Mexico City is a city of courtyards and roundabouts and street-corner communities; little pockets of life stitched together into a tapestry of neighbourhoods within neighbourhoods within neighbourhoods like a never-ending Russian doll. In the soft, fading light, we sit in one such courtyard and sip from clay mugs of earthy, spicy Oaxacan hot chocolate.

Lorena buys a mug for a small elderly woman who approaches us and asks her, perfectly dignified, for a snack and a few pesos. The three of us sit in silence, watching dusk fall.