More on Cartoneros

I'm putting up another post on Cartoneros just because I got a better picture of one today, one with his cart somewhat loaded up. Cartoneros are the city's freelance recyclers. I wrote a long-ish post about them last week.


This guy is only 16 or 17, so his cart is on the small side, and not too loaded up. Bigger, older guys haul around four, five, six times this much stuff, all on these two wheel carts that require careful balancing.

Last night I went for a midnight bike ride downtown and back, and I saw lots of Cartoneros out.

I read recently that they canceled the tren blanco, the free cartonero train that they used to use to haul their findings out to the suburbs where they hand them in to the recycling companies or the brokers or whoever. Now, it seems that everything has to move by truck. So last night I saw six, seven, eight big ol' trucks being loaded up with these giant sacks full of recyclables. No forklifts here, these guys and women lift these sacks, some of which probably weight a couple hundred pounds. Serious work.

I also saw two of the trucks loaded to the brim with recyclables and also with cartoneros -- fifteen or twenty people perched on top of and between all the bags and piles of cardboard and whatever. People were still scrambling up into the second truck, and they were laughing and yucking it up quite a bit. It actually did look pretty funny, because the load is anything but stable so they were kind of falling around in the back as they jumped up and got settled.

I'm glad they were able to see the humor and enjoy themselves a bit after a hard day and night of work.

This begger got some money from me

I was riding the subte (subway) here today, and it was hot and crowded. It was 90, 92 humid degrees or so today, and there's no such thing as air conditioning in the subte. So, it was a kind of uncomfortable ride.

I hear a begger giving her speech down the car, but I can't see her. This is unusual, because you don't really get beggers on the subte here. You get tons of people selling things, all kinds of things. They have a funny technique, where they go up and down the car, and place the book, toy, hair clip, or whatever in everybody's lap or hand it to everybody, and then they go back and either pick up the item or if they're lucky the cash that someone is willing to part with. These men and women, boys and girls, definitely hustle, they are working, make no mistake about it.

So it was unusual to hear someone just asking for money. I couldn't hear/understand much of what she said, but she definitely said something about an operation in a hospital.

My New York wariness kicks in somewhat, but I don't want to be too cold here, so I take a look down the car to get a look at her between the people standing if I can. And right away, when I see her, I know I'm taking out the wallet. Because ... her whole face is burned off. Seriously, melted. After a while she made her way back down to our end, and I got a much better look as I handed her ten pesos (3 bucks or so). Her face was all melted, her ears were gone, they were just holes, and her whole scalp was gone, except for a patch in the very back where she had eight-inch long hair growing in a ponytail.

As she came closer, I saw that it wasn't just her face. Her arms were totally scarred, and, I hate to say it, she didn't have either hand. Both hands, gone. Stumps at the wrist, or slightly above. You couldn't hand her money, you had to put it in a little purse she had around her neck.

God, it breaks my heart just writing about it. Lord knows it set off a torrent of thinking about fate and merit and fairness and charity etc. etc. etc. etc., which you will be thankful to hear I won't bore you with here.

But what impressed me most about this woman, when she came by and I got a look at her face, we made some eye contact and she was very not self-conscious, it seemed she had made her peace with her condition. Later I thought, fuck, this woman is so much tougher than me.

One last detail, perhaps the most interesting. When I looked at this woman, with face seriously deformed, and no hands, I realized she was wearing eye makeup. It was kind of inspiring, she actually moved through the car with confidence. Like I said, fuck, this woman is tougher than me.

I hope I see her on the subte again -- I will give her more than a ten next time.

Oh, this is too good

Okay, I think this is the most ridiculous, most hilariously unique thing I've seen so far here in Buenos Aires.

I'm flippin' channels on the cable TV, going through the five sports channels because I know there was a tennis tournament today, and I see that two of the five channels are broadcasting the same Boca Juniors game. Boca Juniors are one of the two big local futbol (soccer) teams, the other being River Plate. Nice names, huh?

On both channels, they're showing the score and the time remaining in a box up top, and they're panning around the stadium, showing fans, going nuts as they always are. And on both channels the announcers are doing the play-by-play in spanish, with the usual ups and downs of the game -- the announcers always getting more excited as the ball gets down by the goal.

OK, here's the good part -- both channels just keep moving the camera around the crowd, they don't show the game at all. Even when the announcers are going nuts, the camera is just panning around the stadium. On both channels.

So, clearly, neither of these channels had the right to broadcast the game. But somehow, they have the right to broadcast shots of the stadium and play-by-play. But the really amazing thing is, they put this on TV, and people must watch it. And enough people watch it that they play it on two channels!

So they love their futbol.

And also, I guess, maybe this shows that the fan experience, the group nuttiness going on in the stands, must be a big part of the appeal of the game. I'm sure this is true with football fans in the states and soccer fans all over the world, but where else do they play the game on TV without showing the game?

UPDATE -- one week later

Right now there are two stations playing today's game involving River Plate, the other big futbol team in town. And, sure enough, they are not showing the game, just the fans in the stadium. Two channels, again. This is the weirdest thing ever, if you ask me.

UPDATE -- on hour later

OK, River game is over, now the Boca game is on. And once again, they are not showing the game, only the fans in the stadium. This game is only one one channel, for what it's worth. So clearly this is something pretty normal, at least here.

LAST UPDATE

Pato, my spanish teacher, confirmed that this happens because the cable companies have "premium" sports channels that broadcast the actual games. No surprise there, I guess. But still I think it's hilarious that there's enough interest to sustain two stations showing nothing but the stands for the whole game.