"I don't know, maybe not....", he responded.
"What should we do then?"
"I have no idea."
"What's the phone number to the police?"
"I have no idea."
That has been our conversation twice in the last week.
It isn't a unknown fact that Guatemala is a hot spot for crime and violence. New articles are always emerging listing Guatemala as one of the most dangerous countries in the world in different categories like violent crimes against women, exploitation of children, armed robberies, theft, and crimes that go unpunished, and the list goes on. The country is a hot spot for drug trafficking and cartel activity. The country is known for having a corrupt judicial system and police infrastructure. And despite what the tourist agencies, the missions needing volunteers, the hotels and restaurants, and the lucky guy who has been to Antigua five times for a week each and never had any bad experiences might tell you - the country is a beautiful country but with a LOT of ugly crime.
(https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=15656) - in case you don't believe me.
We've been here for nearly four years and we have seen a couple dead bodies and an attempted lynching by burning; we have seen robberies take place, we have had close encounters and passed by multiple crime scenes minutes after the crime; we have learned that calling the police can be like inviting more criminals to your crime scene and that hiring a professional armed guard can be like hiring a broker to a ring of thieves.....but to us directly, other than some criminals posing as lawyers and running off with our money and your average construction worker liar/thief, nothing - praise God - has ever happened to us. But I would be stupid to tell you this is a safe country. I would be stupid to tell you that nothing will happen to you. I would be stupid to make it a habit of being out at night or grocery shopping alone. I would be stupid - and sadly, I have been stupid before.
We've learned the safer places, but we've learned we should never take it for granted, although sometimes we still do. We've learned that the "evangelical"-claiming man who all the sudden wants to be involved in your life is probably the one who is going to steal from you. We've learned that being a church-goer here is a really good cover up and excuse for why "you" couldn't possibly be the bad guy. We have found a handful of people that are actually trustworthy people and we stick close to them. We love our village (for the most part) and we have always felt safe here surrounded by people who we hold very dear to our hearts.
So, we pull in to Villa del Sol in El Rancho, El Progreso the other day on our way to return my mom to Guatemala City. We have a good relationship with the staff as we stop here all the time on all our trips. The women stop their work and dote over Mary Charis lovingly as they have basically watched her grow up. We use their restroom, we buy their food, we play on their slide (Mary Charis does at least), and we head to the car which sits in the shade under some palm trees with coconuts. Mom's backpack is gone. This is a unreasonably large back pack, maybe due to the pillow she stuffed in it, and it holds her passport, her money, her license, all her electronic goods, and her beloved pillow. It's gone. I go straight to the guard who obviously already knew what had happened and I asked him and of course he says, "I watched your car the entire time, not one person got near it the whole time." And he goes on and on and I ask him for the number to the police, and he says he doesn't have it. And I ask him how could he not have the police's number, and he says he just doesn't have it. I go to the women in the restaurant and tell them what happened and the manager comes out, sweet lady. The other guard doesn't have the phone number to the police either, strangely. I call our most trusted friends who have helped us before in these situations to ask if they can find the police's phone number here in El Rancho - and by then the manager lady had scolded the guards into giving us the phone number which was clearly and neatly written in one of their little notebooks. Our friends give us the embassy number, so Geoffrey calls the embassy and I call the police. The guards are obviously extremely frustrated, denying that we were robbed of anything in their parking lot, despite us showing them the new little hole punch that appeared under the door handle.
The police come. They were fairly nice to us, but I got the impression it was only because we were foreigners and had mentioned already calling the Embassy (which they probably think is some huge deal that only foreigners can do) and they harass the guards and take us to the police station to make the report where a bunch of other police were walking around shirtless and in a bad mood that we have interrupted their day insisting that they make us a report. A woman, typing with two fingers with four officers looking over her shoulder arguing about how to word things, we sat there patiently in the horrible heat of El Rancho, watching and waiting patiently. Two hours later, with a piece of paper, we left.
