Sunday bloody Sunday

Yesterday I was walking through a part of a neighborhood called Boer near the stadium in Managua at about 11:00pm.

I realize that this is a bit late to be walking around Managua, especially in a neighborhood like Boer. Still, after being down here going on 5 months without any incidents I had grown comfortable with the idea that I can move about unmolested.

At one point I passed close to a group of seven guys hanging out on the side of a street. One of them beckoned me over.

As I was feeling especially good that evening, and therefor a bit cocky, I walked up to him to see what he wanted. He told me that he wanted money to by alcohol. I gave him the change that I was carrying but he demanded more. At this point I just walked off.

He and one of his buddies ran up to me and squeezed me between them. His buddy was holding a bunch of grapefruit sized rocks (probably torn up cobblestones).

He demanded money again mentioning my wallet that he had spotted as a bulge in the back of my pants as I had walked off. I told them that all I had there was my identification but they didn´t buy it.

They both grabbed me to keep me from getting away and the guy who had origionally called me over put his hand into my right pocket and fished out my apartment keys.

At this point I fought my way free from them. The guy with the rocks started thowing them at me with great force and precision. While I was still close to them I didn´t have enough time to dodge one of the rocks so I batted it down with my left hand.

That hurt, as you might well imagine, so I shouted, "hijjuaputa!" as I kept moving away. This seemed to enrage the rock thrower and he pitched a few more at me.

I had a bit of distance between us now so I taunted him as I easily dodged the projectiles saying, "Oh yeah, that was close!".

I figured I would just accept the loss of my keys as a learning experiene and I double timed it to the nearest main street where I immidiately hailed a taxi to take me back to where I was living near the hospitals Velez Paiz and Roberto Huembes.

The road that I live on is crappy, uneven, unpaved, and full of big holes. Because of this I only had the taxi driver take he half way so he wouldn´t have to drive through the worst of it.

I got the the front gate of the house where I rent a room and rang the doorbell. As I expected they were all asleep, but what I didn´t count on is that they didn´t wake and and open for me no matter how many time I rang the bell.

The taxi driver who´s named San Christobel (cool name right?) followed me anyway because he saw a couple of guys following me that looked like they were up to no good.

He agreed to take me to a small hotel called "El Leo" right in front of the hospital Velez Paiz, no more than 2 or 3 blocks from where I´m renting.

They charged me 80 cordobas to stay the night, and after I was safely inside the kindly taxi driver left. As I was laying in the ratty bed looking at my bloody scatched up left hand and arm it occured to me to try calling the cell phone of the woman who owns the home where I rent.

There was no answer, but not long after she called me back. I told her that I was bleeding and had rented a room for the night. She recommended that I try to see a doctor in Velez Paiz. Normally they only see children in that hospital but she told me that in an emergency they´d make an exeption.

As she was awake now I decided to get my money back from the hotel and return to my much more comforable room instead. It took some doing but the management of El Leo agreed to return my money as I hadn´t dirtied anything and had only been there for a few minutes.

As Velez Paiz was so close I figured I´d swing by quickly to get my wounds looked at first. I walked across the street to the hospital and asked a guard behind the gate how to get inside. He told me that I needed to walk around to the south side of the building.

As I started walking in that direction a couple of guys appeared out of nowhere (probably from behind one of the huge trees that front the hospital). The pinned me between them just like the other two guys had, not even an hour before.

I appealed to their mercy and told them that I was bleeding and needed to get into the hospital. My plees feel on deaf ears. One of them had a machete and he told me that if I moved he cut me.

Now, I have no natural fear. Plus, I don´t react well to threats. I´m guessing that this type of intimidation tactic is usually successful for these guys. Most people would rather hand over their wallet then get killed; most people.

As soon as they threatened me with the machete I looked down the see it pressed right up against my right leg as they had come up so close to me. This isn´t the range that one wants with a machete, but he probably didn´t expect any resistence.

I immidiately grabbed as much of the handle of the machete as I could with both hands, but I ended up holding part of the blade as well. The guy with the machete couldn´t leverage it away from my death grip so he started bitting my right arm, shoulder, and back to get me to let go.

