Stray Dogs and Los Cartoneros

Different cities have different underbellies, different sights to be seen wandering the streets after dark. Stray dogs are common to many places, but never have I seen so many dogs chasing cars as in Santiago, Chile. Many of these dogs had lovely personalities, but when a car went by they turned completely savage, hurtling down the road in pursuit of the offending vehicle. They did not just chase for fun, as dogs elsewhere, but actually looked to cut the car off and bite it - thus risking being run over. Watching these Kamakase Canines gave me a flicker of faith in a divine being: the dogs, knowing somehow that their lives would end in starvation or disease on the streets, instead chose death fighting a mortal enemy, the invader of their night-time kingdom. Among the dogs of Santiago, San Rodrigo is the patron saint; it is said in his one short year of life he made no less than five cars swerve and crash.

The death of an aged street dog in not a pleasant thing. I remember going to drink a few beers in a plaza in Santiago’s Barrio Brasil. Quite a few Gothic teenagers were hanging out there, as was a very mangy dog: big and brown with possibly Boxer and Alsatian in him

When I was a kid I had a hand-me-down toy dog, which I liked riding on. It had threadbare fur and only one eye. The real dog in front of me was remarkably similar, except that ribs jutted out of its flanks. The dog wandered up and looked at me imploringly. I had the feeling it wasn’t asking for food, just attention. Before I could decide whether to pat or throw something at this brute, it left me to the call of the teenagers sitting on the adjacent bench. These teenagers, decked out in their best Siouxsie and the Banshees black, lavished the mutt with attention. The dog put on quite a show: first swaying gently from side to side, then its head would drop, and just when it seemed about to fall over it suddenly roused itsself and straightened its neck with pride as the youths egged it on. This cycle repeated itself countless times. The dog was obviously dying.

At this stage the police (carabineros) arrived on the scene. The police advised us that you couldn’t drink in a public place and poured out the beer. The dog began barking, angry with the policemen for ruining the vibe, which led to cheers from the teenagers.

I now had no beer and the dog, tired from its anti establishment heroics, was back on the sway. It was time to move on. I headed back up town by bus along the Alameda: as usual I had a full day of teaching to look forward to. That dog, I decided, should have chased more cars.

In Buenos Aires, walking home from late night revels, it was the Cartoneros...

Cartoneros scourge the streets of Buenos Aires, usually from dusk to dawn, in search of cardboard and other rubbish, which they sell to middlemen at warehouses, who in turn sell the stuff to milling companies, apparently rubbish is now big business. The cartoneros are well organised: They arrive into the city centre from the villas emergencias and barrios where they live by way of a free train. The train, which has no seats, is variously called El Tren Blanco (I think in reference to its Spartan interior) or the Tren de Las Fantasmas (the cartoneros being ghosts who only come out at night).

This caste of scavenger emerged after the financial crisis of 2001. There really does seem to be a lot of them, now some reports claim there are around 30 000. Sometimes whole families can be seen wheeling round trolleys of flattened cardboard boxes. Which leads me to a question: does Buenos Aires somehow have more cardboard than the rest of the world’s large cities? The thought that this many people can be employed in recycling waste does raise the eye brows and make you think: this phenomenon has reduced the waste needing to go into landfill in Buenos Aires by 25%

Checking the web about the cartoneros, there seems to be a great increase in the number of reports about them. There is even a film about the cartoneros, which I am just about to check youtube for…

15 min later: just had a look on youtube - found the trailer of Los Cartoneros ('Cardboard People' as the English title). Didn't learn anything too new from it. I admire the filmmaker's aim of humanising the cartoneros and pointing out they are not vagrants, but I'm not sure the problem can be blamed solely on globalisation - surely Argentina has to take responsibility for internal mismanagement of the economy. Interestingly there is another documentary trailer about how 'Los Chinos' in Buenos Aires have suffered since the 2001 crash...hmmm, not sure about this. More info on these two films at the makers' blog