The Dangerous Streets

It came as no surprise to me that yesterday while walking home from the corner store, my friend and I were robbed at gunpoint. My reaction was to freeze and not do anything, Kirstens reaction was to try to tell him we didn´t have cell phones or money. He spoke to us in very good English, which threw me offguard. I didn´t think it smart to let him walk away with nothing so I gave him 40 bolivianos, the equivalent of 6 or 7 dollars, and told him I had nothing else. He grabbed us and checkd our pockets, luckily not the one that had my cell phone. He kissed us on the forhead and said thank you and walked away. We stood there stunned, hearts beating, until we realized we should get home. No one, not the neighboorhood guard outside Kirstens house, not her brother  or her dad seemed to care. They said things like ¨No pasa nada¨which means it´s not a big deal. Her father told us it´s even more dangerous in my neighboorhood across the road, I decided then and there I was NOT walking home.

I have to say I am very proud of the way we handled the situation. We didn´t cry, we didn´t have a panic attack, and we definitely didn´t pee our pants. All in all it was an unfortunate, scary event, but now we know what teh streets of Bolivia can be like. It could have been a lot worse, we kept telling ourselves.