Posted: 04/02/2019 | April 2nd, 2019
Editor’s Note: I wavered on composing about this for a long time since I didn’t want to put people off on Colombia or perpetuate the myth that danger lurks around every corner. As you can tell from my posts here, here, here, and here, I truly like the country. I mean it’s awesome. (And there will be plenty more blog posts about how great it is.) but I blog about all my experiences – good or bad – and this story is a good lesson on travel safety, the importance of always following local advice, and what occurs when you stop doing so.
“Oletko kunnossa?”
“Tässä. istu alas.”
“Do you need some water?”
A growing crowd had gathered around me, all offering help in one form or another.
“No, no, no, I believe I’ll be OK,” I stated waving them off. “I’m just a bit stunned.”
My arm and back throbbed while I tried to regain my composure. “I’m going to be truly sore in the morning,” I thought.
“Come, come, come. We insist,” stated one girl. She led me back onto the walkway where a security guard provided me his chair. Istuin alas.
“Mikä sinun nimesi on? Here’s some water. Is there anyone we can call?”
“Pärjään kyllä. I’ll be fine,” I kept replying.
My arm throbbed. “Getting punched sucks,” I stated to myself.
Regaining my composure, I slowly took off the jacket I was wearing. I was as well sore for any quick motions anyways. I needed to see how bad the bruises were.
As I did so, gasps arose from the crowd.
My left arm and shoulder were dripping with blood. My shirt was soaked through.
“Shit,” I stated as I realized what had happened. “I believe I just got stabbed.”
***
There’s a perception that Colombia is unsafe, that despite the heyday of the drug wars being over, danger lurks around most corners and you have to be truly careful here.
It’s not a completely unwarranted perception. Petty crime is extremely common. The 52-year civil war killed 220,000 people — although thankfully this number has significantly dropped since the 2016 peace agreement.
While you are unlikely to be blown up, randomly shot, kidnapped, or ransomed by guerrillas, you are extremely likely to get pickpocketed or mugged. There were over 200,000 armed robberies in Colombia last year. While fierce crimes have been on the decline, petty crime and robbery has been on the upswing.
Before I went to Colombia, I’d heard countless stories of petty theft. While there, I heard even more. A friend of mine had been robbed three times, the last time at gunpoint while on his method to meet me for dinner. Locals and expats alike told me the exact same thing: the rumors of petty theft are true, but if you keep your wits about you, follow the rules, and don’t flash your valuables, you’ll be OK.
There’s even a local expression about it: “No dar papaya” (Don’t give papaya). Essentially, it means that you shouldn’t have something “sweet” out in the open (a phone, computer, watch, etc.) that would make you a target. keep your valuables hidden, don’t roam around locations you shouldn’t at night, don’t flash money around, avoid coming out of nightlife areas alone at night, etc. just put: Don’t put yourself in a position where people can take advantage of you.
I heeded such advice. I didn’t wear headphones in public. I didn’t take my phone out unless I was in a group or a restaurant, or completely sure nobody else was around. I took just enough money for the day with me when I left my hostel. I warned buddies about using fancy fashion jewelry or watches when they visited.
But, the longer you are somewhere, the more you get complacent.
When you see locals on their phones in congested areas, tourists toting thousand-dollar cameras, and youngsters using Airpods and Apple Watches, you begin to think, “OK, during the day, it’s not so bad.”
The more nothing occurs to you, the more indifferent you get.
Suddenly, you step out of a cafe with your phone out without even believing about it.
In your hands is papaya.
And somebody wishes to take it.
***
It was near sunset. I was on a busy street in La Candelaria, the main tourist area of Bogotá. The cafe I had been at was closing, so it was time to find somewhere new. I decided to head to a hostel to finish some work and take advantage of happy hour.
I’d been in Bogotá for a few days now, enjoying a city most people compose off. There was a appeal to it. even in the tourist hotspot of La Candelaria, it didn’t feel as gringofied as Medellín. It felt the most authentic of all the big Colombian cities I had visited. I was loving it.
I exited the cafe with my phone out, completing a text message. It had slipped my mind to put it away. It was still light outside, there were crowds around, and lots of security. After nearly six weeks in Colombia, I had grown contented in circumstances like this.
“What’s truly going to happen? Pärjään kyllä.”
Three steps out of the door, I felt somebody clean up against me. At first, I believed it wassomebody running past me up until I quickly realized that a guy was trying to take my phone out of my hand.
