Buenos Aires is a Safe Place

Buenos Aires is a safe place. About a month ago, a security truck loaded up with pension money got robbed in broad daylight in the city by an armed gang who did not hesitate to gun down the driver and the security officer who was with him. Only one of them survived. The security company went on strike to protest about their daily exposure to violence and death, leading to cash shortages all over the city. This had such diverse consequences as not being able to take out money from the bank to pay the rent (boo) and being able to use the Subte (underground) for free for two days (yeay).

I have only received one death threat so far. It was issued to me by a punk with a speed hangover smoking and gibbering to himself in the doorway of the illegal venue across the street just as I was leaving the flat in my pyjamas on a sunny Sunday morning to get facturas for breakfast. I successfully pulled the “I´m foreign” card on him to avoid escalation, to which his irrefutably logical reply was “don´t look at me then”.

The most dangerous thing I missed by two weeks. Before I got here, Francesca got caught in a crossfire of police and a fugitive bank robber on Cordoba (main street near where we live) and had to jump into a garage to let the being-shot-at robber run past her. Action! Yeah!

No, it really is safe here. I have witnessed three street robberies in Corrientes (main street right where we live) and Jimmy´s mum had an expensive necklace ripped of her neck as she was leaving the Subte but the good thing is that you never feel that you are going to be the victim of violence for any motivation other than money. This may sound odd but I mean it, as long as a) you don´t look rich (easy) and b) you never take really important things such as credit cards with you and c) you are fully prepared to give what little cash you have on you to the first bidder with a shiny metal friend for backup, you´re fine.

I didn´t always feel like this. In the first few weeks I made the acquaintance of a street kid of about fourteen or fifteen who was always asking for change one block from our house. While I lived in Paris I learnt to ignore people who wanted something from you because every now and then, they will either turn out to be an absolute nutcase or they will take your acknowledgement to mean you want to spend the rest of the day with and all of your money on them. The rules could not be more different in Buenos Aires. Here it is a mortal offence to ignore someone asking you for change/the time/a cigarette/your drink/the piece of paper you were about to throw away. Not parting with your pennies on the other hand is fully accepted. You just have to be nice about it.

It wasn´t until the third time I passed the kid on our street, desperately holding onto the cool I thought I had picked up so well in Paris, when he started running after me, calling me deaf and skinny (well, I suppose he´s got a valid point there) and other insults, that I realised my strategy wasn´t working. I struggled to think of a way to avoid the menace of almost daily, escalating confrontations with a scrawny little kid with nothing to lose and a lot of similarly scrawny friends just round the corner. In the end it was Francesca who suggested that the next time I passed him, I should say something to him to show I was aware of his existence.

It wasn´t long before the plan was tested in action. Once again, the kid, seeing me, came running over the street, breaking off from snorting paco (a cheap and nasty residue from cocaine production) with his mates to launch into the “have you got some change for me” routine. This time I looked at him, and, according to my instructions, politely said, “I´m really sorry mate, I haven´t got any”. To my surprise he just mumbled a few half-mocking replies and shuffled back off to his crew.

This episode was key to my conversion to the belief that Buenos Aires is one of the safest places I have lived in. Yes, every day there are people who want something you have that they don´t have, whether it´s a wallet or a bottle of grapefruit soda. But that´s pretty much where it ends. Noone wants to knife you in the kidneys and leave you to bleed to death, very simply because it doesn´t make a damn difference to their situation. I like that.