What this also taught me is that I think poverty teaches you to value anything and everything you have .. importance of friends , importance of one time meal, importance of tiniest thing in your life .. It teaches you to survive on bare minimum. Poverty teaches gratitude.  Some of the most happy people in the world are those people who have the least.  When you aren't flooded with tons of material goods you can focus more on the simple things that you do have. Look at Brazil the have to struggle to eat but it's what keeps them humble.