Allowed to crawl under the turnstile 
by sympathetic drivers, young boys, 
often in pairs, will move up and down 
the aisle singing of their plight, some- 
times chorusing, “For I am the child 
of no one.” Begging on buses is com- 
mon for poor adults as well, especially 
those with an obvious physical handi- 
cap. Thus the practice can be highly 
competitive, requiring both stamina 
and imagination. The smallest and 
most animated child is the least likely 
to ever return empty-handed. His re- 
peated success brings a measure of 
equality with the older boys. The ten- 
or twelve-year-old urchin must seek 
out other resources, and petty crime 
may arise from necessity. 
Work takes many forms. In Cali, 
some waifs assist the estimated five 
thousand ragpickers who pull their 
wooden carts through the streets, seek- 
ing out anything collectable: cloth, 
cardboard, glass, plastic, wood. Some 
capital or backing is required for the 
shoeshine boys as well as for those 
who sell gum, cigarettes (individually 
from the pack), newspapers, or lottery 
tickets. Other forms of service work 
include guarding parked cars, rapidly 
cleaning windshields at a stoplight, or 
carrying goods in a marketplace. 
At the extreme, work becomes 
crime, and children do become in- 
volved in adult-operated traffic in 
drugs and prostitution. In Cali, the 
participation in hard crime appears 
to be on a much less serious scale 
than in Bogota. Crime is likely to take 
the form of purse-snatching or of strip- 
ping mirrors and windshield wipers 
from parked cars. 
Marijuana and other drugs are used, 
more in Bogota than in Cali. Drug 
traffic is in general more prevalent 
in the capital, where there are more 
street children and their gang life is 
more highly organized. In Bogota, the 
more formidable city in terms of both 
climate and competition, drugs can 
provide relief from the pain of cold 
and hunger, helping to induce much- 
needed sleep. Tragically, the most 
common (because it is the most ac- 
cessible) and most injurious form of 
“getting high” is the sniffing of gas- 
oline fumes. 
It is at play, though, that the ro- 
mantic, carefree element of gamin life 
is truly on stage. The bounding energy 
of these boys moving through the 
street or plunging into a public foun- 
tain on a warm, sunny afternoon tugs 
46 
