largest town in PNG, which is becoming one of the main educational centers, it is not uncommon to see extremes: a man dressed in the traditional pulpul (string apron) with his body covered in the bright paint applied for warfare or celebrations called "sing sings". A man with bird of paradise feathers and animal skins adorning his hair was seen in line at the ATM machine!... Read More.

Juanito and Magda traveled 24 hours on a broken-down, smelly bus to arrive in MEXICO CITY. What they didn't know was that 3,000 other migrants had moved in that day, as they do every day. Juanito had been a farmer and carpenter and the couple, along with three small children, were in search of one thing: Opportunity.Juanito dreamed of opening his own carpentry shop. Magda wished for better education for her children so they would have a brighter future with fewer struggles and poverty than she and her husband had known. They stood in a line of 400 people to register for food stamps to pick up milk and tortillas. Their dreams of a better day crashed around them as reality set in... Read More.

Buildings snaked along the coastline for about 50 miles, crowding to the edge where land meets sea. They filled the flat area that followed the line between sea and mountain and pushed up the sides of the range-fingers of chalk-white buildings clinging to the slopes- before disappearing into the smoggy, grey-green vegetation. Where the mountains broke into plains, the buildings spread inland, displacing agricultural fields and rice paddies with concrete and asphalt. Even from the air I had a sense of claustrophobia. How can people bear to live in that? I thought, gazing down on central Japan. As we flew east, I was glad I didn't have to live in there... Read More.