"Is that how that works?"

We helped give some international students a tour of Madison this Saturday, ending the tour at a host home where we narfed goodies and chewed the fat. I talked for a while with an earnest young grad student from India, who was concerned about the poverty rate in his home country and what to do about it. The conversation went on to what we'd been doing the previous day, and I said I'd been fixing things and doing household maintenance--the usual sorts of things you have to do when you own a home. He seemed a little surprised: "We have a maid to do that sort of thing." I pointed out that salaries were a little higher in this country. I wonder if he made the connection to the poverty rate he was worried about...