The invisible people

There's a lot of homeless people here in Mexico City. A lot. Thing is, only so many go out to beg, so I haven't even glimpsed their actual number. Most of the impoverished are relegated to the slums where they are far outside the small spectrum of concern offered by the typical city dweller.

At the average subway station you'll find maybe one or two beggers at the entrance or at the bottom of an escalator; most of them are elderly or with small children. Sometimes there'll be some dude passed out on the sidewalk or off next to a building, sometimes in ludicrous positions like the outlines Wile E. Coyote left behind at the bottom of that cliff, like they just crashed flat on their face.

The real shame are all of the apparently abandoned children. If they're old enough to walk they're old enough to be on their own and wandering in the streets. They band together into gangs of children and must organize themselves somehow because they routinely wash windshields or go begging in pairs. I imagine that alot of these children disappear without ever having anyone acknowledge them in the first place.

Some bums will set up camp in the street, literally in the street, or on the sidewalks for months at a time and longer maybe. There's one guy near the Oxxo food-mart where I live, he's got his piece of foam and some blankets and next to that an up-turned crate with old water-stained magazines on it; it's his own Hotel California. He's never asked for change or been beligerent in any way, he just sits on his pad and smiles or sleeps, sometimes he's poking around with something... rearranging the furniture or what-have-you.

Bums in the US were much more confrontational than that. In Columbus I'd been cornered many times by some toothless bum brandishing horrible breath, but rarely have I encountered something like that here (discounting the bad-breathiness and lacking of teeth), even though there are obviously leagues more. At first I thought they were more docile because there's so many people rushing around that it would be too hard to corner anyone in the usual fashion, but the real reason is because these people are simply defeated, they don't have the energy or will power to exert that kind of influence. If they had the energy they wouldn't be begging, they'd be washing car windows or playing bad harmonica or something that elicits more than being completely ignored by everyone.

Something I had never considered about the street-people I knew in Columbus was how well-dressed they were. I see guys here walking around with jeans that look like they were shredded by the Incredible Hulk, just hanging tatters, socks held together with dirt and grime, no shoes, no shirt. That these people don't have clothing that's intact or a pair of shoes astonished me. I thought to myself, but they need clothing!, as if I were the first person to recognize that these people are literally checkered in rags. In Columbus they had not only clothes but probably a decent seletion of sizes and colors to choose from... not to mention donated food and blankets, if not a cot and a hot meal. And I think every bum readily had access to lots of duct tape and rope, at least from the looks of it.

Let's face it, if you're going to be a bum, the United States is the place to squat. There are actually people in the my city who aren't even homeless at all, but make a living pretending that they are, and do a pretty good job at it too. There was a guy that we affectionatly called the "help is on the way guy," dude drove a BMW. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I bet the average begger in Columbus could make $10 an hour if they do more than lay on the ground next to a cup. I mean. those bums, they know they're going to get some money out of you if they try hard enough and they're not afraid to show it, but here it's the exact opposite, they expect to be invisible and they largely are.