The only real weapon between them was the machete so there was no way I was gonna let go. As I struggled to wrest it from him I could feel the blade cutting into my hands.

The machete guy started ordering his buddy to do something besides wrestle with me for the machete, so he hit accross the head with a rock over my left eye.

I lost the sight in that eye and hit the ground due to the shock to my system. Notwithstanding, I kept my death grip on the machete and managed to get it away from the other guy at last.

When I got hit with the rock I yelled out, "Asi no es!". Some part of me still saw these thieves as people, and I was appealing to their dubious sanity. I then started calling for help, "Ayudame! Ayudame!"

There were three armed guards right across the street that watched the whole thing and made no attempt to interfere.

Once I had control of the machete I sliced one of them across the crest to gest him to back away from me and then I rolled to my feet. The sight in my left eye had partially returned, but I could still only see blurred colors with it.

My two attackers were standing about 10 feet from me in the street. I could have attacked at this point but even after all they had done and tried to do I felt no desire to hurt them, no drive to avenge my injuries. All I wanted was to get on with my life.

So, I kept them firmly in sight and stared them down as I continued along my origional course to the south side of Velez Paiz to seek medical attention. I needed it now more then I had needed it before. I could feel blood trickeling down my face and over my left eye.

As I walked along they maintained a safe distance from me as I was holding the bloody machete. They shouted to me, "Hey, give us our machete back." I couldn´t help but wonder just how stupid these poeple had to be. . .

When I got around the south side I found a pulperia stand setup next to the gate into the hospital that was still open. They probably stayed open all night for the hospital staff. A guy there offered me a seat and called the police and an abulance for me.

I wanted to get seen in the hostpital right there, but he assured me that they wouldn´t see me there as it´s just a children´s hospital. A bit later some curious people from inside the hospital told me the same thing.

As I was sitting there I noticed that my cell phone wasn´t in the holder on my belt anymore. In the scuffle it had fallen free. One of the guys that had gathered around to look at the bleeding chele walked back around the building to see if it was still there.

He didn´t find it, but he asked the security guards that had ignored the attack, and they told him the the thieves had come back for something: my phone.

As I talked to the shop owners and the other people that had gathered around they all talked as if they knew exactly who the attackers were. I asked them if they´d tell the cops and they all told me no. They were afraid of what might happen to them if they got involved.

The police never showed, and I was assured that I could wait there all night for them and they probably wouldn´t show up, so I left with the ambulance; they took me to the hospital Lenin Fonseca. The hospital Roberto Huembes was much closer but that hospital only served police officers.

At some point before I got to the hospital I regained the sight in my left eye. Once I got there they took my information and had me wait to be seen.

I saw a cop in the hospital so I handed the machete over to him as evidece as well as my cell phone holder and told him everything that had happened.

He told me that he couldn´t take a report from me, but that I´d have to go down and file a "denuncia" against my attackers the next morning.

He also told me that as I didn´t know who they were and nobody would talk, it would be a complete waste of my time. Another police woman later collaborated him story telling me that they couldn´t do anything about it.

I expressed concern over the state of a system where the police were powerless to protect the people even with evidence like the attacker blood, the weapon, and many people who knew who had attacked me. They just shrugged and told me that´s the way things work.

While I was waiting to be seen six extremely injured emergency cases showed up, including a guy that had taken a ice pick to his temple and was bleeding like a take from a Terentino movie. All of his clothes were drenched in his own blood and he left a trail all the way down the ilse into the ER.

As I sat there with my temporary bandages and chatted with a guy who has received a deep machete slash across his left arm. Something about a woman, and a jealous boyfried.

It occured to me that because my case was nowhere near as serious as many of the other that had just arrived I may not get seen for a long long time. I also mentioned to my new wound buddy that I felt a bit embarrased sitting there with my little injuries after seeing some of these other guys.

Becuase of these factors I decided to leave Lenin Fonseca and go to the private hospital "El Bautista". I asked the cops to get me a taxi.

