Thieves...guess my luck ran out

So usually I feel I have good news and interewsting experiences to tell you...today my post is not quite as cheerful. Well lets be optimists and see what good we can find in what happened today!

So like any city, Quito can be dangerous at times. I always try to be cautious and safe...never walk through scary looking parks or even safe looking parks at night or alone, stay away from dangerous parts of the city, never go out alone at night, I always keep my back pack in front of me in buses, and never carry large amounts of money or valuables. I knew that Quito could be dangerous, but my first month or two here...little happened except for the few times on long buse rides someone I know or spoke with was robbed, but in a manner that they did not realize until afterwards and not in a dangerous manner. Then, about two weeks ago, two new students arrived. These girls were walking through one of the most dangerous parks in the city, which is technically closed for renovations, and we robbed by some young guys using broken bottles. They lost a camera, about 30 bucks and almost a wallet, but some other nice people who witnessed the whole event chased down the thieves and retreived the wallet. Welcome to Quito, right? But I said we were going to be optimists....the good part of the story. One of the girls, Laura was wearing a necklace that was not expensive but was given to her by her grandmother. She tried to explain that it was not expensive but it meant a lot to her. The thieves ripped it off anyway...but when she got home and layed in her bed for a while crying, she was reminded once again that God exists. She got up from the bed and the charm from the necklace fell out of her hair! What luck!

Now for my story...since I no longer have internet in my house, I left my house early today to get to school and use internet here. My house is located in what I would call a safe area..perhaps a slightly wealthier area near a private high school (maybe this is why it was targeted). Well after a discussion of robbery in Quito, I left my house. I walked out the front down and out of the gate and locked the gate behind me. No more than a minute or 30 feet later, two men passed by me on a motorcycle and stopped on the corner. One got off the moto and stepped onto the sidewlak where i was walking. When the motorcycle that dropped him off did not leave but instead made a half circle and turned around, I knew it would be a bad idea to try and wlak by this man. Hoping I was wrong and observing what the motorcycle was doing, I stopped walking and put my keys in my bookbag to waste time, hoping that the man would continue walking down the hill in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, that was not my luck. The men bent down to tie his shoe and I stopped, put my keys in my backpack. He stood up and look directly aqt me and I knew I was in trouble. I tried to take a few steps back to my house and he practically ran at me, lifting his shirt to show me a large knife tucked into his belt. Before I knew it, I was backed up against a wall with this man yelling that I give him all of my things. The worst part of all of it was the look of rage on this mans face. His eyes were bright red and angry. Unlike most thieves here who are often teenageers or young adults, or of African descent, I would guess he is about 30 to 35 years old. I immediately dropped all of my things, my jacket, cell phone, and bookbag. Then, he noticed the earphones I had on which were hooked to my iPod which was hooked on to my belt...the cord running between my two layers of shirts I was wearing. He demanded the iPod. It took me a while to take out the head phones and removethe ipod and retrieve the cord from the layers of my clothes...the whole time the thief was becomming more and more nervous and agitated and yelling at me to hurry up hurry up (apurate, mas rapido, apurate)..he even showed me his knife a second or maybe third time. I finally gave it to him, then he reached to the ground and picked nup my cellphone, which was in three pieces, and then grabbed my book bag. And here comes the good part of the story...at the same time, out of no where, a young guy about my age or a bit younger grabbed the other strap of my bookbag and started yelling at the thief. By this time the motorcycle was right next to us and the thief was anxious to leave. He finally gave up on the backpack and took off. I started to cry of course and then gave this kid who had helped me a huge hug (I kinda think he thought I was crazy). He cursed a bit about the thief and I quickly ran home to my host mother, dropped my stuff, hugged her and cried some more. The cops showed up and I told them what happened and left for school...

At school today, we did, for a second time, my favorite activity...the gondolah ride to a mountain type and great views of the city. For the first half of the day I was angry and sad and kept thinking....if I would have done, this would not have happened, if I wouldnt have left early, or I should have said this or yelled or done this. But I realize now that I cannot change anything and that I really did have great luck. If I had not had my iPod or if it had not had been tucked in to my shirt as it was, I would have lost my North Face backpack my girlfirends bought for me, along the the $20, my Visa Card, mycamera, and the two movies I borrowed from a teacher. I am grateful to the boy who helped me...and I realized that in this incident I witnessed an example of both the worst type of person and the best...the one who robbed me and the one that put himself at risk to help me. My teachers, each of whom have been robbed before, felt sorry for me and told me their stories. My professor for the week was proud of me...I used complex sentence structures to explain that I was feeling angry becuase I should have done something and that if I would have done so so and then so so would not have happened. He said also that there are two signs that you are learning a language well...first, when you dream in the language....and second when you react in stressful sitauations such as this in another language. I was able to use the command form to tell the thief to take my iPod (toma, toma) and that there was nothing important in my backpack when he was playing tug of war with it with my hero (no hay nada en la mochila, no hay nada). I dont claim to be an optimist 100% of the time..but th is is my effort to see the best in a bad situation....I also hope that bad things like this can only happen to a person once, but I am going to knock on wood before I leave school to make sure I am not jinxing myself. The good news is that I am safe and sound and that I still have my b ack pack and most of my things....