CuidaCoches, and now, CuidaCasas

For ten minutes now, the news station I'm watching has been talking about "Cuidacasas", which roughly translates as 'house-watchers'. At first I thought it would be a story on house-sitters, which sounded weird, but instead, CuidaCasas are just the new manifestation of CuidaCoches, who are guys who hang out on the streets here in certain places and "watch"your parked car.

I remember this from Brazil -- everywhere we went, our hosts had to slip some cash to some teen-age boy who was hanging around. And here it works basically the same, though it's not as prevalent. This phenomenon seems like a good demonstration of how Argentina is precariously slipping into third world status.

I remember thinking in Brazil that these guys were just opportunistic entrepreneurs, offering a legitimate service to people who wanted to park in areas that were not safe. But listening to the news here, they clearly think the practice is extortion. Just a minute ago, they had a graphic on screen that says "If you don't pay, they'll rob you." That pretty much tells the story.

The news segment showed lots of pictures of these CuidaCoche and CuidaCasa people, all teen-age boys or slightly older, and they sure enough look like kids who would rob you given the chance. A lot of the people interviewed expressed a fair amount of empathy for the poor kids, noting how they had no money and no chance for a job or anything. This was nice, there's still a "social consciousness" here. But at the same time, no one likes being shaken down, and some people really, really don't like it.

I'm a little worried for Argentina. I'm afraid that it's going to slip further and further into third-world type insecurity, that a huge gulf is going to open up between the fancy rich people and the teeming masses of poor people. And unfortunately, Argentina has a long tradition of authoritarianism competing with its more liberal traditions. And I'm afraid if the economic recovery continues to not reach the poor, crime will rise to the point where the rich people say "basta" and return to an authoritarian, police-state type of country. Not pretty. But then again, my perspective is certainly being warped by my TV news watching. (Which I'm doing for the spanish practice -- it's just way, way easier to figure out what they're talking about on the news programs than on anything else.)

I think I have seen some CuidaCoches in my neighborhood. There's a dark, slighly sketchy open area area by the train tracks near my house where people park at night to go to the fancy bars and restaurants in the area, and at night there is usually one or two people there kind of directing cars to parking places and clearly taking money. I thought that somehow they were sanctioned, because there are always cops near this area. (Funny, how there are always cops near the fancy shops and bars.) But now I think maybe they're just free-lance
CuidaCoches and the cops just can't be bothered. I'll have to check it out a little more carefully one of these days.

Update: I was out two nights ago with my super-cool Porteno friend Marial, and she drove her car, and both times she parked it she had to pay a cuidacoche. She says you basically have no choice but to pay what they ask -- the only other option is to move the car. Which does sound quite a bit like extortion. We laughed wondering how each guy got his block -- did he have to beat up the previous cuidacoche for that block?

The second time Marial parked, we were a group of five getting out of the car, including a 6ft 5 in tall Finnish dude who could not possibly look less Argentinian. The cuidacoche on that block asked for five pesos, ($1.50 or so), which marial says is outrageous. She figures it was since we looked foreign and rich.