Normally I would have gotten one myself, trusting in my ability to spot someone who might want to drive me off into a dark ally and kill me, but this hadn´t been my night. I figured, why push my luck?

The taxi driver and I talked about my evening as we drove across town to the other hospital. He told me that I should have killed them once I had the upper hand. I told him that I really had no desire to spill blood or kill anyone, ever.

He replied that while it´s a noble thing to think that way it cannot be applied to the kind of people that had attacked me. He assured me that they wouldn´t think twice about killing me, and that having mercy only enpowered them.

He went on to talk about the military training that he had received when he was drafted into the war at the ripe old age of 12. They trained him to kill when placed in a life or death situation, to feel no compasion or remorse in such a case.

He explained that he doesn´t start fights or look for trouble, but that he´ll sure finish a fight if someone comes looking.

It may be that he´s right, but I learned something about myself from the second attack that night:

I may talk a big talk, but when it all comes down to it, I don´t want to fight anybody. I don´t want to hurt anybody. I don´t want to kill anybody. I don´t even have any hard feelings towards the people who tried to rob and kill me. It turns out, I´m a pacifist.

Don´t get me wrong, I am willing to kill in order to preserve my own life, if that is what it takes. However, I won´t seek violence as a solution to a personal attack.

I´ve thought about this quite a bit in the 12 hours since I was attacked. I figure that if someone where to threaten or attack a family memeber I could probably go into a rage and attack, but short of that I don´t think anything could provoke that response in me.

In El Bautista I was the only pacient. I got great and complete care. They cleaned and disinfected all of my wounds and they even x-rayed my head to make sure the rock hadn´t fractured my skull (plus I got to keep the sheet). I spent the night in the hospital as I had no key or phone.

The next morning I saw an eye doctor, and they told me that there had been no damage to my left eye. Thus, all of my injuries are superficial.

I got six stitches over my left eye and two in the pinky finger of my left hand. I look like hell, but I´m fine. It´s interesting to see how people react to my swollen red, black, and blue eye. Now that I know that all I´ve got are flesh wounds I can relax and take it all in stride.

Today I had to wait out in front of my apartment for over an hour as the Señora had gone out looking for me. I don´t feel much different than I did yesterday. I also haven´t changed how I will act exept that I´ve strapped my buck knife back onto my belt before leaving the house.

I also don´t intent to walk by Velez Paiz for a few days just in case the same guys are laying in wait for me in order to get revenge. I figure that they have given up or become bored of it after a few days.

The Señora where I live is friends with a high ranking police officer. She called them to see if what the other officers had told me was true. She tought it was rediculus. Her friend confirmed what the others had said. The police here are completely impotent by their own admision.

Ok, so there are a couple of importnat lessons to keep in mind for those who intend to visit or live in Nicaragua.

First, I walked around for around five months without any problems. This tells me that notwitstading my incredibly bad luck last night this is a fairly safe country.

Second, you´ll probably want to think of Nicaragua like a "tame" tiger. Just so long as you respect the tiger and don´t let your guard down you should be fine.

Thirdly, there is a time of night when noboby should be out walking. This is about 10:00pm. You can get away with it sometimes (I did for about five months) but that doens´t make it any less risky or stupid.

Forthly, there are some people who are completely soulless. These people prey off of their fellow man without compasion. Like and predetor they tend to hunt a specific times and in specific places. Avoid these times and places.

Lastly, don´t appeal to the stregth of society in Nicaragua. The law of the jungle rules here. If you are ok with that than this can be a cool place. If that bothers you, or if you can´t wrap your head around that than it would be best if you stayed away. Else you will (given enough time) inevitably become a victim.

For the record let me say that I love this place. There are many many great people and it is so beautiful.

I´m struck by how life works sometimes. I have been planning on returning to the States at the end of this month for some time. Not only did I get attacked right at the end of my stay here, but twice in the same night, in the same sixty minutes. When I consider this I can´t help but laugh. What are the odds?

Sunday bloody Sunday. . .

Saludos!