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This is a small group of children who 
sleep in a common area for warmth 
and protection, seeking refuge in front 
of large, well-lit buildings or under 
the sheltered bays of large movie 
houses. Membership in such groups 
is loose and informal, with a particular 
sleeping spot given up, to be reclaimed 
later. 
While exploitation and violence do 
occur within groups of street children, 
the older boys usually watch out for 
the younger ones. On occasion a boy 
can be observed awakening early, get- 
ting up to replace the ragged covering 
that has worked itself free from a 
younger companion’s shoulder and 
then returning to his own spot to curl 
up among those still asleep. The youn- 
gest or the smallest child is often the 
Left: Gamins bathe in a fountain in downtown Bogota. The climate of the 
capital city is not the most hospitable for street children. Situated at an 
elevation of 9,000 feet, Bogota is often rainy, with an average daytime 
temperature of 55 degrees. Some children seek out cities with milder 
weather, such as Cali. There, a child can gel by with less clothing, can sleep 
with less cover, and will find more open-air restaurants in which to beg for 
food. Below: Often traveling in pairs, gamins hop onto buses to get around a 
city. The smaller and weaker children may fall off and be killed in the 
traffic. Sympathetic bus drivers often allow street children to ride inside, 
where they beg for small change. 
clown, a comic center of attention. 
Younger boys typically travel in 
pairs, bringing to life the “chumship” 
relationship so well described by the 
late psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. 
In what is possibly his first move to- 
ward intimacy, a child comes to know 
himself through another who is simi- 
lar. Amid the brutality and violence 
of street life, there exist moments of 
true warmth, loyalty, and love. 
Not all children travel or sleep in 
groups. There are loners who tend to 
fend for themselves. Such boys appear 
tougher, more cautious and aware. For 
sleeping, they may seek a safer, soli- 
tary spot on a rooftop or on the over- 
hang of a building entrance, where 
they are fully hidden from street view. 
Although mistakenly regarded as a 
separate subculture, the gamins are 
part of the urban street poor. They 
are among the thousands of people 
who labor in the streets at what have 
been called marginal occupations. 
Such work ranges from shining shoes 
and pushing wheelbarrows to raw 
forms of prostitution, begging, and 
thievery. The average yield is under 
three dollars per day, acquired under 
the worst of conditions. The type of 
work or “hustle” that occupies these 
waifs varies with their age and the 
part of the city they frequent, but 
is almost always combined with some 
form of begging. 
A main commercial district lined 
with open-air restaurants and movie 
houses, such as Cali’s Avenida Sexta 
(“Sixth Avenue”), represents a major 
resource for the gamin population. Ap- 
proaches to begging in restaurants dif- 
fer, and with a drum (a tin can and 
stick) or mask such requests become 
performances of sorts. Receiving ac- 
knowledgment that a customer’s left- 
overs are free to be taken, the child 
may eat a single scrap on the spot 
or quickly scrape the food into a small 
can or box, generally to be distributed 
among companions rather than 
hoarded for later consumption in pri- 
vate. When things are going well in 
the street, children can become almost 
particular about what they will eat. 
Ironically, most gamins appear to be 
in better general health than their 
counterparts in the squatter settle- 
ments. Where an urchin’s physical 
stature has suffered from serious mal- 
nourishment, it is often a mark of 
earlier years at home, when many sib- 
lings competed fiercely for little food. 
Begging is common on city buses. 
45 
