Friday Afternoon 3/30/07

Back from the market with some bargain red wines, one already opened and one for tomorrow. Listening to NPR ; turning on the water heater in preparation for the hot shower I've been anticipating all day; smoking a Lucky Strike. Feeling much better today after waking with a headache back ache and fleabights yesterday cured at night with Ibuprofen, crema de coca, muscle relaxants and calidryl.

I conducted three spelling bees today and did some planning for easter activities at school. More posts soon to come, as I have the next nine or so days off from work!

Maya on the Rocks

Watch doin' down there?

Rock Formation - Maya Bench

Sitting pretty on a hill above Villa de Leyva.

Brief Bath - Waterfall Outside Villa de Leyva

Whoee, that's cold!

Up along the valley; a lush lick of green up the dry valley on the outskirts of town.

Our latest foray out of Bogota to Villa de Leyva, a 3 hour bus ride to the north. Living in an ancient urban glacial meraigne (sp?) filled with people and pollution can get to grate on one. Sometimes camping out in the yard of a small-town, local hostal is a great relief.

Me Atracaron-Parte Dos

Upon some moments of contemplation, my immediate future is thrown entirely into doubt. I have just been robbed of my wallet, cell phone, keys and watch. Tomorrow, I have a meeting scheduled at the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores at which I need to make a cash payment of at least 255.000 pesos, in order to stay legally in the country and avoid further financial penalties. My debit card, with which I am planning to withdraw this sum, is in my stolen wallet.

Not really knowing what to do, I decide to continue on to my interview and begin to ask directions in my spotty Spanish, receiving a variety of vague answers. I walk a couple miles until finally arriving at the building, an international shipping logistics company. I explain my plight to the client who, after agreeing to a schedule of classes to begin the next week, gives me 10,000 pesos so I can get home. I get on a another bus, not really knowing where I’m going. I debark much too soon, realize this, and catch another, this time getting off at a restaurant where I’d originally planned to meet some people for lunch. They are not there; it’s much too late. I get another bus which gets me back to the apartment, where I wonder around a bit.

The phone rings and I answer and am immediately barraged by the rapid-fire speech of a police sergeant who informs me that my belongings have been recovered, and that I should come down to the station to file a report and recover them. A minute or so after I hang up, before I even get a chance to begin to wonder around again, Maya arrives, and breaks down, the sergeant having called her earlier to inform her that they had just discovered my wallet, phone and watch on some thieves, and had no idea where I was.

After some tears and hugs, we’re off to the police station. As we arrive, the anxious calls from my relatives in Santa Marta (who the police have called, trying to determine my location, or something) begin to come in. I promise I’m OK and to call later. I am interviewed and fill out more forms—Maya assisting significantly—and wait some more, until we climb into the back of a police truck, the two thieves who grabbed me sitting behind us, separated by a metal grate. They whine and complain a bit, ignored by us, until a senior officer tells them to shut the hell up.
After another six hours or so of bureaucratic bullshit—repeated explanations, dissatisfactions, and more paperwork (most filled out in a waiting room filled with police officers filling out their paperwork in any available space)—we retrieve my things. It is within the realm of possibility that I will be allowed to stay in the country now. We’ll find out—or at least perform the requisite paperwork and waiting dance again in order to apply to find out—tomorrow.

Me Atracaron, It happened just after the start of 2007 11:35 AM

Getting mugged and robbed in southern Bogotá is supposed to be much worse. It is an experience proving the dictum that writing is the truth disguised as words. It took me quite by surprise, submerged as I was in my usual sub-aware self-involvement. I was walking quite briskly along a wide, two-way boulevard separated by a trash-strewn, cement divider. Cars rolled by in both directions. I was what I figured to be a few blocks away from my destination.

I spotted him from about a quarter block away, leaning a bit over casually in a small cement-block alcove, glancing my way; eyes red, smile tainted. I looked away and stepped faster, sensing his intent to approach, suspecting he would proffer drugs, feeling things off. He proffers his hand, as in friendship, I retract, he insists, gripping me hard. I pull away, then pry at his unwanted grasp, only now realizing my predicament. He begins to explain to me in drugged-up street slang that ‘I should not pull away, that I should look at his friend who’s now approaching, to look at the knife he’s got.
I am shocked, more surprised and curious, rather than scared, as I play out the role of the knife-threatened victim, giving up my phone, robbed of my wallet and watch, guided toward what I believe to be a swift, relatively harmless release. Then I’m guided toward a side-street where I’m informed we’ll be going to a ‘sister’s house’, at which point we began to turn down a side street. See some people chatting in front of doorway of a few house’s down, my escort shifted his grip a bit, holding my shoulder. I decide to bolt, throwing my arm back and pulling away, my fist hitting something, my backpack caught in his grip a bit, his threat to hit me and half-hearted swing, missing, as I tear loose—running down the street the way you do breaking down a soccer sideline when the pass is sweet, or when all the tents on the island are on fire, or blowing away in a gale, and your legs feel beyond themselves. Looking back once at my hapless pursuers, busting the three blocks to a busy city street feeling fast; heavy and calm.