I was so psyched for the Real City Tour offered by my Spanish school. A chance to see a poverty-stricken area, complete with how people work, live, drink, and learn? Voyeuristic, yes, but also my idea of a VERY interesting afternoon.

We started at an adobe brick-making site, where a number of small men mixed dirt, water, and straw, hauled the material, and fashioned adobe bricks. Backbreaking work, to be sure. This type of work is usually done by recent emigrants to the city for extremely low wages. By working during daylight hours (and completing 300 bricks), the pay is s/15, which is about $5. To stave off hunger and fatigue, workers constantly chew coca leaves and later drink chicha.

These specific workers had their adobe site right next to their homes, very modest homes of adobe with tin and bright blue tarps as the roof. About every 10 minutes, a Boeing 747 would fly almost directly overhead - sleek LAN jets heading to Lima, maybe, or Santiago, or Bogota.