Seguridad

For the most part, during the few weeks that I've spent in Buenos Aires, I have felt very safe. I have not felt as though I was in any danger walking around the city by myself. Well, some things have happened in the last week to jolt me from feeling so secure.

1) Monday was a holiday in Argentina, So people had a three-day weekend and most didn't go into work on this day. Well, I had class because my program only takes days off for the really important holidays. Scott, one of the directors of my program, informed me that Argentina has many holidays — one about every three weeks. So if they celebrated every holiday, it would be a bit excessive and overly-lazy. So I got out of class at one in the afternoon and walked a few blocks the the bus stop. On the way there, some dude who was standing on a stoop talking to this woman decided to step out onto the sidewalk and stop me. He was speaking really quickly in Spanish. I could tell that he wanted something from me. Seemed like money. So I told him in Spanish that I didn't understand anything that he was saying and stepped to the side so I could walk away. Well, he also stepped to the side to block me from walking away. Keep in mind, this is all taking place in the middle of the day, in broad daylight. Anyway, I was pretty scared when he stepped to the side. I mentally prepared myself to fight him if he were to throw a punch at me. So I stepped to the side again, and was able to walk away.

2) As I mentioned in the previous post, my neighbor Enrique informed me that there are many theives around this neighborhood. So that was comforting.

3) I've walked by many paso a niveles in the past week. Apparently, sketchy ass people who will rob you hang out by the train tracks. So I have to be very careful when I'm walking across train tracks, which for some reason seems to have been very often lately.

4) Yesterday, I met with my grandfather's sister-in-law's cousin, Matilde, who lives in Argentina. An extremely pleasant woman. Anyway, she was giving me a ride home from her place yesterday. I looked out the window at one point, and witnessed a mugging. Two guys on a moto (motorcycle) fought the purse away form a woman. She was still holding onto the purse as the guys drove away and as she could not hold on any longer, she fell to the ground really hard. This sad image is burned into my memory. She they proceeded to get up and run after the guys on the motorcyle, to no avail of course. The crazy thing about this was that Matilde did not even bat an eye. She told me that it happens all the time, undistracted from her driving.