Ticlio Chico, Villa Maria del Triunfo, Lima

A visit to Ticlio Chico in the southern outskirts of Lima, reveals a significant absence of
infrastructure and urban services in low-income housing developments. The aim of this second
visit to the hamlet was to check on the health of Enedina, a 65-year-old woman we met at the
outset of the pandemic.

Enedina Rivera’s precarious home is located on the edge of a hill made of sand and rocks.
Growing up in Huanuco, a remote region in the central Andes, her parents entrusted her to a
landowner family who kept her in a secluded room and forced her to care for animals.

For years, she only interacted with livestock. She escaped at the age of fifteen and, to survive,
married an older man who physically and mentally abused her. She had nine children but lost
two of them. One of her sons helped her to flee to Lima, where she settled in her own house
perched on the cliff. She was peeling garlic for a living, 15 kilos a day, making only $2 dollars per
day.

Even under these adverse conditions, the sight of the distant mountains and the ocean evoke in
Enedina a profound sense of wonder (awe) and resilience as she sits on a rock at the edge of the
hill.

In the vicinity, she has met women who have similar stories and bonded over their shared
experience. Perhaps they are protective factors that mitigate the negative consequences of their
hostile realities.

Thousands of Peruvian seniors live in extreme poverty but lack access to social services such as
Pensión 65. Over 81,000 elderly persons have been left out of the system that decides whether
households require support.

She now makes more money, but more importantly, she now feels a proud citizen of this great
chaotic city called Lima.