One of the things that you cannot help but notice in Argentina after being here a week or so is the persistency and cleverness of many of the people here in Argentina. They seem to have perfected methods of begging that are really quite ingenious as much as they are annoying. You must keep alert to keep yourself from being caught up in many of these schemes and scams, and keep your pesos in your wallet.
Most of the best beggars on the streets are children, who quite often have their mothers watching closely by. Even if a child is not the principal beggar, a mother holding a child will work almost as well. It is really quite ingenious; even I find it hard to resist a dirty, disheveled child who raises her small little hand for only a peso or two. My fellow traveler-students and I have experienced a girl of this type on our tour through Buenos Aires, with her mother off in the distance carrying another baby. She asked each of us, in turn, for money, not deterred in the least by the fact that all of us said no. When I looked back, the girl had changed tactics, by carrying the little baby with her on her search for money. Very clever, indeed. Another thing I have seen very often at the subway stations is a small child waiting for a few cents change from ticket purchases. How can you deny a little boy only a few small centavos in change from your ticket purchase? He, too, asked everyone without fail.
But one of the cleverest schemes I have heard of actually occurred in Mendoza. Sherezad came back late on Saturday night telling of two boys of 11 and 13 actually hustling people for money. What they did was tell people that there was a charge of two pesos for parking on the street, and, lo and behold, people believed them and they had made about 40 pesos by the time Sherezad talked to them. Wild! To think, kids that young are already perfecting such schemes!
I guess it all comes from the most basic of survival instincts. The people here have figured out the ways to play upon your emotions and your hurry. They learn to cheat and play dirty even at a very young age. But the thing is, they have to. They don’t have any other choice.
