He is the last of about a hundred people who have filed through the comedor, a cooperative soup kitchen, for their one meal a day. When we ask his name, he looks up, black eyes glittering. Jesus is a popular name all over Latin America but hearing it in the dusty comedor is still a shock as celebrations to mark the 2,000th anniversary of his namesake gather pace in central Lima. What the IMF and the World Bank ignore is the enormous inequality of incomes. Debt campaigners in Peru claim that these crude measures starkly illustrate the bankruptcy of the international institutions' understanding of debt and development.
Inequality is evident everywhere in Peru.
It is in the gulf between El Agostino and central Lima where the gleaming towers of the booming bank sector line new expressways. And things have only got worse in the 90s. While a tiny elite has prospered, the lives of the residents of El Agostino are more precarious than ever. Jesus's mother is shy, but the women who have cooked his lunch are happy to talk. Susanna Arce Sarmiento depends on the comedor to feed herself and her three children.