Merry Christmas

My language school encourages all students to visit one of the poorer barrios of Cartagena and volunteer for an afternoon.  We bought and gave out toys to the kids, with the usual heartbreak of having to say to the ones whose parents didn't register the week before, 'sorry chico, no present from Santa for you'. 

I'm still surprised by this country, and in particular Cartagena, where there's a hotel that costs $1,000 a night and children with no shoes, within 15 minutes drive of one another.  As everyone says, this isn't a poor country, it just has a wealth distribution problem.