Just when my sister was getting the last-minute details ready for her dream vacation to Buenos Aires, the news of Barbara Bush's purse being stolen in the Argentine capital put a damper on her trip. “If the U.S. president's daughter is not safe from small-time street thieves with the Secret Service guarding her, what can we regular people expect?” she asked.

Buenos Aires has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in South America, enough to attract even the American first family. It has everything a vacationer could want: good food, good sightseeing, good shopping, beautiful architecture, interesting history, plenty of culture and some of the best soccer games in the world, so they say. On top of everything else, it's affordable.

Driving down the streets of Buenos Aires, it easily can be compared to any European capital. So it's difficult to believe that so many of its people are living like citizens of a Third World country. Argentina, the land of wine and tango, once cried for Evita. Today it cries out of misery.

The Bush twins were dining in the popular neighborhood of San Telmo when they realized Barbara's purse, with her cell phone in it, had been stolen from under the table, according to a report in El Clarin newspaper. Their bodyguards were just a short distance away. The American embassy in Buenos Aires had no comment on the incident, and there was no indication if the thieves knew the purse belonged to one of President Bush's daughters. But it certainly was not an isolated incident.

Robberies have become common in Buenos Aires, where thousands of people are struggling to survive. Once considered one of the most prosperous countries in the hemisphere, Argentina was thrown into turmoil when its economy crashed in 2001, mostly due to bad management and corruption. The government was unable to pay its debts, and the Argentine peso went tumbling down. More than half of the population fell into poverty, and unemployment reached almost 20 percent.

Since leftist President Nestor Kirchner took over in 2003, the economy has steadily been recovering and unemployment has been cut by half. Yet there is still a high number of underemployed. The most vulnerable victims of the economic crisis have turned out to be the youth.

The Miami Herald ran a dramatic account last week of what life is like for Argentine children and teens in Buenos Aires as part of a series on “Children of the Americas.” The report says that more than 3,000 poor kids “crisscross the city begging for money, scrounging through trash, snatching purses or juggling plastic balls for some change.” That would be twice as many as in 2001, when the crisis began. Many of them come from broken homes. About 30 percent to 40 percent say they left home to escape poverty or domestic abuse and violence.

The story details how hundreds of these young people have to sleep on the streets in makeshift beds made of cardboard or dirty mattresses. As teenage pregnancy becomes a growing problem, some young women roam the streets with their babies; others, according to the Herald, borrow babies to “soften hearts” as they beg on the streets to either eat or support a drug habit.

To be fair, we must admit that this scenario easily could describe dozens of cities in either Third World or developing countries. But the example does help highlight the contrast in Latin America between the rich and the poor, the prosperity and misery that run parallel on opposite sides of the streets. It shows how a city can be so grandiose as a tourist destination and so gloomy as a home.

The Bush twins didn't make a big deal of the purse-snatching incident. They went on with their vacation, enjoying the sights, and even made time for a soccer game. Although she'll be on alert, I'm sure my sister's trip will be just as pleasant. As tourists, it's hard to miss the two faces of Buenos Aires.

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(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www 
.mariaesalinas.com)

© 2006 by Maria Elena Salinas

Distributed by King Features Syndicate