Fight or flight set in — and I fought.
“Get the fuck off me!” I yelled as I wrestled with him, keeping an iron grip on my phone. I tried pushing him away.
“Help, help, help!” I shouted into the air.
I keep in mind distinctly the confused look on his deal with as if he had expected an easy mark. That the phone would slip out of my hand and he’d be gone before anyone could catch him.
Without a word, he started punching my left arm, and I continued to resist.
“Irti minusta! Help, help!”
We tussled in the street.
I kicked, I screamed, I blocked his punches.
The commotion triggered people to run toward us.
Unable to dislodge the phone from my hand, the mugger turned and ran.
***
After people assisted me sit down and the adrenaline used off, I got lightheaded. My ears rang. I had difficulty focusing for a few moments.
Blood was dripping with my soaked shirt.
“Fuck,” I stated looking at my arm and shoulder.
I tried to compose myself.
Having grown up surrounded by physicians and nurses, I ran with a quick “how bad is this” checklist in my mind.
I made a fist. I could feel my fingers. I could move my arm. “OK, I most likely don’t have nerve or muscle damage.”
I could breathe and was not coughing up blood. “Ok, I most likely don’t have a punctured lung.”
I could still walk and feel my toes.
My light-headedness dissipated.
“OK, there’s most likely not as well much major damage,” I thought.
Words I didn’t comprehend were spoken in Spanish. A doctor shown up and assisted clean and put pressure on my wounds. A young lady in the crowd who spoke English took my phone and voice-texted my only friend in Bogotá to let her know the situation.
As an ambulance would take as well long, the police, who numbered about a dozen by now, packed me onto the back of a truck and took me to a hospital, stopping web traffic on the method like I was an honored dignitary.
Using Google equate to communicate, the police inspected me in at the hospital. They took down as much information as they could, showed me a picture of the attacker (yes, that’s him!), and called my friend to update her about where I was.
As I waited to be seen by the doctors, the owner of my hostel showed up. After having taken my address, the cops had phoned up the hostel to let them know what occurred and she had rushed down.
The hospital personnel saw me quickly. (I suspect being a stabbed gringo got me quicker attention.)
We went into one of the examination rooms. My shirt came off, they cleaned my arm and back, and assessed the damage.
I had five wounds: two on my left arm, two on my shoulder, and one on my back, little cuts that broke the skin, with two appearing like they got into the muscle. If the knife had been longer, I would have been in serious trouble: one cut was right on my collar and another especially close to my spine.
When you believe of the term “stabbing,” you believe of a long blade, a single deep cut into the abdomen or back. You picture somebody with a extending knife being rolled into the hospital on a stretcher.
That was not the case for me. I had been, more colloquially correct, knifed.
Badly knifed.
But just knifed.
There was no blade extending from my gut or back. There would be no surgery. No deep lacerations.
The wounds wouldn’t need any more than antibiotics, stitches, and time to heal. Paljon aikaa. (How much time? This occurred at the end of January and it took two months for the bruising to go down.)
I was stitched up, taken for an X-ray to make sure I didn’t have a punctured lung, and needed to sit around for another six hours as they did a follow-up. My friend and hostel owner stayed a bit.
During that time, I booked a flight home. While my wounds weren’t serious and I could have stayed in Bogotá, I didn’t want to danger it. The hospital refused to give me antibiotics and, being a bit suspicious of their stitching job, I wished to get checked out back home while everything was still fresh. When I was leaving the hospital, I even had to ask them to cover my wounds. They were going to leave them exposed.
It’s better to be risk-free than sorry.
***
Looking back, would I have done anything differently?
It’s easy to say, “Why didn’t you just give him your phone?”
But it’s not as if he led with a weapon. had he done so, I obviously would have surrendered the phone. This kid (and it turned out he was just a kid of about 17) just tried to grab it from my hand, and anyone’s natural instinct would be to pull back.
If somebody stole your purse, took your computer while you were utilizing it, or tried to grab your watch, your initial, primal reaction wouldn’t be, “Oh well!” It would be, “Hey, give me back my stuff!”
And if that stuff were still connected to your hand, you’d pull back, shout for help, and hope the mugger would go away. especially when it’s still daytime and thovat väkijoukkoja. Et voi aina olettaa, että muggerilla on ase.
Tuolloin minulla olevien tietojen perusteella en usko, että olisin tehnyt mitään eri tavalla. Luonto juuri asetettu.
