Like many cities, poor districts border wealthy areas in Lima. My friends gave me of a tour of a district known as Las Delicias de Villa. Past the beautiful homes and protected private schools we drove through another realm of sand, rubble, and shacks. Some with makeshift roofs of cardboard, or scrap metal. Piles of cement line the dirt roads leading up the hill. Windows may miss glass. There are no plantings, no landscape. It feels like desert. Dusty piles of debris are strewn about.
The contrast is shocking. The mind can scarcely adjust to the switch in the time a car can swiftly transition from one neighborhood to the other.
With the images of poverty and wealth juxtaposed in my mind, I wait to board a flight from Lima Peru to 
Miami. I think of Maria, the maid of my host. She does not have much money but owns a winning smile. By various cleaning jobs she has managed to keep her family financially together. Before I left Lima, Maria gave me a pair of earrings. I did not expect this. She gave me this gift not out of her fiscal wealth.
Waiting at the gate of Jorge Chavez Lima International Airport, two American women argue with a flight attendant about moving from a seating area designated for parents with infants or elderly. Another attendant comes to the rescue. He fixes his brown eyes on the American faces. In broken but understandable English, he says “this area is only for babies and elderly. Please can you find a seat anywhere else [pointing to both sides of the waiting area.”
The two women begrudgingly move. They roll their eyes. “I cannot wait to return to American soil,” they say across the room to other members of the tour group. “Poverty” I think. What is it about wealth that makes people poor in generosity, poor in heart, poor in gratitude?
My Peruvian host said that many maids and nannies live in districts such as the one pictured here. Perhaps Maria comes from such a place. But wherever she is from, however she lives, I know she gave something more than earrings to me. And I say both she and I are the richer for it.