We’ve read that violent crime is now surging in many American cities after over a decade of declines. Most of this is gun violence between gang-bangers and other disaffected youth… In the US we know what to look out for in terms of crime, where not to go, and what to do…
Here in BA we’re not so sure. We were cautious when we first got here, but as we’ve become more familiar with the city, we may be getting over-confident and setting ourselves up for trouble. We’ve been walking around here at night more so than we would do in Baltimore….
We don’t really know what to look out for here. We first kept an eye on the poor-people collecting the card-board, but now we realize that these are hard working guys doing what they can to make an honest buck. They’re polite and don’t seem to be at all a threat. We’ve given them some money, even though they don’t ask for it…
What I think you have to watch out for, like in most places, are the angry young men. The ones that don’t want to work for a living… the lay-abouts looking for an opportunity to make a fast buck with a little crime. My wife and I walked past a group of young grungy looking guys the other day… and they tried to make contact with a little “hola amigo…”. We flashed a look that hopefully came across as, “I’m going to ignore you now, but if you want to push it I’m going deal out some punishment no matter what happens…” We’re pacificsts at heart, but every once in a while our Irish blood pumps hot… Anyway, nothing at all came of it…
While we are enjoying the city to the fullest we do need to keep our guard up. We read in the paper of robberies and an occasional murder, (you don’t know what’s not reported) but for a city of this size (12 million) it seems pretty darn safe in comparison to many places. (Much safer in comparison to Brazil. We’ll address Brazil in a future post…) That’s all for now, but we’ll keep you updated, dear reader, on the safety situation over time.
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
March 17, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Christian DeBlis
I had the same experience, but I was always cautious. I heard stories about cab drivers who set up their passengers by taking them to a guy ready to rob to you. I heard about guys that would try to get in the front door when you were walking home. I heard about groups of thugs (in Flores, at night) that would roam the street looking to rob for drugs.
My younger friends in B.A. say that drugs are becoming an issue with the adolescents, and it’s leading to more violence. But when I was there for 3 months, I never saw violence… but my guard was always up. Mi castellano es debil.
Once, I was with my friend’s 12 year old son, we were playing soccer in the park and arrived at my friend’s house around dusk… and as I was about to open the door, a man walked up and started speaking very quickly. The boy I was with, instinctively took the key out of the door and put it in his pocket, to prevent the guy from getting in. That was the closest I came to harm… but maybe you’re right, you don’t want to become too comfortable. That’s when shit goes down.
And I totally relate to the “Irish blood” … I’m a quasi-pacifist, but I’m ready to throw down, especially if someone is threatening someone I love.