Peru: poco a poco

Lima, at 9 million people one of the 10 largest cities in the Americas, is economically stratified but not stagnant. Here are snapshots of progress in the city that was once the capital of Spain's New World empire | Marvin Olasky

Associated Press/Photo by Esteban Felix

PERU—How to describe Lima? If my early-1970s Marxism still possessed me, I would describe homeless residents living and defecating on trash heaps. Families living in flimsy homes on hillsides. Then I would juxtapose those details with snapshots of rich Lima residents paragliding above a Malibu-like, oceanfront mall or shopping at the mall's 14 jewelry and 18 gift stores. But two other comparisons suggest a different perspective.

First comparison: Cuba and Peru. Five years ago in Havana, the phrase I heard frequently was "uno mundo mejor," a better world. That was the official goal of the Castro regime, but many Cubans used it sarcastically: Five decades of Communism had stopped economic progress and turned the island into a prison. In Lima recently, though, the phrase I often heard was "poco a poco," economic improvement little by little.