A couple nights ago, about 9pm, we turn down the television and I get ready to get in bed and all the sudden we hear music blasting loudly through our open windows. What on earth kind of neighbors could be playing music so loudly, I wondered to myself, thinking our closest neighbors are across the valley on the mountain next to us....maybe 1/3 a mile away. No, a car had pulled up on the other side of our chain link fence, sitting in the dark at the edge of the bush, with it's radio blaring. Two men were shouting back and forth using ugly words and drinking beer. They weren't fighting, they were partying. It goes on for about 15 minutes and I am wondering for how much longer will they be there? What will they do once they are really drunk? It's private property. It's late. It's Monday night. Why on earth are they right here, only a stone's throw from our window? After much ado, we decided we needed to call the police and Geoffrey did not need to go out there and try to ask them to leave. Much to my surprise, the police said they would come right away and as soon as I told him we were the foreigners, they knew where to go. They drove up to the other side of the property, lights flashing. The men had no idea they were there. The officer walked with me across the property to our gate and told me he would take care of it, meanwhile the police truck drove back to the street and around to the other entrance of our property where the men were. I stayed behind a fruit tree next to the house and listened and heard the men say they were going to leave at once. The police officer came back in and walked up to me and Mary Charis and said it was taken care of, no problem. He planted a big kiss on Mary Charis, gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek too (that is the traditional greeting here for very close friends), and said that that is what they are there for and that we are always free to call them for absolutely anything and it is their pleasure to come and serve us. He hugged me again and kissed my cheek and I asked him for his name. He was the police chief of the Santa Cruz station. I was overwhelmed by his kindness and professionalism. I was filled with extreme gratefulness....not because he sent away the bad guys....but because he was so incredibly kind and different than the police officers we always hear and read about.
One of the drunk men shouted "Goodbye" to us in English and said some other stuff that I did not understand. And finally, with police escort, they left. Yesterday, around 10am, I noticed someone watching me from the other side of the fence while I was hanging clothes on the line. Maybe I noticed him because of his sombrero? It was one of the guys from the night before. I saw the car, same car. I waited for him to call to me, thinking maybe he was coming to apologize. He saw me see him, twice, and when he did nothing but stand there, I went to get two of our workers. The workers came out and the guy hurriedly got in his car and left. So weird.
I was hoping he'd come back so I could try to talk to him, but he hasn't. But I did send a very nice note to our new friend the police chief along with a Pokomchi Bible with his name in it.
I have started reading the Bible every morning in Spanish so I can begin to learn the verses in Spanish. I have started reading it with Mayda, too, every morning when she comes to work. We look at each verse and it's meaning very carefully. It touches my heart to see her face fill with understanding and conviction. God is opening her eyes to Him every morning. This morning I read about the fig tree that withered. In my Spanish bible it says that when Jesus passed by it, it was only leaves and no fruit. A beautiful fig tree, maybe with beautiful green leaves, alive, possibly providing relief from the hot sun.....but because it had no fruit, Jesus cursed it and it dried up and died. I thought of my cinnamon tree that Julio asked me about just yesterday. It is two years old now and really growing beautifully. But it does not produce cinnamon. If you break a leaf you can smell the delicious aroma of cinnamon, but there is no cinnamon present on my tree. Why not? Because, according to what I read, when the cinnamon tree is about three years old, we have to cut it down to it's base. Only when we take a sharp machete to it's core and cut off all those beautifully growing limbs and leaves full of bright green and red, and cut it back to nothing, only then will it begin to produce it's fruit, shooting up sticks of cinnamon. Only when we strip it bare, when we appear to be killing it, only when we take away everything that it has worked for over three long years, when it has no beauty and no pride left, only then will it begin to serve it's purpose and produce a beautiful spice. Only then will it no longer be useless. Only then will it make it's Maker proud and cause others to glorify God. It is then that it will begin to live the life that the Lord had intended for it.
May I never let fear rule my heart. May I never let fear rule my actions. May I never cower in the face of trial and danger. And may I always understand that our omnipotent Father, always in control, will never let anything come to me that has not first passed through His hands. It will always be for my good and it will always be for His glory.
Love,
Jenna
www.misionvidanueva.info
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