In neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone, recently-ended wars have cost around half a million lives in 15 years and left millions beggared and bereaved.
Signature beggar's purse (tiny crpes filled with caviar and lobster, tied with a shallot string) are aptly named, as your purse will indeed be beggared by the dish.
The composition of both the school board, which presided over some of the worst schools in the state, and the city council, which all but beggared the place, has remained much the same.