Asiat olisivat voineet olla paljon pahempaa: veitsi olisi voinut olla pidempi. Hänellä olisi voinut olla ase. Olisin voinut kääntyä väärään suuntaan, ja tuo pieni terä olisi voinut lyödä suurta valtimoa tai kaulaani. Veitsi oli niin pieni, että en edes tuntenut sitä hyökkäyksen aikana. Pidempi terä on saattanut laukaista minut lisäämään enemmän ja pudottamaan puhelimen. Minä en tiedä. Jos hän olisi ollut parempi mugger, hän olisi jatkanut eteenpäin ja en olisi voinut kiinni, koska eteenpäin suuntautuva liike sai puhelimen poistumaan käteni.
Permutaatiot ovat loputtomia.
Tämä oli myös vain epäonninen. Väärä aika ja väärä paikka. Tämä olisi voinut tapahtua minulle missä tahansa. Voit olla väärässä paikassa ja väärässä ajassa miljoonassa paikassa ja miljoonassa tilanteessa.
Elämä on riski. Et hallitse sitä, mitä sinulle tapahtuu toisen kerran, kun kävelet ulos ovesta. Uskot olevani. Uskot, että sinulla on käsitys olosuhteista – mutta sitten kävelet kahvilasta ja saat veitsen. Pääset autoon, joka onnettomuuksia tai helikopteria, joka menee alas, syö sinua, joka sairaalaan sinua, tai hienoimmista terveysponnisteluistasi huolimatta kuollut sydänkohtauksesta.
Mitä tahansa sinulle voi tapahtua milloin tahansa.
Teemme suunnitelmia kuin olisimme hallinnassa.
Mutta emme hallitse mitään.
Voimme vain hallita reaktiota ja vastauksiamme.
Pidän todella Bogotásta. Pidän todella Kolumbiasta. Ruoka oli maukasta ja maisemat henkeäsalpaavat. Koko siellä menemäni ihmiset olivat uteliaita, ystävällisiä ja onnellisia.
Ja kun tämä tapahtui, ihmettelin kaikkia ihmisiä, jotka auttoivat minua, jotka pysyivät minun kanssani, kunnes poliisi tuli, monet poliisit, jotka auttoivat minua monin tavoin, lääkärit, jotka menivät luokseni, hostellin omistajalle, joka päätyi Koska olen kääntäjä ja ystäväni, joka ajoi tunnin olla kanssani.
Kaikki pyysivät anteeksi. Kaikki ymmärsivät tämän, mitä Kolumbia ymmärretään. He halusivat kertoa minulle, että tämä ei ollut Kolumbia. Uskon, että he tunsivat hyökkäyksen pahempaa kuin minä.
Mutta tämä kokemus muistutti minua siitä, miksi et voi saada tyytyväisiä. Annoin papaijan. Minun ei olisi pitänyt olla puhelinta ulos. Kun lähdin kahvilasta, minun olisi pitänyt laittaa se pois. Sillä ei ollut väliä kellonaika. Se on sääntö Kolumbiassa. Pidä arvoesineet piilossa. etenkin Bogotassa, jolla on korkeampi rikos kuin muualla maassa. En noudattanut neuvoja.
Ja sain sen takia epäonniseksi. Olin myös puhelimeni ulos usein ja jokaisen ei-olosuhteiden kanssa kasvoin yhä rento. Pudotin vartijani enemmän.
What occurred was unlucky but it didn’t need to happen if I had complied with the rules.
Siksi ihmiset varoittivat minua aina olemaan varovainen.
Because you never know. Olet kunnossa, kunnes et ole.
That said, you’re still unlikely to have a problem. All those incidences I talked about? All involved people breaking the ironclad “No Dar Papaya” rule and either having something valuable our or walking alone late at night in areas they shouldn’t have. Don’t break the rule! This could have occurred to me anywhere in the world where I didn’t follow the security rules you’re supposed to that help you minimize risk.
But, also know, if you do get into trouble, Colombians will help you out. From my hostel owner to the cops to the people who sat with me when it occurred to the random guy in the hospital who provided me chocolate, it turns out, you can always depend upon the generosity of strangers. They made a harrowing experience a lot easier to deal with.
I’m not going to let this freak incident change my view of such an fantastic country. I’d go back to Colombia the exact same method I’d get in a car after a car accident. In fact, I was terribly upset to leave. I was having an fantastic time